Contributor Opinion by Roald Schrack: Voter Turnout In City Elections

>The following contributor opinion is by Roald Schrack, adapted from a longer report he wrote for the Alliance of Rockville Citizens:

The recently released updated voter list shows who voted in the November 2007 Rockville election and allows an investigation of the level of the voter turnout. Age distribution, partisan party affiliation, differences between Rockville districts, and previous voting history were examined. No patterns were seen that could have explained the level of turnout except previous voting history.

It is revealing to compare the results for the recent 2007 election with 20% participation and the 2001 election with 28% participation. The term “voters” means a person who has voted at least once during the previous 3 elections. The term “non-voters” means either someone that has been on the rolls and not voted or a person that has been added to the voter rolls since the last election.

The first difference to notice in the charts is the larger fraction of non-voters in the 2007 chart. This is due to a large influx of new voters in 2007. Note that the “voter” group has a slightly larger probability of voting in 2007 than 2001 but the opposite is true for the “non-voters” with over twice the probability of voting for “non-voters” in 2001 as in 2007. This difference is the source of the higher overall participation in 2001.

This great change in voting probability for the “non-voter” was due to a change in electioneering done in the two elections. In the 2001 election one candidate spent $32,000, over twice as much as any candidate in 2007. That large expenditure allowed the candidate to mail literature to a larger segment of the population. In 2007 no literature was sent to any “non-voters.” Mailing to all voters costs over four times as much as mailing only to the “voters” and the expected return of votes is only a third. It is a very inefficient use of limited campaign funds to mail to the entire voter list, but this is the only way to raise the number of votes in an election.

One of the virtues of running for office in Rockville is the relatively small amount of money needed to run for office. The lowest amount spent by a winner in 2007 was less than $5,000. This low level of expenditure means that candidates can receive sufficient funds to get elected from their friends and neighbors and need not accept money from interests that might then exercise influence over them after their election. Perhaps it would be desirable if the City Board of Elections had as one of its responsibilities a effort to get out the vote from all sectors of the electorate.

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