To the Editor:
On Friday, Nov. 6, the election results were certified and published by Wednesday, Nov. 11. A close look at the election details yields some interesting insights.
A huge turnout of 28,583 suggest Democrat and Republican voters alike were motivated to come to the polls.
Consequently, given the Democrats’ numerical advantage among the electorate amidst an increasingly partisanly polarized polity, their candidates swept City Council contest comfortably despite the Republicans fielding a slate of higher-caliber candidates.
If we compare each winning Democrat candidate’s vote total to the overall turnout, we get a truer picture of the electoral results:
Total turnout 28,538 100%
Justin M. Wilson 15,852 56%
John Taylor Chapman 15,437 54%
Paul C. Smedberg 14,880 53%
Redella S. “Del” Pepper 14,733 52%
Timothy B. Lovain 13,514 47%
Each candidate collected the support of about half the voters with Wilson and Chapman collecting decisively more. But Republicans Bob Wood and Monique Miles ran much better than the 30-35% their statewide candidates collect in Alexandria — even the ones who win statewide.
Total turnout 28,538 100%
John R. “Bob” Wood 11,566 41%
Monique A. Miles 11,291 40%
Fernando M. Torrez 9,383 33%
Townsend A. Van Fleet 8,407 29%
These percentages make more intuitive sense than those the computer, programmed to divide each candidates’ vote totals by the sum of all candidates’ vote totals inflated by voters allowed to choose up to six candidates, can cough out election night.
The election statistics, like a Cracker-Jacks box, contain a hidden surprise: Mayor Bill Euille received 9,170 votes (573 voters wrote in someone else). Surely, Mayor Euille’s write-in effort received some Republican and independent votes, but even if one quarter — highly unlikely he was pushing the Democrat City Council slate — that would still strongly suggest Allison Silberberg was receiving more votes from voters supporting some or all the Republican candidates than from Democrat-slate supporters.
Dino Drudi
Alexandria