Oberlin City Council election analysis
The Lorain County Board of Elections now has the official election results. In addition to the overall results, the BoE publishes the precinct-level results in a format that only a 1960’s mainframe could love. I did some regular-expression hacking and dumped the results into Excel so I could do some analysis.
This first table shows the number of votes each candidate received in each precinct. Candidates are sorted by total number of votes received.
| WARD | 1-A | 2-A | 2-B | 3-A | 3-B | 4-A | 5-A | ALL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| REGISTERED VOTERS | 840 | 737 | 463 | 1108 | 1253 | 862 | 778 | 6041 |
| BALLOTS CAST | 345 | 167 | 262 | 285 | 250 | 485 | 292 | 2086 |
| AVG VOTES PER BALLOT | 5.3 | 4.7 | 5.5 | 4.8 | 5.0 | 5.5 | 4.6 | 5.1 |
| DANIEL J. GARDNER | 199 | 104 | 171 | 184 | 174 | 297 | 75 | 1204 |
| EVE SANDBERG | 174 | 98 | 157 | 174 | 170 | 249 | 88 | 1110 |
| WILLIAM J. JINDRA | 172 | 60 | 136 | 135 | 109 | 259 | 118 | 989 |
| RONNIE J. RIMBERT | 176 | 68 | 111 | 104 | 92 | 230 | 203 | 984 |
| CHARLES PETERSON | 132 | 88 | 89 | 151 | 142 | 181 | 84 | 867 |
| SHARON FAIRCHILD SOUCY | 155 | 52 | 129 | 69 | 62 | 218 | 78 | 763 |
| EVERETT E. TYREE | 118 | 44 | 118 | 71 | 69 | 190 | 125 | 735 |
| KENNETH SLOANE | 121 | 55 | 67 | 95 | 83 | 221 | 83 | 725 |
| JAMES W. WHITE | 118 | 27 | 195 | 63 | 55 | 177 | 75 | 710 |
| PHILIP L. VERDA | 108 | 43 | 80 | 77 | 46 | 122 | 104 | 580 |
| ROBERT B. CALHOUN | 93 | 36 | 45 | 45 | 89 | 199 | 39 | 546 |
| RICHARD P. LOTHROP | 91 | 28 | 46 | 57 | 43 | 122 | 70 | 457 |
| CALVIN L. WAITE | 89 | 28 | 49 | 42 | 24 | 95 | 119 | 446 |
| NATHAN A. HAVERSTOCK | 59 | 25 | 25 | 43 | 41 | 72 | 45 | 310 |
| ELI K. ROSENFELD | 36 | 36 | 24 | 64 | 54 | 42 | 28 | 284 |
Each voter could vote for up to seven candidates, and the top seven candidates won. The first thing to notice is that most voters did vote for many candidates—the average ballot had 5.1 votes. I was happy to see this because it means that most voters did not choose “bullet voting”, that is, voting for just one candidate in order to maximize the chances of that candidate winning. This is the most effective way to get a particular person elected but I’m not convinced that it’s good for the community as a whole. If everyone voted this way, even winning candidates might have the “approval” of only 10 or 20% of the electorate.
This next table shows this “candidate approval level”. I divided the number of votes each candidate received by the number of ballots cast. This yields the percentage of voters who voted for each of the candidates. Basically you had to have the approval of a bit more than one-third of voters to win this election.
| WARD | 1-A | 2-A | 2-B | 3-A | 3-B | 4-A | 5-A | ALL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| REGISTERED VOTERS | 840 | 737 | 463 | 1108 | 1253 | 862 | 778 | 6041 |
| BALLOTS CAST | 345 | 167 | 262 | 285 | 250 | 485 | 292 | 2086 |
| TURNOUT | 41.1% | 22.7% | 56.6% | 25.7% | 20.0% | 56.3% | 37.5% | 34.5% |
| DANIEL J. GARDNER | 57.7% | 62.3% | 65.3% | 64.6% | 69.6% | 61.2% | 25.7% | 57.7% |
| EVE SANDBERG | 50.4% | 58.7% | 59.9% | 61.1% | 68.0% | 51.3% | 30.1% | 53.2% |
| WILLIAM J. JINDRA | 49.9% | 35.9% | 51.9% | 47.4% | 43.6% | 53.4% | 40.4% | 47.4% |
| RONNIE J. RIMBERT | 51.0% | 40.7% | 42.4% | 36.5% | 36.8% | 47.4% | 69.5% | 47.2% |
| CHARLES PETERSON | 38.3% | 52.7% | 34.0% | 53.0% | 56.8% | 37.3% | 28.8% | 41.6% |
| SHARON FAIRCHILD SOUCY | 44.9% | 31.1% | 49.2% | 24.2% | 24.8% | 44.9% | 26.7% | 36.6% |
| EVERETT E. TYREE | 34.2% | 26.3% | 45.0% | 24.9% | 27.6% | 39.2% | 42.8% | 35.2% |
| KENNETH SLOANE | 35.1% | 32.9% | 25.6% | 33.3% | 33.2% | 45.6% | 28.4% | 34.8% |
| JAMES W. WHITE | 34.2% | 16.2% | 74.4% | 22.1% | 22.0% | 36.5% | 25.7% | 34.0% |
| PHILIP L. VERDA | 31.3% | 25.7% | 30.5% | 27.0% | 18.4% | 25.2% | 35.6% | 27.8% |
| ROBERT B. CALHOUN | 27.0% | 21.6% | 17.2% | 15.8% | 35.6% | 41.0% | 13.4% | 26.2% |
| RICHARD P. LOTHROP | 26.4% | 16.8% | 17.6% | 20.0% | 17.2% | 25.2% | 24.0% | 21.9% |
| CALVIN L. WAITE | 25.8% | 16.8% | 18.7% | 14.7% | 9.6% | 19.6% | 40.8% | 21.4% |
| NATHAN A. HAVERSTOCK | 17.1% | 15.0% | 9.5% | 15.1% | 16.4% | 14.8% | 15.4% | 14.9% |
| ELI K. ROSENFELD | 10.4% | 21.6% | 9.2% | 22.5% | 21.6% | 8.7% | 9.6% | 13.6% |
Unofficial results, all precincts
These probably don’t have absentee ballots included, but it’s not going to make a lot of difference. Hey, at least I moved up one spot from the last round.
+-----+----------+------------+-------------+--------+--------+ | 1 | DANIEL | J. | GARDNER | 1,146 | 11.03 | | 2 | EVE | | SANDBERG | 1,052 | 10.13 | | 3 | WILLIAM | J. | JINDRA | 968 | 9.32 | | 4 | RONNIE | J. | RIMBERT | 962 | 9.26 | | 5 | CHARLES | | PETERSON | 819 | 7.89 | | 6 | SHARON | FAIRCHILD | SOUCY | 746 | 7.18 | | 7 | EVERETT | E. | TYREE | 721 | 6.94 | | 8 | KENNETH | | SLOANE | 704 | 6.78 | | 9 | JAMES | W. | WHITE | 698 | 6.72 | | 10 | PHILIP | L. | VERDA | 575 | 5.54 | | 11 | ROBERT | B. | CALHOUN | 533 | 5.13 | | 12 | RICHARD | P. | LOTHROP | 455 | 4.38 | | 13 | CALVIN | L. | WAITE | 440 | 4.24 | | 14 | NATHAN | A. | HAVERSTOCK | 300 | 2.89 | | 15 | ELI | K. | ROSENFELD | 267 | 2.57 | +-----+----------+------------+-------------+--------+--------+
9:53 pm.
Looks like I’ve slipped a spot with 71% of the vote.
+-----+----------+------------+-------------+--------+ | | Name | | | Votes | +-----+----------+------------+-------------+--------+ | 1 | DANIEL | J. | GARDNER | 698 | | 2 | EVE | | SANDBERG | 663 | | 3 | RONNIE | J. | RIMBERT | 652 | | 4 | WILLIAM | J. | JINDRA | 607 | | 5 | CHARLES | | PETERSON | 513 | | 6 | EVERETT | E. | TYREE | 487 | | 7 | JAMES | W. | WHITE | 484 | | 8 | SHARON | FAIRCHILD | SOUCY | 483 | | 9 | KENNETH | | SLOANE | 419 | | 10 | PHILIP | L. | VERDA | 392 | | 11 | CALVIN | L. | WAITE | 319 | | 12 | ROBERT | B. | CALHOUN | 303 | | 13 | RICHARD | P. | LOTHROP | 293 | | 14 | NATHAN | A. | HAVERSTOCK | 192 | | 15 | ELI | K. | ROSENFELD | 165 | +-----+----------+------------+-------------+--------+
Election results
Election results are being posted at the Lorain County Board of Elections. As of right now (9:40 pm) I am in 11th place out of 16. About 57% of the vote has been counted, so it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll win.
+----------+------------+-------------+--------+ | Name | | | Votes | +----------+------------+-------------+--------+ | DANIEL | J. | GARDNER | 634 | | EVE | SANDBERG | | 592 | | WILLIAM | J. | JINDRA | 508 | | RONNIE | J. | RIMBERT | 469 | | CHARLES | PETERSON | | 438 | | JAMES | W. | WHITE | 421 | | SHARON | FAIRCHILD | SOUCY | 417 | | EVERETT | E. | TYREE | 375 | | KENNETH | SLOANE | | 346 | | PHILIP | L. | VERDA | 306 | | ROBERT | B. | CALHOUN | 270 | | RICHARD | P. | LOTHROP | 236 | | CALVIN | L. | WAITE | 217 | | NATHAN | A. | HAVERSTOCK | 154 | | ELI | K. | ROSENFELD | 141 | +----------+------------+-------------+--------+as of 9:33 pm