NOTE: The following relies on specific voter turnout data, obtained from the Columbia County Board of Elections, and reviewed in some detail in Part I of this article.
Victory, they say, has many fathers. A close victory has even more daddies—not to mention a long list of mommies, step-grandparents, loudmothed uncles, zany aunts, and other distant relations who suddenly come out of the woodwork, as if the winning candidate had just won the Powerball jackpot.
Whenever an election is decided by a small number of votes, almost anyone even marginally involved in the process may claim credit (or shoulder blame) for the outcome. Every move by the candidates, and every modest effort to deliver votes, can appear decisive. Swing 51 voters in a 100-vote race from one side to the other, and the outcome gets reversed.
The recent Hudson election is a perfect case in point. Bill Hallenbeck’s margin of victory over Nick Haddad was just 50 votes out of 1,700. (The true margin would likely have been shaved down even more, perhaps as low as 15 or 20 votes, had the Haddad campaign taken ballot challenges to court to prove a point about election fraud, rather than conceding gracefully.) Like all winners of close contests, Mayor Hallenbeck now can look forward to a line out his office door of partisans seeking favors—accompanied by reminders that the favor-seeker “won the election” for him. All and none of them will be right, since any minor factor arguably could be seen as winning (or losing) the race.
In addition to such claims, a host of theories are floating around: accusations of street money distributed to voters; the backstabbing of Haddad by certain prominent Democrats who had pledged their support; the deleterious effect of a contentious primary, the manhandling of infirm absentee votes; and more. Some rumors are more plausible than others, but it is difficult or even impossible to determine their validity. More to the point, it isn't necessary to test those theories to see the big picture of what happened.
Setting aside all these claims and theories, three more telling and relevant observations can be made based solely on the available data:
- A. Terrible Turnout. A lot less than half of registered voters participated in this Hudson election cycle. Put it another way: More people stayed home than voted. And it’s the first time that’s happened in memory, at least when there were two viable mayoral candidates. Nearly 20% fewer people voted this time than the last four contested elections. At least two reasonable explanations present themselves: either that people were unexcited about their choices, or felt their votes didn’t matter... or perhaps both. Either way, the historically low turnout is a strong indictment of both major political parties. Over the past few years, the Hudson gang of political insiders has been talking mainly among themselves, and treating the public like bystanders at best, nuisances at worst. A public alienated from the process will come to feel there is no point in participating.
- B. Downtown Disarray. In the 2nd and 4th Wards (euphemistically called “downtown” by some), turnout was even worse than the rest of the City, with only two out of every five registrants showing up to vote. Without strong participation by more elderly, committed absentee voters in Providence Hall and the Fireman’s Home, those numbers would have been even weaker. Hundreds of voters “downtown” went missing. Turnout was lowest in the 2nd Ward, which many assumed would make or break both candidates. Only 38% voted, and their vote was split very evenly between Hallenbeck and Haddad. Both the turnout and the results raise eyebrows, especially since the perception was that a host of political players—such as Bill Hughes, Linda Mussmann, Quintin Cross, Abdus Miah, George Dejesus, and more—were ostensibly working over voters in these two wards throughout Election Day. Again, there are at least two reasonable explanations: Either downtown voters have finally grown tired of being hustled to the polls by these operatives, or someone was actively telling people not to vote. Or, again, some combination of the two.
- C. It’s 5-2’s World; You’re Just Living In It. As noted in Part I of this piece, Hallenbeck’s 50-vote margin of victory would have been a 60-vote loss if not for his huge victory in a single election district, known as “5-2." 5-2 has less relation to Warren Street and "downtown" than any of the City’s six EDs. Geographically, demographically, and even architecturally, it has a lot more in common with Greenport than Hudson. While much of this campaign’s issues and activity centered around the rest of the City, this time around 5-2 determined Hudson’s fate for the next two years, with all sorts of cascading consequences.
These three points are adequate to explain the outcome. The actual data suggest a relatively simple take on the 2011 Hudson mayoral election: That both Hallenbeck and Haddad got the bare minimum number of votes they each would have received anyway, had neither campaigned at all. As it turned out, the money each spent on signs, bumper stickers and other campaign swag was largely irrelevant, as their final vote totals—877 and 824—represent their “natural” bases. Neither candidate, in victory, could have claimed a mandate from such a result—though of course that didn’t stop George Bush after the 2000 election. Missing on Election Day were those voters who needed to be motivated or convinced why their participation was important.
If both candidates were to examine the Board of Elections list of who voted, they both might be surprised and dismayed by the number of supporters who didn’t participate at all. With a little more effort, Haddad might have won, or Hallenbeck might have won by more. One hopes that both Democrats and Republicans (in particular, their party committees) are duly humbled by the big-picture message from the electorate: That voters just didn’t find this election as important as the players imagined themselves to be.
The next time around, one hopes that more people run for office, more people vote, clearer choices are offered, and a more resounding, positive message is sent.
ENDNOTE: For full disclosure, I wish to note here that I was closely involved with the Haddad campaign through the Democratic primary, leaving it shortly thereafter; I was not involved with the remainder of the campaign through Election Day. After those votes were cast, I was asked by Nick to provide technical assistance with the absentee ballots in terms of gathering data and serving as a poll-watcher.
