What are the odds?

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, Neal Moynihan of the Geneseo Store is running a contest for people to pick the order of finish of both election races. This got me to wondering what the odds were of picking the right combination.

According to a mathematician friend of mine, if the results were truly random there would be a 1 in 2,880 chance of getting everything right! According to his calculations the chances of getting the Supervisor’s race exactly right is 1 in 24, while picking the exact order of the town board race is 1 in 120.

In order to calculate the odds on getting both races right, you multiply those numbers together. I was not a math major, but that seems about right to me, although if anyone thinks that’s wrong let me know.

Of course, elections are not randomly decided, and that’s why inside political observers should be able to beat the odds. I have a feeling though that the town board race is going to be the more difficult to predict.

My own conversations indicate that the Supervisor’s race is taking up a lot of the attention and people are not really focusing very much on the town board candidates. In that race, party affiliation and incumbency may count for more than it will at the top of the ticket.

Time for IRV?

I have received a number of questions from people who want to vote for me, but are concerned that as a Independent candidate I might not be strong enough to win. They don’t want me to be the spoiler over their second choice who might have a better chance to win.

This is a problem I tried to address in my latest ad titled “Can an independent really win?” The short answer is “Yes,” I think I can win this election, but I would probably have an even better chance under a different voting system.

The system that we are operating under is a simple plurality, the candidate with the largest number of votes will win, even if he obtains far short of a majority vote. In theory, if the votes were evenly divided someone could win with 25 per cent plus one vote. That result would leave almost 75 per cent of voters unhappy.

Some systems have attempted to address this problem by requiring a run-off election between the two highest candidates if no one gets a majority. This, of course, is time consuming and expensive. There is another voting system, however, that can get the same results instantly. It is called IRV voting, which stands for Instant Runoff Voting.

Under IRV, voters are asked to rank the candidates in order of preference. Then after the votes are counted, the person with the least number of first place votes is eliminated. The votes are then counted again, with the #2 choice being counted as #1 for all the people whose candidate was eliminated.

If this new vote produces a majority for any candidate the counting is over. If it doesn’t, the lowest finishing candidate is eliminated again and the process is repeated until a majority winner is finally found.

I would like my chances under this system, but obviously it is not possible to adopt it at this late stage. The system is in use in most of Australia and in Ireland as well as in a number of American cities. San Francisco, Berkeley and Burlington, VT are three that are already using it. Will Geneseo be next?

Without a system like IRV, and in the absence of any polls, voters are required to do their own private poll to try to figure which way the wind is blowing. Perhaps that is why this election has become such a subject of local conversation.

Is it too idealistic to just say “vote for the person you want to win, not the person you think will win?” You gotta believe!

CSEA to sit out Geneseo race

CSEA, the union that represents many state and local public employees in Livingston County has decided not to make an endorsement in this year’s hotly contested Geneseo Town Supervisor’s race. Only two of the four candidates, incumbent Wes Kennison and Republican Will Wadsworth, returned CSEA’s questionaire and participated in interviews with the union.

Both Bob Wilcox and I neglected to get the questionaire back in time and therefore were not scheduled for an interview. There was a fairly short response time and  we both just lost track of it.

Four years ago, the union endorsed incumbent Wes Kennison in his bid for a second term. This time around, however, Kennison’s loss of the Democratic Party nomination and acceptance of a spot on the Conservative party line may have hurt him.

The union did endorse Democrat Ron Niedermaier in his challenge to Groveland Supervisor and Chairman of the Livingston County Board of Supervisors  Jim Merrick. The union also took out a large ad in this week’s LC News with a chart showing which candidates for Supervisor returned the questionaires and participated in the interviews. The ad makes no mention of any endorsements, but those were received in a fax from the union’s Buffalo office.

Bond….Julian Bond

Last night civil rights leader Julian Bond made his second appearance at SUNY Geneseo. His first was a speech he gave in 1968. Last night he gave the Wadsworth Lecture to a packed house at Wadsworth Auditorium.

One of the benefits of being the son of the founders of the Wadsworth Lecture is I get to have dinner with the speakers and get to know them on a more informal basis. I found Mr. Bond to be rather reserved and dignified in person. His quiet personality changed quite a bit, however, when he got on stage and uncorked a stemwinding speech filled with red meat for the more liberal members of the audience.

Bond’s tendency to bash Republicans has caused controversy for his organization. Wikipedia reports that in 2004 the IRS launched an investigation of the NAACP’s tax-exempt status because of a speech Bond gave critical of the Bush administration. The investigation concluded in 2006 with the finding that Bond had not violated the regulations.

Nevertheless, Bond was careful when asked by an audience member if he would endorse any candidate for President. “The NAACP is a non-partisan organization,” he intoned. “We do not support any political candidates.” He then allowed as how his wife, however, would be sending all of “his” money to Barack Obama!

Kind of sounds like the position of PDDG, which claims to be a non-political organization so that we don’t have to file financial disclosure statements and reveal our donors. We, however, prove our non-partisan position by having key members of our leadership supporting different candidates for supervisor!

That is why I was a little annoyed by a front-page headline in today’s LC News charging that PDDG had been involved in ambushing the incumbent candidates at last week’s forum. While there may have been members of PDDG involved in submitting some of the questions, I had nothing to do with it, and any members that did, were surely acting on their own or as part of a major party political operation, not for PDDG.

I was also annoyed that although the News found room for 12 political letters this week, many of which were longer than the usual 400 word limit, including one from each of the three Democratic candidates, they could not find room for the one letter actually supporting me that was submitted by Betsy O’ Mara. Luckily, however, I have a well-read web site and I will be posting Betsy’s letter there.

BTW The only candidate who took advantage of my invitation in yesterday’s blog to come to the house last night for a post-lecture reception was Wes. It pays to read Happy Trails!

Early returns

Old habits die hard, and so last night I couldn’t resist the urge to go watch the votes be counted at the Wadsworth Library. I was surprised and honored to learn that I was one of ten people to receive a write-in vote for the library board. (No, it wasn’t me!)

That left me just 368 votes behind Kathleen Houston who led all 7 candidates with 369 votes. Other notables receiving one write-in each were Buzzo and Hop Sing. That’s pretty rarified air!

In the main event, both the propositions to convert to a school library district and adopt a first-year budget of $237K passed comfortably, getting about 70 per cent approval. The total of almost 500 votes cast was surprisingly large for a generally miserable rainy day.

Political pundits suggest that this may foretell a large turn-out in the upcoming town elections, but I have my doubts. Four years ago, exactly 2,000 people vote in the Kennison-Gallivan race. Despite nine candidates and all the hoopla, I would be surprised to see that number increase by more than 15 per cent. What do you think?

You will get your chance to predict the outcome of both races in the Great Geneseo Election Contest sponsored by the Geneseo Store. The person who correctly predicts the order of finish of all 9 candidates in both races will get a $100 gift certificate.

Entry forms can be found in this week’s LC News, but the ballots must be cast in the store, with a limit of one entry per person. For a tiebreaker, you will also need to predict the percentage of the vote garnered by the winning supervisor candidate to the nearest 1/10 of one percent.

The reason I have a scoop on this story is that Genesee Graphics was retained to design the ad. I pointed out to owner Neal Moynihan that the entry forms would probably be the best available poll on this race, but he has pledged to keep all entries confidential and not tabulate them until after the election.

Don’t forget that tonight is the Wadsworth lecture by civil rights leader Julian Bond. It will be at 8 pm at Wadsworth Auditorium with a reception to follow at Hartford House. In the interest of fairness, I hereby invite any candidate that wishes, to come by the house. I have nothing to do with the invitations for that, so I have no idea who has or hasn’t been invited.

Again, this is intended to be a non-political evening and I promise that my opening remarks at the lecture will be short and non-partisan. Hope to see you there!