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.

Rockville Central runs occasional, edited opinion pieces by contributors as well as other guest columns. Their views are not necessarily those of Rockville Central. We encourage you to join the growing list of contributors! To submit your piece for consideration, contact us.

Giving Thanks at the Inaugural Ceremony

Our new mayor and councilmembers were administered the Oath of Office while> on stage with their families at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre yesterday. Susan Hoffmann took the Oath then administered it to John Britton, Phyllis Marcuccio and Anne Mahoney Robbins.

As was first reported by Rockville Central, Piotr Gajewski was out of the country serving as a juror at the 8th Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors. His wife, Tisha, and their younger daughter were honored with seats on the stage in his absence. He will be sworn in at the December 3rd Mayor and Council Meeting.

Mayor Hoffmann began her remarks by recognizing representatives from the State, County and City. When she came to Larry Giammo, she referred to him as “former mayor”, then quickly stopped herself to check, before confirming that he was in fact “former”. Although she had already been sworn in, at that moment, it became official.

“Wow what a day, extraordinary for all of us!” she exclaimed. She said this was a new chapter, and that with respect and conciliation we could have a better tomorrow. She vowed to mend the divide, and find a cost-effective, efficient way to resolve the trash issue and move forward. She would like it to be “gentle to our environment”.

She spoke of her newly-created Rockville Citizens Transition Advisory Group to be co-chaired by representatives of both “old” and “new” Rockville. Each councilmember will appoint one person to the Group and she will choose the rest. They will produce a report with a prioritized list, which will be available for public comment.

When did she receive applause? The first round was for the benchmark energy survey she wants to complete. You might wonder why an energy survey would be so well-received but she promised that by 2020 our City would emit less carbon, thereby reducing energy costs and lowering taxes. As would be expected, there was also a big round of applause when she announced that the state of Rockville was good and she intended to keep it that way. She marveled that there were only 55 cities of our size in the entire country to get a AAA bond rating.

“This is Thanksgiving week and we have much to be thankful for,” she summarized.

As the crowd milled around the reception, you could find all of the mayoral candidates and most of the council candidates in attendance. It became apparent that we do have something for which to be grateful. Everyone came together to celebrate their participation in the electoral process and offer each other congratulations. Hopefully the goodwill will continue.

Contributor Opinion: Mark Pierzchala — Running For Mayor

>I spent the first weeks putting together my website and other campaign materials. I found it was a lot of work to turn my positions into usable web pages and a good palm card.

I had a wonderful treasurer and webmaster. Other people helped out well with database, literature, mailings, and other tasks, but I never found a campaign manager or volunteer coordinator. As a result, my time was often taken with these duties cutting into campaigning time.

There were eight forums, three of which were replayed on Channel 11. I felt that these forums worked better for me than for my opponents. It gave the voters a chance to see us side-by-side and to make direct comparisons of our positions on issues, our knowledge of the City, and our demeanor. I focused on the issues, and while I had to defend myself on occasion, I never attacked my opponents. It was quite a challenge to prepare for the many questions that were asked, but the forums prepared me for contacts with the media.

Rockville Central provided a website for all candidates and the City provided space in the Rockville Reports and time on Channel 11. The Gazette, the Sentinel, the Washington Post, Channel 16, Channel 7 and other media covered the mayoral race and all of this helped level the playing field. In October, there was an editorial interview with the Gazette. The paper endorsed Hoffman based on her experience but said some good things about me. This nice non-endorsement and other positive press helped considerably. In the last two weeks of the campaign, as I knocked on doors, voters recognized me and quite a few expressed their support.

In the end Hoffmann won convincingly with 47% of the votes. I finished second with 27% compared to 25% for Powell. I think I ended up in second place because of my positive campaign that stuck to issues. As a political newcomer, I had a lot to learn and I learned it. So next time, watch out!

-Mark Pierzchala

Rockville Central runs occasional, edited opinion pieces by contributors. Their views are not necessarily those of Rockville Central. To submit your opinion for consideration, contact us.

Britney Spears For Council

If you are like me, you are always curious just who those “write-in” candidates are. Whom did people want to see in place of the 11 possible City Council candidates and three possible mayoral candidates? The City was kind enough to provide me with the write-in list and, >from me to you.

Among the notable entries was one Ron Paul fan who thought the Texas member of Congress and presidential candidate would be better suited being mayor of Our Fair City. Another voter thought Charles Manson should get the job. Eewww, is what I say to that.

However, if our write-in voters had had their way, it is our City Council that would be most interesting. One voter thought Britney Spears would make a good Council member, while another thought Arnold Schwarzenegger should join in.

Now that would be a Council. Although, it might lean too heavily toward policies that benefit California . . . .

Unofficial Voting Data By District

The City today >posted the district-by-district voting information. Just to begin to get my mind around it better, I created a spreadsheet out of it and posted it here.

You might need a map of the districts to make sense of the data, though it is not absolutely required.

The information on the spreadsheet is in two sections: first by actual votes, then by vote share. I also created a couple of charts. As I create more charts, I will update the spreadsheet.

I am happy to add to the spreadsheet, if you want to suggest improvements.

Post-Election Wrap, Contest Results

Rather than issue a series of posts, I thought I would collect all the day-after-election items into one article.>

Here are the final (still unofficial) numbers. In case you hadn’t yet heard, the winners are Hoffmann, Gajewski, Britton, Robbins, Marcuccio. You can see a video of Hoffmann’s and Gajewski’s acceptance speeches here.

According to the City, overall turnout was light, with a total of 5,887 votes cast. That’s 19.93% of the City’s 29,535 registered voters.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was newcomer and first-time candidate Piotr (Peter) Gajewski’s strong showing — he garnered the highest vote total of any candidate, with 3,019. (Sources tell me his internal goal was 3,000.) Another big surprise was seven-term incumbent Bob Dorsey’s relatively weak electoral showing with only 1,844 votes, placing him fourth down among the unsuccessful candidates.

The election was marred by a human error-induced snafu. A training voter database was supplied to the City by state election officials instead of the real one. In the training database, everyone whose address begins with “5″ was tagged as having requested to vote absentee — so, when they got to the polls to vote, they came up as having already gotten their ballot.

City election staff very quickly figured out what to do as a workaround, but the error dominated the anemic press coverage our election got from the “big” press. I mean, considering Rockville is the third-largest (or is it second now?) city in Maryland, and the county seat of Montgomery and all.

That said, our little local election made the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Rockville Central broke its own record and registered 1,011 page views (or “hits”) throughout the day, with 414 individual readers. Thank you readers!

(The photos in this piece are all from the various candidate election night celebrations. I am sorry I don’t have one for Anne Robbins.)

THE CONTEST RESULTS ARE IN

Some of our readers are keenly interested in these results because they took part in our election results prediction contest, vying for fabulous and unspecified prizes. No one predicted it exactly right. The most common prediction was Hoffmann, Robbins, Marcuccio, Britton, Mullican. Most predictors underestimated Gajewski’s results and overestimated Mullican’s final total. So, to determine who was closest, I had to do some math. On the predictions where just one pick was wrong, I subtracted final vote totals for the correct missing candidate from the wrong pick, and . . . drum roll . . . winning this year’s prediction contest is . . . Piotr (Peter) Gajewski. Truly. He sent in his prediction at 9:41 am on Monday.

Peter’s prediction: Hoffmann, Marcuccio, Robbins, Mullican, Gajewski. Since he got himself right, I subtracted Mullican’s total from Britton’s total and Peter was just 739 votes off.

Only one other person made the same prediction: Rockville Central team member CindyCG (who is Cynthia Cotte Griffiths for those in the know). But Peter got his in first, so he wins.

What does he win? Why, a T-shirt and CD from my band, The West End, of course! Peter, please send me your shirt size. You can keep it just between us. (Can someone tell me what forms I need to fill out to keep this on the up-and-up in terms of election law? I don’t want someone to call it a campaign donation.)

Various candidates and others issued statements to the voters, reflecting on the campaigns. Here they are:

Mark Pierzchala: “It was great meeting some of you today and I appreciate that you made the effort to come out to vote, so many thanks. Any voting day is a good day come what may.”

John Britton: “By voting, you validate the hard work of all the candidates. Thank you.”

Phyllis Marcuccio: Thank you to all. I am honored. The heroes in this election are the candidates’ families who held them together, their dedicated committee members, volunteers who walked the city, orchestrated the debates, froze for long hours at the polls, and of course, the citizens who came out to vote. Now it is the electeds’ jobs to fulfill their promises. [This entry UPDATED from the original post.]

Brigitta Mullican: “The City of Rockville Election for 2007 impressed me because of the number of candidates who ran for a position on the Rockville City Council. This commitment shows deep concern for the quality of life in our Rockville city. I am eager to work with a new Rockville Mayor [and] Council and am honored to serve the citizens of Rockville.”

Tracy Pakulniewicz-Chidiac: “Thank you to everyone who took the time to listen to the candidates and hear our issues. You, the voters, are who make the democratic process work, and I’m grateful for your participation.”

Real Rockville: “[C]ongratulations to everyone who ran for office and everyone who worked on campaigns. Regardless of who wins, anyone who had the guts to run or took the time to help in a campaign, needs a round of applause. I think the residents of Rockville should be grateful to all of those wonderful people who took the time and effort to show us what democracy in action looks like. . . .”

If you want to engage in analysis, punditry, or other electoral dissections, I recommend you visit the comments section of this post.

Thank you, Rockville citizens and candidates, for an exhilarating day.

POTD: New Faces

>

Newcomers to the City Council, Piotr (Peter) Gajewski and John Britton, share a moment at Regal Row on election night.

Hoffmann, Gajewski Thank You Speeches On Video

I could only be one place at a time when the election returns came in, and I happened to be at >Giuseppe’s Restaurant on Regal Row when the news came in, so I was able to catch Susan Hoffmann’s and Piotr (Peter) Gajewski’s acceptance speeches. They were holding tandem election night parties. (Another successful council candidate, John Britton, was holding his celebration a few doors down at Tara Asia.)

Here are Mayor-Elect Hoffmann’s and Council Member-Elect Gajewski’s thank you speeches:

I didn’t see any other video cameras at the time, so I think this may be the only copy of it!

(If you are receiving this in email, the video won’t come through and you will have to come back here to Rockville Central to view it.)

Election Numbers From The City

Here is a better breakdown of the election results, including winners and those who did not. Basic numbers are >from the City, but I reordered them in descending order. Above the line won, below the line did not.

Mayor / Votes / %

• Susan Hoffmann / 2,733 / 47.02%
• ———————————-
• Mark Pierzchala / 1,591 / 27.37%
• Drew Powell / 1,475 / 25.38%
• Write-in Votes / 13 / .22%

City Council (4 seats) / Votes / %

• Piotr (Peter) Gajewski / 3,019 / 14%
• John Britton / 2,609 / 12.10%
• Anne Robbins / 2,426 / 11.25%
• Phyllis Marcuccio / 2,397 / 11.12%
• ———————————-
• Carl Henn / 2,284 / 10.59%
• Brigitta Mullican / 1,870 / 8.67%
• Richard Gottfried / 1,858 / 8.62%
• Bob Dorsey / 1,844 / 8.55%
• Tracy Pakulniewicz-Chidiac / 1,336 / 6.20%
• Theo Anderson / 1,333 / 6.18%
• Eric Wang / 550 / 2.55%
• Write-in Votes / 34 / .16%

Please feel free to begin Wednesday-morning quarterbacking here, in the comments section.

I will say right now that no one got the results prediction contest exactly right. Watch this space for who got closest, and will receive fabulous prizes.

Winners

>2007 Rockville Mayor and Council Election

Mayor:

• Susan Hoffmann — 2,733 votes

City Council:

• John Britton — 2,609 votes
• Piotr (Peter) Gajewski — 3,019
• Phyllis Marcuccio — 2,397
• Anne Robbins — 2,426

…The results are unofficial until they are certified by the Board of Election of Supervisors. Here’s a link to the unofficial Election Results with all precincts reporting.

Beall Submits Voter Records

I have just been told that Beall, the last polling place to do so, JUST turned in their data. Long night!>

It’s 9:37 now; info should start flowing soon.

An Answer To The Absentee Voter Conundrum

City Manager Scott Ullery has posted a >thorough answer in the comments section to the post that described how some voters in today’s election showed up improperly as having already requested an absentee ballott. This situation made an appearance in the Washington Post as well as earlier (natch!) on this blog.

Scott writes, in part:

We had a very direct conversation today with the responsible state officials, who explained what happened and took full responsibility for what they called “a dumb mistake.” I made a strong verbal request, which will be followed up in writing, for a full accounting of (1) how this occurred, including a full description of the relevant procedures, software applications, and databases involved; (2) how the “quality control” measures employed in this instance compare and contrast with those employed in other elections, including statewide elections; and (3) measures to be put into place to prevent this mistake from ever happening again.

In brief, the immediate source of the problem was the extraction of Rockville’s poll book information from a statewide database that was accurate and up to date in every way, except that it had been altered for training purposes to simulate a database with absentee voters tagged. The simulation was created by arbitrarily tagging all street addresses beginning with “5,” thereby approximating a 10% absentee vote. Rockville’s poll book was mistakenly created from this database. When the “tags” showed up at our polls this morning, we knew immediately they were incorrect, and took corrective action, including instituting a “work around” process and a separate sign in process for those voters. We are confident the quick response was effective, and that no one was denied their right to vote, all votes will be counted, and if anyone voted twice they will be identified and dealt with.

Test Of The System

Dear Readers->

This is just a test of a liveblogging feature I have activated for election night.

At key points, I will post relevant election status. I promise not to inundate you. Tonight’s volume will subside in the morning.

As soon as we have final election totals, we will publish an end-of-night update.

Thank you

Plan Your Election Night

It appears we do not have a big party crowd running for Rockville city offices this year, for I have only learned of a handful of election night celebrations. Most are open to the public, but some are private affairs due to space or other limitations.>

Tonight, I plan to circulate to as many as I can get to before I turn into a pumpkin. I hope to get photos and maybe even video of speeches.

Here is the rundown so far.

• Susan Hoffmann’s election night celebration will be at Giuseppe’s. Susan pans to be there beginning about 8:30.
• John Britton’s fete will be a few doors down at Tara Asia. He writes: “Whatever the result, a toast to the process and the experience is warranted.”
• Piotr (Peter) Gajewski will also be a Giuseppe’s. Peter will be vying with Susan for the coveted small room off to the side.
• Phyllis Marcuccio says she will be at her sister’s home at 205 Evans St. and graciously says “any and all are welcome.” She adds, “Then we will all get some rest.”

If you know of other celebrations, please post them in the Comments section.

Voting Bugs [WAS: "Have Patience . . ."]

[UPDATE: There are more machine-related strangenesses in the comments section. Read on.]>

[UPDATE: The City has a response on the absentee-ballot issue. It's in the comments.]

As Rockville Central reader David points out, when you go to vote today you may need to take along with you a small dose of patience. But, it is not a nightmare and your vote will get counted, do not worry.

There appears to be a database error in the voting rolls: Most (not all) people who come to the check-in table are indicated as already having received an absentee ballot. I am told this is happening across polling places, not just one place.

Poll workers are working around it by manually issuing a voting card and writing down the name and address of the voter. Presumably, sometime later those names will be entered in the city’s database so the voter gets credit for having voted. In case that doesn’t work as planned, I just want to go on record now as saying I did vote!

Regardless, the actual vote is definitely being counted.

And, the line was not too bad, even with all the manual-this and workaround-that. So, don’t let this keep you home.

I am interested, though, in knowing about how voting is going, as a process, across the City. Please use the comment space here to keep readers up-to-date!