When I entered Drake University in the fall of 1978 I selected the major of accounting for two reasons only.  From my rural Iowa background a license to practice public accounting constituted an “exciting” and respected opportunity.  Second, professors assured us we would never need to “sell” anything to earn a living, thereby elevating us above the oily millions of business school hucksters.

It turns out CPA’s, in the light of Enron and Worldcom, sport the same foibles of the other institutionalized professions, negating the first reason, and how a professor could think that convincing someone to pay $500 plus per hour for professional services does not encompass the most complex sales process ever negates the second.  But it turns out that I do love numbers.  The reason?  Life and society’s thorniest issues constitute gigantic puzzles that beg for descriptions and definition prior to solution.  Numerical analysis provides the key to puzzle description and eventual solution.

The outcome of the William S. Hart School Board election in 2007 presents just such a puzzle.  All the subjective indicators revealed a shoo-in for the challenger, Joe Messina, to wit:
 

1.         His third run for the same office producing name recognition;
 

2.         Incumbents harried by various contentious issues including budget

             overruns and school building and capacity issues;
 

3.         Ambitious fundraising and an extensive campaign organization; and
 

4.         The lack of other nonincumbents to divide and dilute the anti-incumbency vote.

The outcome?  Joe, who I personally wanted to see on the Board, finished a relatively distant third with only 29% of the vote in a three-way race.  More discouraging?  In the Newhall School Board race a candidate that WITHDREW from the race actually received 15% of the vote.  If 15% amounts to the prize just for playing, then Joe Messina spent ungodly time and effort to capture an incremental 2,600 votes.  Even more discouraging?  In a three-way Water Board race a candidate that did NO active in person campaigning polled a higher percentage, suggesting that active campaigning actually damages one’s chances for elective office.

How to solve this puzzle?  The key lies in the numbers, particularly the numbers of absentee ballots; a significant number actually cast two to three weeks before the actual election and any final campaign push.

How do the numbers break down?  In the Hart election just short of two-thirds of the ballots cast came in through the mail; these ballots distributed during the first week in October.  Statistical data suggests that a significant percentage of absentee voters return  these ballots within a few days of receipt, and ALL that will vote return by the 25th of October, nearly two weeks before actual election day.  After analyzing the numbers I called Steve Sturgeon and congratulated him on winning the election three weeks before the election, since in the absentee voting he polled a commanding 38% of the total to Joe Messina’s 27%.  Ironically, in the poll numbers Steve Sturgeon only got about 28% of the vote while Joe reached 35%, but the heavy weight of votes already “in the can” assured a Sturgeon victory.

The implications?  In all of California the trend continues with more and more folks voting absentee and the absentee ballots constituting an inexorably higher proportion of the total votes cast.  The obvious?  Anything done in the last three to four weeks prior to actual Election Day matters little on the eventual outcome.  So debates, campaign appearances, endorsements, phony slate mailers, media campaigns, etc. will have no discernable impact on the final election results.

Who benefits from this trend?  Absentee voters, particularly those who claim permanent absentee status, generally affiliate with some party, so they will tend to vote for the candidate affiliated with their party.  In so-called “nonpartisan” elections like the Hart District Board this translates into a de facto advantage for the incumbents since they tend to attach to the majority party apparatus in the District to get elected in the first place.

Where will we next see this? California moved its presidential primary to February 5, 2008.  People will receive and vote their absentee ballots in the first and second week in January, most heavily influenced by the results in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.  Watch to see if presumed front-runners spend very much on a California campaign in those interim weeks.  If they do not and win, they already spotted the trend.

The ultimate result?  Candidates will devote fewer and fewer resources to campaigning in the weeks up to an election, further driving down poll turnouts and driving up the proportion of absentee ballots.  When this approaches 100%, we will achieve a Platonic type of democracy with the franchise exercised by a known oligarchy to which the candidates can campaign directly.

By the way, I vote permanent absentee.

Tim Myers                                                                                                                         Commentary

Tim Myers is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Landscape Development, Inc.  He has been writing on a wide variety of local topics for more than 11 years. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.