Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

November 26, 2023

Voter Success and Number of Candidates – Cambridge Municipal Elections

Filed under: City Council,elections,School Committee — Tags: , , , , , — Robert Winters @ 8:00 am

Voter Success in Cambridge Elections

The table below indicates the percentage of ballots for which the #1 ranked candidate was elected; the percentage of ballots for which the #1 or #2 ranked candidate was elected; and the percentage of ballots for which the #1, #2, or #3 ranked candidate was elected. (updated Nov 26, 2023 from Nov 2017 original posting)

Voter Success in Cambridge Elections
Election elect candidates valid invalid total
ballots		 Quota Pct #1
elected		 Pct #1 or #2
elected		 Pct #1, #2,
or #3 elected		 Pct none
elected		 Pct
blank
1997 Council 9 19 16879 350 17229 1688 88.7 96.2 97.6 1.6 0.3
1999 Council 9 24 18777 384 19161 1878 76.5 92.5 95.5 3.0 0.5
2001 Council 9 19 17126 562 17688 1713 83.8 94.0 96.2 2.8 1.1
2003 Council 9 20 20080 878 20958 2009 72.7 87.0 91.0 6.7 2.0
2005 Council 9 18 16070 132 16202 1608 78.7 93.4 96.1 2.6 0.5
2007 Council 9 16 13633 88 13721 1364 79.3 93.2 96.0 2.9 0.4
2009 Council 9 21 15995 118 16073 1596 75.1 90.9 94.1 4.3 0.6
2011 Council 9 18 15845 126 15971 1585 77.8 92.6 95.5 3.3 0.5
2013 Council 9 25 17743 103 17846 1775 68.6 87.8 93.0 4.9 0.4
2015 Council 9 23 17854 105 17959 1786 71.7 90.4 94.8 3.3 0.3
2017 Council 9 26 22524 72 22596 2253 68.7 87.0 92.8 4.7 0.2
2019 Council 9 22 21239 85 21324 2124 70.5 89.4 95.4 2.2 0.2
2021 Council 9 19 21814 260 22074 2182 75.1 91.2 95.4 2.5 0.8
2023 Council 9 24 23339 173 23512 2334 72.2 88.4 94.3 2.2 0.3
Election elect candidates valid invalid total
ballots		 Quota Pct #1
elected		 Pct #1 or #2
elected		 Pct #1, #2,
or #3 elected		 Pct none
elected		 Pct
blank
1997 School 6 8 16386 285 16671 2341 83.3 96.4 97.6 2.4 0.1
1999 School 6 13 17961 307 18268 2566 76.0 91.1 94.4 4.7 0.1
2001 School 6 10 16489 1160 17649 2360 76.2 90.5 92.6 7.1 4.8
2003 School 6 8 18698 2210 20908 2672 81.9 89.7 90.0 10.0 8.8
2005 School 6 8 15470 719 16189 2211 77.4 90.6 93.1 6.9 4.2
2007 School 6 9 13276 433 13709 1897 77.0 91.2 92.7 7.1 3.0
2009 School 6 9 15423 549 15972 2204 72.6 90.1 91.6 8.4 3.3
2011 School 6 11 15290 614 15904 2185 77.6 90.3 92.2 6.9 3.6
2013 School 6 9 16592 1128 17720 2371 80.9 90.0 91.2 8.5 6.2
2015 School 6 11 16797 1062 17859 2400 69.2 84.7 88.0 11.1 5.7
2017 School 6 12 20708 1744 22452 2959 67.2 81.5 85.2 13.3 7.7
2019 School 6 11 19425 1712 21137 2776 69.9 84.8 87.8 11.6 8.1
2021 School 6 9 20017 1824 21841 2860 75.5 87.0 89.6 9.9 8.0
2023 School 6 11 21255 1837 23092 3037 66.1 84.1 87.8 11.6 7.5

Note: Almost all of the invalid ballots were blank ballots. It’s common that some voters will vote only the City Council ballot and cast a blank School Committee ballot.

Number of Candidates

Here’s the whole history of the number of candidates going back to 1941 (CC for City Council and SC for School Committee).
Any significant write-in candidates are included in the totals. (updated from Oct 2017 original posting)

Number of candidates in Cambridge municipal elections: 1941-present
Year CC SC     Year CC SC     Year CC SC     Year CC SC     Year CC SC
1941 83 28   1961 23 16   1981 25 13   2001 19 10   2021 19 9
1943 39 19   1963 22 17   1983 16 16   2003 20 8   2023 24 11
1945 37 14   1965 24 13   1985 22 9   2005 18 8        
1947 34 18   1967 20 18   1987 19 13   2007 16 9        
1949 40 16   1969 26 14   1989 28 8   2009 21 9        
1951 27 15   1971 36 22   1991 19 12   2011 18 11        
1953 35 18   1973 34 26   1993 29 11   2013 25 9        
1955 41 19   1975 25 16   1995 19 11   2015 23 11        
1957 35 26   1977 24 10   1997 20 8   2017 26 12        
1959 31 21   1979 23 12   1999 24 13   2019 22 11        

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress