Election Results Analysis

Congratulations to Daniel Bashore, Council Member Elect in SLP Ward 1. Daniel was endorsed by Margaret Rog, as well as other city leaders, and will be a great leader for SLP.

One of the many (many) benefits of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is that we get more information from the results than we otherwise would in a non-ranked choice election. My analysis and pontification is below.

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Here are the results from the three rounds of ranked choice voting (provided by the city of SLP).

Council member ward 1

Round 1.

Candidate	Number of votes	Percent of votes
Jerry Peterson	804	31.2%
Sarah M. Steffen	654	25.4%
Daniel Bashore	1,105	43.0%
Undeclared write-in (UWI)	5	0.2%
Overvote	0	0.0%
Undervote	5	0.2%
Total votes continuing	2,573
Total votes cast for this office	2,573
Totally blank	39
Partially defective	0
Exhausted ballots	0
Total ballots cast	2,612

Threshold = 1,287

*Threshold = [(Total votes cast)/(Seats to be elected + 1)] + 1

Daniel Bashore received the most votes (1,105), but he did not have more than the threshold (1,287) to be declared the winner. Overvotes, undervotes and undeclared write-ins (UWI) will be eliminated in the next round of counting. The next highest choices on those ballots will be added to the totals of the remaining candidates.

Round 2.

Candidate	Number of votes	Percent of votes
Jerry Peterson	808	31.5%
Sarah M. Steffen	654	25.5%
Daniel Bashore	1,106	43.0%
Undeclared write-in (UWI)	ELIMINATED	0.0%
Overvote	ELIMINATED	0.0%
Undervote	ELIMINATED	0.0%
Total votes continuing	2,568
Total votes cast for this office	2,573
Totally blank	39
Partially defective	0
Exhausted ballots	5
Total ballots cast	2,612

Threshold = 1,287

*Threshold = [(Total votes cast)/(Seats to be elected + 1)] + 1

Daniel Bashore received the most votes (1,106), but he did not have more than the threshold (1,287) to be declared the winner. Sarah Steffen will be eliminated in the next round of counting. The next highest choices on those ballots will be added to the totals of the remaining candidates.

Round 3.

Council member ward 1

Candidate	Number of votes	Percent of votes
Jerry Peterson	935	38.4%
Sarah M. Steffen	ELIMINATED	0.0%
Daniel Bashore	1,498	61.6%
Undeclared write-in (UWI)	ELIMINATED	0.0%
Overvote	ELIMINATED	0.0%
Undervote	ELIMINATED	0.0%
Total votes continuing	2,433
Total votes cast for this office	2,573
Totally blank	39
Partially defective	0
Exhausted ballots	140
Total ballots cast	2,612

Threshold = 1,287

*Threshold = [(Total votes cast)/(Seats to be elected + 1)] + 1

Daniel Bashore received the most votes (1,498), which was more than the threshold (1,287). Daniel Bashore is declared the winner in this contest.

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Analysis and Pontification

The wonderful thing about this type of election is that I can deduce who my voters ranked second, as I was eliminated in the final round. This helps me understand the voter profile of the people who ranked me first.

In the third round, Jerry gained 127 of my original votes. This means that 127 (19%) of my original voters ranked Jerry second. In the same round, Daniel gained 392 of my original votes. This means that 392 (60%) of my original voters ranked Daniel second, which I encouraged them to do leading up to the election. Arguably, some of these people would not have come out to vote if I was not on the ballot, and in this way my campaign ultimately helped Daniel win this office.

In this round, 135 people did not select a second choice candidate. This means that 135 (21%) of my original voters did not choose a second choice in this ranked choice election.

This last group of voters is of the most interest to me. They may have been enthusiastic Sarah voters who would not have voted at all it I had not run for office. They may primarily have been at the polls to vote for School Board and just added me on for City Council. They may not have felt comfortable with rank choice voting at all. They may have disliked the other two candidates on the ballot, or felt uninformed about them. If you are one of these voters, I would love to hear from you!

For additional context, here are the results from 2021 and 2017 (before RCV was introduced in 2019). In 2021, Margaret Rog ran unopposed and only 895 votes were cast for the office in Ward 1. In 2017, Margaret Rog and Brian Shekleton had already defeated two other candidates in the primary to make it to the general election. 2,182 votes were counted in the 2017 general election in Ward 1. This year’s 2,573 votes for this office is another indication of the power of RCV. More choices, more voices.

Additional information, including the screenshots below, is available in the Nov 10 City Council Packet.

In the table above, I was excited to see that I has the second-most first-choice votes (after Daniel) in both Precincts 2 and 3. In Precinct 1, Jerry actually had the most first-choice votes, followed by Daniel and then me.

Note that Ward 1 had the greatest number of total voters of any SLP Ward this year, with 2,612 voters. Ward 1, Precinct 1, had a large percentage of Absentee Voting (which includes early voting and voting by mail), with 43% of voters electing to use absentee voting.

Thank you so much for voting this year. You make our democracy stronger!

Best,

Sarah

Sarah Steffen and Jeanne Massey