On June 15, Port Chester, New York, held a partisan election to elect six village trustees. The winners include the only Conservative Party nominee (he was not the nominee of any other party), and one of the two independent candidates. Only two Hispanics were on the ballot. The one who was a Democratic Party nominee was elected; the one who was a Republican Party nominee was not elected.
The Republican Party ran a full slate of six candidates, and got a second line on the ballot for each of them, under the slogan “Citizens for Tax Relief.” Two of the Republicans were elected.
Democrats ran only four candidates, and two of them were elected. Here are the vote totals from the Village’s web page. However, that web page does not show the party affiliations of each candidate. The winning independent candidate, whose ballot label was “Taxpayers Relief Movement”, is Bart Didden, and he came in first. The only Conservative Party nominee was John Branca, and he came in third. The independent who did not win is Gene Ceccarelli, whose ballot slogan was “Pride in Port Chester.” The four Democrats were Daniel Brakewood, Luis Marino (both of whom won), Gregory Adams, and Anthony Saline. John Palma was a write-in candidate. The six Republicans were Joseph Kenner, Saverio Terenzi (both of whom won), Richard Cuddy, Fabiola Montaya, Philip Semprevivo, and Michael Scarola.
This AP story has a small picture of the ballot, but even with the magnifying device, the ballot is too small to read well. Each candidate’s name was printed on the ballot six times, in a vertical column. The parties are arranged in order, from left to right: Democratic, Republican, Conservative, Citizens for Tax Relief, Pride in Port Chester, and Taxpayers Relief Movement. The single candidate of the Taxpayers Relief Movement placed first.
Cumulative voting is sort of ridiculous.
Should have gone with a proper proportional representation system, since that’s what it sounds like they wanted; single transferable vote wouldn’t be to shabby with 6 winners, but I’d love to see somewhere try reweighted range voting.
Richard — not sure about your headline. A Hispanic candidate won, and two others (one a write-in candidate who had been tossed from the ballot) finished ahead of a former trustee running as a Democrat. In addition, an African American Republican won, as well as the two non major party candidates you mention.
Cumulative voting is, strategically speaking, identical to plurality voting.
http://scorevoting.net/rangeVcumulative.html
It is unfortunate that such reforms are usually implemented by people who lack expertise in election science.
The 4 Democratic candidates received 6414 votes.
The 6 Republican candidates received 6413 votes.
The 4 Other candidates and one cat-didate (All Hail Fluffy!) received 6613.
Elected were 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats, 2 others.
The 1st place (independent) candidate is credited by some with causing the switch from FPTP in the first place.
The Conservative candidate who was elected was a former mayor (20 years ago).
Republican candidates received 131%, 124%, 97%, 93%, 84%, and 71% of the average vote. It appears that there was a reasonable share of voters who simply voted one vote for each candidate. The Republicans in their appearance before the editorial board of a local newspaper very much emphasized that they were running as a team. A perfectly balanced split would have given them a 4-way tie for 7th.
Democratic candidates received 158%, 122%, 79%, and 41% of the average vote. It may have confused the voters to figure out how to distribute 6 votes among the 4 candidates. The Democrats did not really seem to emphasize any sort of slate.
It is possible that there was some ballot order bias, as the top Republican and Democrat led their ticket (the candidates were not in alphabetical order).
Incidentally, the candidates referred to the village as “Porchester” dropping the first ‘t’ and the word separation.
Shentrup’s analysis misses a rather elementary point for an “election scientist”: cumulative voting is used in elections for more than one seat. Results under cumulative voting are __very__ different than they would be with plurality voting.
REAL P.R. =
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes needed for each winner.
Pre-election candidate rank order lists.
NO wasted votes – ALL voters elect somebody.
Much too difficult for the armies of MORON lawyers and judges to understand — especially the SCOTUS folks.
I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO OUR NATION THAT PEOPLE ARE NOT UP IN ARMS THAT THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND FOREFATHERS ARE BEING TRASHED IN THE NAME OF WEALTH AND NOW VOTE DISTRIBUTION.
ONE CITIZEN ONE VOTE, THIS IS JUST COMPREHENSIBLE THAT A CITIZEN VOTES 6 TIMES IN A ATTEMPT TO CORRUPT AN ELECTION. IF ONE RACE IS NOT ELECTED THAT IS WHAT THE VOTERS CHOSE AND THAT’S THE WAY IT IS. THE NEXT THING WE KNOW THE JUDGE AND THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WILL CHOOSE OUR REPRESENTATIVES FOR US AND WE WILL NOT EVEN BE ALLOWED TO VOTE. AMERICANS HAVE LOST THEIR FREEDOM AND HONOR THAT SO MANY DIED TO PROTECT.
Voter turnout was higher than usual, 4 parties are now represented on the 7 person board (including the mayor, who is a Democrat), and silly gerrymandered single-member districts are nowhere to be found. What a great set of results! Cheers to Mayor Pilla for taking me up on my suggestion three years ago, and for sticking to his commitment to this experiment for this long! People on the left, right, and center are now represented on the board and are beneficiaries of this type of election system. PR(proportional representation) is here to stay!
http://portchestervotes.com/
See the court stuff — among the longest defective opinions ever about simple stuff.
Rob Richie,
Cumulative voting is strategically identical to plurality voting, regardless of whether you use either system to elect one candidate, or multiple candidates.
This should be the impetus for reformers-of whatever ideological tendency-to make serious efforts to change the voting methods of many jurisdictions to STV or list PR.
Proportionality was quite obviously what our well-intentioned judicial dictators were aiming for-but list PR and STV do a better job of it. The robed autocrats seem to have been clumsily groping for a way to make the US catch up with the majority of the democratic world but didn’t have a clear idea of what they were doing.
icr,
Reweighted Range Voting and/or Asset Voting are possibly superior to STV or party list PR.
http://ScoreVoting.net/RRV.html
http://ScoreVoting.net/Asset.html