Recent mayoral election
As a former mathematics teacher who devoted time to teaching various methods for holding elections with more than two candidates, I was very interested in the results of the recent preliminary elections for mayor in Western Massachusetts.
In each of the mayoral elections in Springfield, Pittsfield, and Westfield the top two candidates garnered a combined total of approximately 90 percent of the total votes cast, while none of the other candidates received more than 6 percent.
Moreover, in each of these three cities the second place finisher out-polled the third place finisher by a margin of more than 250 percent of the latter’s votes. Clearly these elections accomplished their purpose of selecting the two most viable candidates to move on to the next round.
However, the results of the recent preliminary election in Greenfield revealed a dramatically different situation. Each of the three candidates received between 30 percent to 39 precent of the total votes cast, not far off from a three-way tie. In fact, a shift of 6 percent of the total votes cast from the first place candidate to the other two candidates could have reversed the order of finish.
From another perspective the second-place finisher beat the third place finisher in Greenfield by less than 6 percent of the latter’s votes in sharp contrast with the greater than 250 percent margin in the other three cities. Unlike its neighboring cities, it could be argued that Greenfield produced three viable candidates for mayor.
These results provide a textbook example of a situation in which the use of rank order ballots could have helped to clarify the voters’ preferences by incorporating their second place choices into the analysis. Although, even this enhanced method for voting has been shown to produce its own anomalies in some situations.
Roger Turton
Greenfield