An Analysis of the Charter Vote

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The March 13 municipal election asked 2 questions of the voters regarding the charter. The ballot actually had 4 questions, but the first two were thrown out by a judge for being misleading, and were not counted.

Question 3 asked if term limited council members should be allowed to run again after sitting out 3 years, and question 4 would replace our “majority wins” system with a plurality – “highest vote total wins” system.

The results by precinct are shown on the maps below – click on the precinct for the individual results.

For a March election without candidates, the turnout was substantial, with about 4700 casting their votes. There were a couple of interesing anomolies about this election though – absentee ballot totals were much higher than normal, and at the polls, the number of “Under-Votes” was an excessive 3.4%.

We have a theory about the undervotes. (It is somewhat technical, so bear with me.)

An “under-vote” is when someone votes a ballot with nothing filled in. At the precinct, the optical scanners are supposed to only flag this as an error if NOTHING on the ballot is filled in – skipping a single question will be reported as an under-vote by the SOE in the results, but the scanner doesn’t flag it and the poll workers wouldn’t know about it.

In this case though, both questions had the same number of under-votes, implying that the ballots were blank and should have been flagged. When the scanner detects this condition, it beeps and prints on the tape “UNDER-VOTE” and spits the ballot back out. The inspector working the scanner is then expected to ask the voter if they intended to submit a blank ballot. If it was a mistake, the voter takes their ballot back and marks it. If the voter intended to submit it blank, then the inspector pokes a key in a hole on the back of the scanner to “OVERRIDE” the error and accept the ballot. We asked an inspector at one of the precincts with a number of under-votes if there were any overrides – and they couldn’t recall any.

Our theory is this:

Because of the short time to react after the lawsuit, the Supervisor of Elections did not have time to program the scanners to ignore the front page of the ballot (questions 1 and 2). Therefore, since 1&2 were on page 1 and 3&4 were on page 2, it is likely many people, knowing there were only 2 questions to answer, filled in the front page (1&2) and did not notice there was a back page. The scanners should have caught this but apparently accepted 1&2 as constituting a “non-blank” ballot, and did not flag it. As a result, about 160 people (enough to change the results on question 4), were possibly disenfranchised and not afforded the option to fix the error.

This is a “hanging chad” situation regarding the “intention of the voter”, particularly since it may have affected the outcome. There is a paper trail if this is the case – the tapes for each of the optical scanners are supposed to be saved (although I don’t know for how long). The tapes would show whether any “undervotes” were flagged and if that count equaled the 161 reported under-votes in Palm Beach Gardens.

The absentee ballots numbers were also interesting as 46% of the voters cast their ballots that way. This is significant because the absentee “YES” margin was 9 points higher on question 3 and 7 points higher on question 4. Without the absentee votes, question 4 would have lost handily.

Why do I mention this? Because all the questions were misleading and until the lawsuit and the little bit of campaigning that was done, most people were naturally drawn to the the “YES” answer. The absentee ballots of course went out before either of those things occurred.

The following table shows how the absentee ballot counts and under-votes fell during the last few elections.  Note that the high under-vote count in 2016 was because the municipal candidates appeared on the same ballot as the presidential primary candidates and many people only vote for President, ignoring the rest.

 

Year	Votes Cast	At polls	Absentee	% absentee	Undervotes	%Undervotes
2018	4731	2569	2164	45.7%	167	3.5%
2017	5240	3486	1754	33.5%	0	0.0%
2016	15257	12465	2802	18.4%	1958	12.8%
2014	7167	5556	1611	22.5%	79	1.1%
2013	4217	3390	827	19.6%	1	0.0%

Question 3 – Run Again?

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Question 3
Strong Yes	Weak Yes	Very Close	Weak No	Strong No
Click the precinct on the map for vote totals.

Precinct	Registered	Cast	Turnout	YES	NO	YES %
1186	1457	163	11	78	79	50
1188	897	63	7	34	25	58
1189	96	11	11	9	2	82
1190	3391	245	7	159	83	66
1192	1454	124	9	78	40	66
1194	2029	401	20	315	74	81
1228	446	65	15	38	26	59
1238	1680	301	18	148	146	50
1240	2506	301	12	197	97	67
1242	2559	400	16	266	113	70
1244	1567	206	13	125	76	62
1246	2397	275	11	115	153	43
1247	228	32	14	27	5	84
1248	1495	204	14	103	95	52
1250	62	7	11	1	5	17
1252	2320	500	22	272	197	58
1254	455	32	7	15	17	47
1260	1293	172	13	70	98	42
1266	463	3	1	1	2	33
1268	295	8	3	6	2	75
1272	1911	189	10	88	94	48
1274	1585	145	9	49	88	36
1280	399	30	8	19	10	66
1284	2219	153	7	117	30	80
1288	40	5	13	3	1	75
1290	2130	224	11	127	88	59
1292	71	17	24	13	4	76
1296	713	34	5	24	9	73
1324	1282	73	6	42	29	59
1326	553	68	12	32	31	51
1340	12	3	25	3	0	100
1352	2210	161	7	91	68	57
1360	891	114	13	71	40	64
1372	153	2	1	1	0	100
TOTAL	41280	4731	11	2737	1827	60

Question 4 – Plurality or Majority?

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Question 4
Strong Yes	Weak Yes	Very Close	Weak No	Strong No
Click the precinct on the map for vote totals.

Precinct	Registered	Cast	Turnout	YES	NO	Yes %
1186	1457	163	11	75	82	48
1188	897	63	7	25	34	42
1189	96	11	11	9	2	82
1190	3391	245	7	134	107	56
1192	1454	124	9	71	45	61
1194	2029	401	20	260	128	67
1228	446	65	15	33	31	52
1238	1680	301	18	115	178	39
1240	2506	301	12	163	131	55
1242	2559	400	16	215	161	57
1244	1567	206	13	111	89	56
1246	2397	275	11	87	179	33
1247	228	32	14	18	14	56
1248	1495	204	14	75	122	38
1250	62	7	11	2	4	33
1252	2320	500	22	234	230	50
1254	455	32	7	16	16	50
1260	1293	172	13	58	110	35
1266	463	3	1	0	3	0
1268	295	8	3	5	3	63
1272	1911	189	10	79	104	43
1274	1585	145	9	51	86	37
1280	399	30	8	18	11	62
1284	2219	153	7	106	42	72
1288	40	5	13	0	4	0
1290	2130	224	11	109	106	51
1292	71	17	24	11	5	69
1296	713	34	5	23	10	70
1324	1282	73	6	41	30	58
1326	553	68	12	23	40	37
1340	12	3	25	3	0	100
1352	2210	161	7	71	87	45
1360	891	114	13	55	56	50
1372	153	2	1	1	0	100
TOTAL	41280	4731	11	2297	2250	51