Contributor Opinion by Roald Schrack: 2009 Rockville Election Analysis

The following contributor opinion by Roald Schrack is adapted and reformated from a longer report he wrote and sent as a pdf:

This election attracted a number of Council candidates because there were two open seats. One seat on the council was open because Councilmember Marcuccio decided to run for Mayor. The other seat became open because Councilmember Anne Robbins retired. Two of the incumbent Council members, Britton and Gajewski were running for reelection. In addition, there were eight new Council candidates running for the two open seats. The multitude of choices were more of a challenge than a help for the voter. The turnout was larger than in 2007, probably because the weather was pleasant all day. As in 2007, the heavy electioneering did not get started until labor day. The City televised 3 forums and there were an additional four not televised. All forums were well attended. The Gazette newspaper carried interviews with all the candidates, and the City Channel 11 ran four minute speeches by each candidate. The website Rockville Central carried a lively discussion on the campaign, so there were many avenues available for the voters to learn about the candidates.

Topics of discussion were related to the economic situation and budget pressures. The state had defaulted on $2.4 million, and the city manager rebalanced the budget by deferring some capital projects and freezing hiring. There was a deferral of some garage fees to make the Town Center more accessible to shoppers in the evening and on Saturdays after much pressure by Town Center merchants. There was some discussion of the need for civility on the Mayor and Council. A little humor was added when the question of chicken raising in the city was brought up. The garbage collection question of once or twice a week that had been a heavy topic in the previous election was no longer a hot topic. Once a week had been in operation in most of the city and accepted. Not discussed at forums but an underlying element in the election was a widespread feeling of insecurity. Home prices had dropped, people were losing jobs, businesses were closing. Rockville had previously been largely insulated from economic conditions in the rest of the country because of the heavy influence of government operations. Even though the impact on the city was far less than in many other communities, still what changes did occur caused insecurity, especially about home values. Most home prices had dropped since the last election. Protecting communities from developments that might endanger home values became a largely unspoken but potent element in the campaign. The Gazette attributed the unexpected victory of Bridget Newton, with the highest vote on the Council to her position on neighborhood protection.

The large number of candidates causes a modification of the votes needed to win. If there are only two candidates then a simple majority of over 50% of the total vote is needed to win. In this election there were 10 people running for four Council seats. Of course the candidates with the four highest vote counts win, but dependent on the way the votes are distributed, a candidate with as few as 40% of the total vote can win. This 40% is further reduced by the voters that “bullet balloted”, i.e., did not use all of the four votes they had. In some districts this additional factor reduced the percentage to win to 37%.

The following table compares participation in this election with the last three elections. “Previous voters” refers to people that have voted in at least one of the last four elections. “New Registrations” refers to those people that have been added since the 2007 election. The average probability of voting is strongly dependent on past voting history. New Registrants have an average probability of voting of about 10%. The number of ballots cast in an election divided by the total number of registered voters (B/R) is called the “participation” level in an election. The values shown here are typical for municipal elections.

Table Comparing Participation

In previous elections the number of requests for absentee ballots has been a good predictor of the number of voters appearing at the polls. The table below shows the results for the last four elections

Year: Requests/Ballots
2003: 192/.031
2005: 213/.033
2007: 213/.036
2009: 221/.034

The graph below shows a comparison of voter participation for the various districts has the same shape as in 2007 but is everywhere a little less. This characteristic shape is relatively constant over many years and reflects the average voting probabilities of residents of those districts. The relative participation may remain the same but it will be shown later that those same residents can markedly alter who they vote for from one election to the next.

The graph below shows the relative votes for Mayor in the different districts. Marcuccio beat Hoffmann by at least 10% in four districts that really determined the election. The relatively low participation rates of the districts that Hoffmann did well in meant that she could not overcome the losses elsewhere.

It is interesting to compare the 2007 and 2009 vote patterns for the two candidates in the graphs below. Note that the Hoffmann 2007 and 2009 are comparable in shape. Note that the 2007 and 2009 graphs for Marcuccio are completely different in shape. It is interesting to speculate on the source of this difference.

The graph below shows an attempt to fabricate a vote distribution for Marcuccio from her vote in 2007 and two other factors that contributed to her vote total in 2009. The factors used are:
1) We can see from the Hoffmann vote comparison for 2007 and 2009 that Hoffmann lost votes in districts 1-5. Lets assume 80% of them went to Marcuccio.
2) It was clear by election day from yard signs and endorsements that there was a lot support for voting for Newton and Marcuccio. It doesn’t count if a voter was already for Marcuccio before Newton entered the race so we subtracted from the Newton vote those that had voted for Marcuccio in 2007.
This new factor was then weighted by 80%. Factors 1) and 2) were then added to the 2007 Marcuccio vote (shown as M07 in the graph) . The sum of these 3 terms is then shown as NH in the graph and should be compared to the curve M09 which shows the actual 2009 Marcuccio vote.

While the curve NH is closer to M09 than M07, it is still far from a good fit. What we could not do is change our 80% value as a function of district, which it clearly is the case in fact. It is interesting that Hoffmann got stronger support in district 6 in 2009 than she did in 2007. This increase in support for Hoffmann in district 6 is responsible for the drop in Marcuccio support shown in the curve M09 in that district.

Turning to the Council races, the graph below shows the vote fraction for the four winning council candidates as a function of district. There does not seem to be any evidence of “Slating”, e.g., to vote for two or more of the candidates together as the shapes of the curves are all different. Also below graphs are shown comparing the vote distributions in this and the previous election for the two council members that were reelected. Britton increased his average vote fraction in all but two districts. Gajewski has retained pretty much the same pattern, losing votes in four districts.

One of the graphs below shows the vote distribution for the losing council candidates. There is no apparent similarity in the shapes of the curves, their appeal varied widely in different sections of the city. Some candidates came close to winning. Of particular note is Carl Henn. In 2007 he lost by 113 votes, in 2009 he lost by 62 votes. Also shown below is a graph showing the missing vote fraction for the various districts. As mentioned earlier, not every voter uses the full four votes available. The graph shows the average loss of such votes. It is not possible to know whether a value of .5 means that half the voters only voted for three council members or whether it means that one voter out of eight didn’t vote for any council members - or something in between. In the past there were candidates that urged their supporters to only vote for them or some other strategy designed to give them an advantage. The missing ballot curve below does not resemble the vote pattern for any candidate but may represent some strategy in specific districts. In any case the missing ballots are not large enough to have had a large effect in the election.

Roald Schrack

Here is a link to the numerical results for the election as reported by the city of Rockville. The graphs in this report are based on this data. Here is a link to the City of Rockville website showing the voting districts.

This is a contributor opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such opinions for consideration — the more voices the better. We especially welcome people who disagree with us. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

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