In yesterday’s Special Democratic Primary, 30% fewer voters participated in Montgomery County than in the last Special Primary in September, 2006. This big reduction in voting rate must be blamed on the fact that in a money saving move, only four polling places were open in the entire county. There are 310 precincts in the county.
The Montgomery County Board of Election (MCBOE) shows 5104 votes were cast in Montgomery County for a voting rate of 1.57%. In the last Special Democratic Primary on September 15, 2006 — between Dick Chema and Charles Sanders — there were 7106 votes in Montgomery County, for a voting rate of 2.26%. This loss of 2002 voters is a 30% decrease, and this big suppression of voting could well have impacted this election.
Joe Roberts won with 2,491 votes; Guy Fogle came in second with 2,093 votes. David Esrati received 1,063 votes.
I’m disappointed that the Democratic members of the MCBOE agreed to the four regional voting center structure. This was approved by the state, but the decision to make this big and experimental change happened at the local level. This strategy saved $250,000 for the state, but it did nothing for Montgomery County — except depress turnout and degrade the importance of this election.
David Esrati on his web-site has an interesting analysis, entitled “Centralized Disenfranchisement,” that points out a lot of problems with this Special Election.
Here is the chart as shown on Ohio’s Secretay of State’s Web-site.
I disagree. Here’s why: http://www.bryansuddith.com/2010/07/14/politics-and-the-numbers/
Bryan — thanks for your post. Your comments caused me to look more carefully at the data — particularly Warren County, where the number of polling places was not reduced and I found that in this 2010 Special Election, in Warren County there was a 63% reduction in voter turnout, compared to the Special Election in 2006. So, your disagreement has caused me to find more data and now I guess I will need to disagree with the conclusion of this post. I write more on your post here.
Mike, thanks for the comment on my blog. Glad I contributed to the conversation.
There are several threads on this subject, so I will copy my comment from another one.
The things we do for democracy. First I actually sat through the hour and a half you tube debate between the candidates. Most interesting part was about whether the district that the Rs created for Turner was a 3% advantage district (close enough to be winnable if things are really bad) as Roberts, showing his political operative background, said or a 10-15% or more advantage district, as the others said. Then I drove in the pouring rain to the Fairgrounds to spend about 30 seconds casting my vote. Having this election happen in a few almost undisclosed locations is scary. Voter participation is always too low, perhaps for the reasons Robert Reich gives in his post, but even an election that few care much about or see as significant deserves better. It’s like they are saying, this election doesn’t matter much so we aren’t going to do much about having it. Like having the NCAA “play in” 64 v. 65 basketball game in Dayton. At least people show up for that. This low budget election feels like a slippery slope, like eventually they will say “these elections don’t really matter so why even have them” like they do in North Korea or somewhere similar. The price of liberty is said to be eternal vigilance. I guess it saved us taxpayers some money in a time where there is a really big crisis, the lack of money for state and local government, police, fire, schoolteachers and the “commons” of our social existence as a result of the financial meltdown and resulting recession. But let’s not do this again.
Stan, I agree — “Having this election happen in a few almost undisclosed locations is scary. Voter participation is always too low, perhaps for the reasons Robert Reich gives in his post, but even an election that few care much about or see as significant deserves better.”
I was disappointed and surprised that the Democrats at the Montgomery County Board of Elections would agree to diminish the importance of this Special Democratic Primary by agreeing to this strategy of 4 Regional Polling Places.