By the numbers

Election analysis has become an enormous industry in recent years. When the President makes a speech, the opposition follows immediately with its own view of things, and tag-team TV analysts go over every word and phrase, looking for hidden meaning and applying their own spin.

It's natural to try to see where things are going. At chapter, region, and Institute board meetings I have watched the members making notes and counting votes - while doing the same myself. It is now common to have multiple polls of various types for anything beyond a local election, and in the past several weeks some CSI members were keeping their own score cards.

Even though it's common, it's an odd thing to do, as the main effect seems to be encouragement of each side to restate its position with greater frequency and volume. On the other hand, post-election analysis is more leisurely and peaceful, and occasionally useful. As Mark Twain noted, "There are three kinds of numbers: lies, damned lies, and statistics," but let's look at the numbers and see if there are any hidden messages.

I was able to find the Teller's Committee reports for the last few years, so we'll be able to look at this year's results in a larger context. Starting with the voter turnout, we have:

A few things are obvious from just these few numbers. First is the decline in membership, which has been noted in a previous MWGTW. Next is a scarily consistent 21 percent voter turnout for the past four years, followed by what may be a record 29 percent. Hotly contested issues are known to bring lackadaisical voters to the polls in public elections, and I do not doubt that is what caused the sudden increase in our own election this year.

About a year ago I looked at similar numbers, wondering if races for Institute Directors or Board offices had any effect. I thought there might be some effect, but it's hard to tell, as the number of positions open each year generally ensures that most regions will have at least one favorite running. This year, for example, there were officer candidates from six regions, and five regions voted on Institute Directors.

Another interesting, though not unexpected result is the increase in online voting. (I'm not sure why we had that option in 2003, but not in 2004 or 2005.) I see this as a trend that will continue, though it may be some time before we see the end of paper ballots. There were a few unfortunate suggestions that we should fear someone would tamper with the votes, but in this respect we have a distinct advantage over public elections. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find a committee to review the results of national elections, as no one is truly outside the system. An organization such as ours, however, can easily find an independent agency to verify accuracy of our elections.

Let's move on to election of the rest of the Board. Although I have the results for each of the officer and Institute Director races for the last few years, I'm going to speak only in general terms. In the past four years, the person running for President-elect ran unopposed, and each received over ninety percent of the vote. This year, in the first contested race in some time, the number was a little lower, but not much. This indicates a couple of things.

First, it is difficult to run a successful independent campaign for the highest office, especially under the current procedures, which do not allow enough time after announcement of the slate of nominees to get another name on the ballot. The only option this leaves is a write-in campaign, which is rarely successful. Beyond that, it seems that the nominating committee has done a reasonable job in selecting candidates who are qualified and acceptable to the members. Each year there are a number of write-in votes for nearly every office, and each year, a number of voters choose to not vote for the president-elect, which suggests that members do not feel an obligation to vote for the only nominee simply because there is no one else to vote for.

Speaking of write-ins, I would like to know which of our members are believed to be sufficiently qualified that they get votes even when they are not running. There may be good reason to keep those names secret, but I'm sure the nominating committees would like to know who they are.

In the past five elections, races for vice president or secretary have been fairly close, about 60/40 or less. With a couple of exceptions, Institute Director races also have been won with a maximum of about sixty percent of the vote, and there have been several that were decided by one or two votes. The oddball is the office of treasurer, which has been uncontested in this period. Almost sixty percent of the Institute Director candidates have run unopposed.

Finally, the governance recommendation lost by a narrow margin. What that means depends entirely on your viewpoint. While some argued that it wouldn't be right for only a small fraction of the total membership - for round numbers, say 2,680 of 14,000 members - to change the bylaws, it is equally valid to argue that is isn't right for an even smaller number - 1,340 - to prevent a change.

The question that always comes up at this point is, "Why don’t more members vote?" In public elections, a common excuse is that it's too inconvenient, but that doesn't apply when you get the ballot in your own mailbox. Many members simply may not care, but I suspect many don't vote because they don't know the candidates or they don't understand the items on the ballot.

Despite the sometimes nasty rhetoric of the last few months, which I hope was ignored in favor of those who made reasonable arguments on either side, I believe the net effect will be positive. My experience indicates that simply asking for input gets little response; it isn't until we are forced to think about an issue that we take the time from our busy lives to consider the consequences and make a decision. We have a system, and it worked.