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April 9, 2012· scvtalk.com · WordPress (SCVTalk 3.0) · Wayback capture

These Numbers Don’t Make Sense…..

By Timothy Myers SR. — Tim Myers

So City Clerk Sarah Gorman dropped some knowledge on me this morning with respect to the state of absentee ballots as of Friday, April 6 in the City Council Election.

First some definitions:  ”Permanent” absentee is for ballots sent automatically to voters because they requested permanent status OR they did not decline the change in status once they had requested absentee ballots in a certain number of consecutive elections.  ”Select” absentee means the voter requested an absentee ballot for this election only.

So now some numbers:

Total absentee ballots returned (by mail)  in 2010:  9,881  (The 10,052 on the City’s website includes 171 absentee ballots dropped off at polling stations on Election Day and counted later)

Total absentee ballots returned as of Friday, April 6, 2012:  10,085

Velocity of absentee ballots this past week:  250 to 300 per day.

So my sources that reported higher return numbers must have misunderstood something, because about the best we can hope for on absentees is betwen 10,600 to 10,700, 700 to 800 more than 2010.

But now some additional numbers:

Total absentee ballots delivered and requested in 2010:  20,750

Total absentee ballots delivered and requested in 2012:  26,836

So my other source that told me that 7,000 more absentee ballots were going out in 2012 was mostly correct (exact increase 6,086).  What is curious (and does not make sense) is that this 29% increase in absentees yielded only 700 more votes, or an incremental return rate of 12%, when the aggregate return rate in 2010 amounted to 48%, or a four to one differential.

The question to ponder:  What happened to 2,200 votes we would have expected to see from the increased absentees, all other things being equal?

 

Comments (29)

  1. BrianBApril 9, 2012 at 12:31 pm
    Missing voters? Maybe they were waiting for someone to post campaign signs at their church on Easter. Or they were waiting for someone to twirl signs on the side of the road to help them decide. Boydston has been quiet about this. Odd…. BULLET VOTE JON HATAMI
  2. Phil EllisApril 9, 2012 at 12:57 pm
    Or perhaps they will be dropping off their ballots on election day.
  3. Timothy Myers SRApril 9, 2012 at 1:11 pm
    Drop off (provisional) ballots up by a factor of 1000%? I would like to see that.
  4. Phil EllisApril 9, 2012 at 1:56 pm
    I wasn’t suggesting all. Perhaps just 99.8%
  5. ScottEApril 9, 2012 at 2:06 pm
    Is that “about” 100%?
  6. Phil EllisApril 9, 2012 at 2:16 pm
    You’re thinking of 99.9%
  7. NateApril 9, 2012 at 1:16 pm
    Juking Jon will be lucky to get 4th and then on Wednesday he can re-register as a Democrat and go back to not caring what goes on in this valley.
  8. Phil EllisApril 9, 2012 at 1:57 pm
    He seems to be up on what is happening in the AV
  9. NateApril 9, 2012 at 4:08 pm
    I laughed when Juking Jon would says, Palmdale has this or that, It is like the coach of the New York Giants saying… well they do it like this in St. Louis!
  10. Mr PerezApril 9, 2012 at 7:08 pm
    They have an Arch in Palmcaster?
  11. AlpinerApril 9, 2012 at 1:51 pm
    Definitely OCD.
  12. IHeartSCVApril 9, 2012 at 2:21 pm
    Tim, if you stated your predictions out front, I think you’d do less jumping around. If you had just made the null prediction (no change in trends in CC elections since 1990), this is what you’d predict for the election tomorrow (estimate with 95% confidence interval): TOTAL VOTES: 14,626 +/- 1,707 ABSENTEE VOTES: 11,046 +/- 1,179 TURNOUT: 16.1% +/- 1.8% FINISHING: Ender > Kellar > Boydston > Hatami = Colley It looks like the number of absentee votes will be well within the expected range. As for how to square that with more people registering for absentee ballots and not turning up, can your “source” tell you the demographics of these new vote-by-mail people? If there was some kind of voting initiative with seniors, students, etc. to get out the vote, their behavior might be different from other absentee voters.
  13. Timothy Myers SRApril 9, 2012 at 3:20 pm
    IHEART: One of the things about forecasting is to continue to update the forecast based on new information. I had received some information that placed the processed vote count literally 1,500 higher than actual last Wednesday and then move velocity from their. The jump in permanent vote by mails was significant (>25%) but it is not translating into a lot more votes. This would imply that these are permanents that “matured” into the process by consecutive absentee votes, and since they are not well informed on City matters they are doing the honorable thing and tossing the ballot in the trash.
  14. IHeartSCVApril 9, 2012 at 3:56 pm
    Well, I think it’s much easier to just have one hypothesis–patterns are holding steady–than constant, unproductive updating. Based on the simplest model using data from VoteSantaClarita (# in race, status on council, gender, etc…, but no details on money raised, etc.), this is the expectation for tomorrow in terms of share of vote, or the percentage of ballots voting for given candidate. The model explains 55% of past election variability, which isn’t bad but isn’t great, either. Anyhow: Ender: 54% +/- 9% Kellar: 48% +/- 9% Boydston: 41% +/- 14% Colley: 24% +/- 8% Hatami: 24% +/- 8% Feel free to make your own prediction, too.
  15. Timothy Myers SRApril 9, 2012 at 4:08 pm
    IHEART: For academia, yes, but in the world of business forecasting we have to use dynamic methods because we have to be nimble and react. Now obviously a dynamic forecast does little in the City Council election because the candidates have little scope of maneuver and adjustment based on new information, but it gives it more of a horse race quality.
  16. IHeartSCVApril 9, 2012 at 4:11 pm
    I think that’s a false dichotomy…anyhow, I’m curious: what do you think each candidate will get in terms of share of votes?
  17. MikeApril 9, 2012 at 4:13 pm
    Tim, perhaps that’s the issue: using business forecasting models when the situation calls for social science.
  18. spineflower2April 9, 2012 at 5:21 pm
    Didn’t you get the memo? Democracy has been replaced by business.
  19. Lori RivasApril 9, 2012 at 10:29 pm
    Hello.
  20. GilliganApril 9, 2012 at 4:35 pm
    Yeah, and it’s really hard to tell who’s going to win too.
  21. ScottEApril 9, 2012 at 6:59 pm
    When is the election again? And where do I go to vote? BTW, I am FOR paseos!
  22. Mr PerezApril 9, 2012 at 7:09 pm
    Just dont ride on them in a unitard
  23. Angelo CandelabraApril 9, 2012 at 7:26 pm
    This election has been one of the quietest and least contentious in recent memory. I expect that the reason absentee voting is not proportionally higher is because, overall, voter interest is weak.
  24. BertaApril 9, 2012 at 7:43 pm
    Angelo, I think it has been quiet because despite the loud protests of the folks on this blog who are the same folks protesting at City Council meetings etc, most City residents feel that we live in a well run, fiscally responsible, beautiful city with good schools, low crime, and a great quality of life and they reason that the current leadership must be doing a good job, so to quote Martha “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
  25. Jim FarleyApril 9, 2012 at 8:44 pm
    So Berta, it appears you adhere to the Laurie Ender Math School of Philosophy.
  26. BertaApril 9, 2012 at 11:16 pm
    Jim you can call it whatever you like but the fact remains that I think most folks believe as I do that Santa Clarita is a great place to live, work, or play and we are fortunate to live in such a well run city. A great city does not happen without good leaders. A Councilmember’s job is to work for the benefit of ALL residents, not just those that show up and complain. You want to call that Ender math, fine. My votes went to the two incumbents, who make their decisions based on what they believe is best for the majority. In my opinion, none of the challengers represents what is best for all of the residents, just the voters who complain the loudest. You obviously disagree, which is why we have the electoral process.
  27. AlyseApril 9, 2012 at 8:55 pm
    My guess as to why the increase in absentee voter #’s don’t jive with the returned ballots you’re seeing is this. The local Republican leadership is adament that when registering new voters, they should be encouraged to check off the “permanent absentee” option on the ballot (this is a new thing within the last year). Why would they do this, you ask? Because permanent absentee voters vote in higher propensities than poll voters. This might have been true in previous elections. But only because those who took the time to sign up for the perm absentee were interested in voting. Not because someone registering them convinced them it was a good thing to do and would make it easier to vote. Now all we’ve done is serve to dilute the perm absentee list of voters with people who may or may not (as evidenced by your numbers above) be truly interesting in consistently casting a ballot.
  28. Timothy Myers SRApril 10, 2012 at 9:41 am
    Makes perfect sense.
  29. MikeApril 10, 2012 at 9:50 am
    Yes, I agree, good observation.

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