Observations on the Edgemont budget vote data

If we think of the Edgemont residents who voted yesterday as the universe of budget voters, we can do some interesting analysis. We now know that within that universe are 1599 yes voters and 717 no voters. What else do we know?

No voters were much more likely than yes voters to vote in the first election, last month. Fully three-quarters of no voters voted last month compared with only one-third of yes voters.

This produced some interesting phenomena. Even though yes voters outnumbered no voters by 2-¼ to 1, the first vote was virtually a dead heat with a slight edge going to the no votes. This also means that of the "new" votes in the second election (that is, votes incremental to the votes in the first election) 86% were yes votes. For every one new no vote, there were more than six new yes votes.

Why were no voters so much more motivated than their adversaries in the first vote? Here are two reasons, each of which I suspect played a part:

• Sense of urgency. No voters had more of a burning platform (definition), a compelling reason to take action, in the first vote. Frustrated with double-digit tax increases, they wanted to be heard. Yes voters, on the other hand, were complacent. Perhaps because they assumed the budget would pass, they saw no urgency to vote.
  
• Communication. In the lead-up to the first election, a vote no letter went out to the electorate; and three-quarters of no voters voted. A similar vote no letter and phone calls went out before the second election with a fairly small incremental impact on the no vote. By contrast, no similar effort was made to stir up the yes voters before the first vote, and only a third of yes voters showed up. Before the second election, vote yes letters and advertisements were widespread, and the yes vote tripled.

The above analysis assumes that voters in the first election voted the same way in the second election. Some anecdotal evidence suggests this to be true. However it is certainly plausible that some no voters, once they understood the implications of an austerity budget, switched to yes, or that some yes voters, once they calculated the impact on their pocketbooks, switched to no. I suspect, however, that switchers were not numerous.

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The numbers

For the nerds (or elroys, for those familiar with EHS lingo of a few decades back) in the readership who want to do their own analysis, here are the numbers:

• May 17 vote (budget defeated):
• Yes: 535 (50%)
• No: 542 (50%)
• Total: 1077 (100%)
  
• June 16 vote (budget passed):
• Yes: 1599 (69%)
• No: 717 (31%)
• Total: 2316 (100%)
  
• "New" Votes (Incrementally new votes in the second election):
• Yes: 1064 (86%)
• No: 175 (14%)
• Total: 1239 (100%)
  
• Rate of increase between the two elections:
  • Yes: +199%
  • No: +32%
  • Total: +115%