Giorgio: Why Don’t the Voters Care?

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Paul Giorgio, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Paul Giorgio

Last week we had a preliminary election in Worcester and only 11 Percent of the voters bothered to turn out. This is despite the fact that we have a contentious mayor’s race and a fistful of good new candidates challenging the incumbents.

Why are Worcester voters so lethargic when it comes to city elections? Has our professional manager form of government, where the mayor has no real power, caused this malaise? If it has, then the folks behind the Plan E movement some 70 years ago accomplished what they set out to do ~take politics out of politics.

The West Side counts

The sad fact is that in Worcester, the West Side votes, with almost 40 percent of the city vote coming from wards 1 & 9. That leaves the other 8 wards responsible for 60 percent and the turnout in these wards was only 6430. No matter what people running for office do, they can't change this simple fact of politics, those that vote vote. These voters even have a name; they are called super voters, by those who run campaigns. These are the people who get bombarded by direct mail pieces and those dreaded robo calls. These are the people who always vote. For example I have only missed voting once since I became eligible to vote.

Low turnout

The voter turnout last week was only 11 percent, only 10,300 people out of the 92,000 registered voters went to the polls last week. Maybe we can attribute some of this to the fact that primary Election Day was the day after Labor Day.

Of those that voted, 2022 voted in ward 1 and in ward 9 ,1848 people vote. Together those 2 wards accounted for almost 39 percent of the total vote cast. Even District 2 which had the only contested race for district councilor had a disappointing showing with less than 1600 taking ballots. Those four wards together accounted for approximately 55 percent of the city wide total. The worst voting precinct in the city was Ward 8, precinct 3 in which a paltry 50 voters turned out.

The only lesson politicians can learn from Tuesday is the one they knew all along. You need to pay attention to the West Side of Worcester. You can’t win an election, if you don’t do well in Wards 1 & 9. That may be the reason that all but one of the at large councilors live in those 2 wards. The only exception being Kate Toomey who resides in Ward 5.

Why doesn’t the inner city turnout?

We need to answer the question why the dismal turnout citywide but particularly in the inner city. District 4, which is basically Main South, and includes Wards 8 & 10, has the lowest turnout. There is a lower rate of home ownership in this district, so people don’t see property tax bills. Also, it is a minority majority district and there maybe some language barriers, although we have gone out of our way to address this issue.

So who comes out in a primary? We know it is the West Side, which is predominantly white and middle class. The property taxes are higher in those wards and the education level is too. They are an informed and engaged electorate.

Voters know the city is going in the right direction

Maybe the simple answer is, based on who turned out, that people think Worcester is going in the right direction and that we are making progress. This is despite an acrimonious campaign, where fear was the major issue.

We need to grow the voter turnout in November, which usually happens, but we need to insure that everyone votes, so that different voices are heard.

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Giorgio: Why Don’t the Voters Care?

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