Burnt Orange Report

Fredericksburg City Council Update

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

I did a little analysis of the past few Election Cycles for city Council in Fredericksburg, where my father is running. I ran some numbers on how many people in each election cast just 1 vote (even though they are allotted 2). This assumes that there are few to no ballots cast with 0 votes on them, which would otherwise put in a margin of error. I've cut and pasted the interesting trends here, but if anyone wants the original file, leave a comment.

Year 1999
Voters 663
% 1 Vote 16.89%

Year 2000
Voters 1202
% 1 Vote 22.21%

Year 2001
Voters 715
% 1 Vote 19.58%

Year 2003
Voters 470
% 1 Vote 24.47%

Year 2004
Voters 819
% 1 Vote 40.17%

My analysis is that I believe traditionally Fredericksburg CC Elections have 20% of the electorate that votes for one candidate out of strategy in any given year. I believe that bump up in 2003 to about 25% is due to the entrance of Melodi who was a Tax Protest candidate.

Her run in 2004 may also help count for the high 40% rate but I now believe (contrary to before) that the high 2004 level is not due to simply Melodi's Anit-Tax forces, but also MacWithey's entrance into the race which changed the dynamic of City Council elections. As someone outside of the usual base of voters, he probably brought in a whole new cross-section of voters, many who didn't know the 'traditional' candidates or were encouraged to cast one vote for MacWithey, since his electoral strategy didn't depend so much upon the old formula.

I would say, with Francis out of the race, two 'traditional' candidates, and the fact that Tom Musselman knows many of the traditional voters (as well as many new ones) would make it seem like the 1 Vote group wouldn't be as high this year, but at the same time, I believe that the Musselman campaign has/will have contacted more people than in past year, due to the existence of an actual campaign structure, advertising, outreach, and the upcoming GOTV efforts. I feel an increase in voters helps Musselman and will be more likely to increase the 1 Vote Cast share.

NOTES: Fredericksburg City Council races have not run above 13% turnout in recent years, with some years being as low at 7% (there are about 7000 registered voters). In addition, all seats are at large, and there are no run-offs... the top two vote getters are elected. This is why the 1 Vote strategy can be beneficial because if there are three candidates, with the top one being a high voter getter, anyone casting dual votes for the 2nd and 3rd place candidates are not actually helping the 3rd place candidate, since they move up in tandem but still always the same number of votes below the 2nd place candidate. Therefore, core supporters of any candidate should be encouraged to cast 1 vote to have the greatest effect.