Breaking down the 2011 election results for school board

The most interesting race in Tuesday’s election was for school board. With James Cannon and the write-in challenge to the incumbents, who knew what was going to happen?

But, when the votes were counted, neither Cannon nor the write-ins had enough to take a seat from the incumbents and their running mates. Here’s how the votes broke down by ward:

                          Ward
            ------------------------------
  Candidate    2    1    3    5    4 (all)

1  Cappucci 1470 1287 1344 1138  997  6236  |
2  Lebowitz 1462 1247 1267 1090  962  6028  |
3     Kubit 1315 1168 1191 1018  935  5627  | WIN SEAT
4   Goldman 1231 1204 1087  972  871  5365  |
5    Cooper 1115  933  919  861  808  4636  |

6    Cannon  922  786  852  738  676  3974 
7  Write-In  677  631  596  459  559  2922

8     (all) 8192 7256 7256 6276 5808 34788

I’ve ordered both the candidates and the wards so that those with the most votes come first. This ordering makes it easier see where the votes came from and went. Ward 2 placed the most votes, and Ward 4 the least. Of the candidates, Cappucci and Lebowitz received the most votes.

The challenge to the incumbents made a good showing, but still placed last in all five wards. Cannon’s strongest showing was in Ward 3, where receiving just 1% more of the ward’s votes would have been enough for him to break into the top 5.

If we divide the wards into districts, we can see that Cannon did better in many districts. Take a look at the graph below. In it, I’ve marked with red where Cannon broke into the top 5. (If you click on the graph, you can see a larger PDF version that's not impossible to read.)

Votes by district for Mt. Lebanon School Board.
The candidates and wards are in most-votes-first order.
Red shows where Cannon received enough votes to break into the top 5.
(Click to see larger, downloadable version.)

If you look closely at the graph above, I’ll bet you can spot some interesting patterns. Take a look, and let me know what stands out.

Early predictions for the school board election give Cannon 4-to-1 odds (Update 2)

Updated 2011-06-02 11:30 to clarify that, for the predictions, “cross-file” means “cross-file and then succeed in the primary to get both parties’ nominations.” —Tom

Updated 2011-06-02 18:13 to revise predictions after fixing a data-entry error that said Cooper had won both Democratic and Republican nominations in the primary. (He won only the first.) As a result of the change, the models give Cooper lower chances of winning a seat, with the difference being distributed to the other candidates and improving their chances. Cannon’s odds, for example, are now increased to 6-to-1 for winning a seat. —Tom


Let’s take a look at the recent primary election and see what it says about the race for the school board. This year, five seats are up for election, and six people are running for them. That means when the music stops playing, somebody is going to be left without a seat.

Of the candidates, three already have seats on the school board (Elaine Cappucci, Lawrence Lebowitz, and Edward Kubit), and three are newcomers (James E. Cannon, William Cooper, and Scott Goldman). Of the newcomers, the latter two have been endorsed by incumbents. Cannon, however, is running as a challenger to the current board’s direction. That makes him interesting.

Another thing that makes Cannon interesting is that he didn’t cross-file for an attempt to appear on both Republican and Democratic tickets. Politically savvy people have told me that this was a tactical mistake. Candidates who cross-file and then win both parties’ nominations in the primary are believed to get more votes in the general election. Passing up this bonus, then, could be costly.

How costly? Let’s find out.

Take a look at the following plot. It shows the outcomes of the 2007 and 2009 general elections for the school board. I’ve replaced votes with standardized scores that make the two elections more comparable.

Candidates who cross-filed and then won both parties’
nominations tended to do better in the general election.

Looking at these elections, the “cross-filing bonus” seems to be real. As a group, cross-filers who appeared on both tickets got about one standard deviation’s more votes than their single-ticket competitors. One standard deviation is a lot: most candidates weren’t separated from their neighboring rivals by that much.

So, given that Cannon didn’t cross-file, but also given his strong showing in the Republican primary, what can we say about his chances in the 2011 general election?

I’d say he’s got a pretty good shot. I created three simple statistical models based on the last two elections and used them to predict the outcome of the 2011 general election. All of them predict that Cappucci and Lebowitz are the most likely to win seats, that Cooper is the least likely, and that in between there’s effectively a three-way tie between Cannon, Goldman, and Kubit. All in all, I give Cannon 4-to-1 6-to-1 odds of winning a seat.

Here are the models’ predictions:

  Model M1Z                 Model M2Z                 Model M3Z

# candidate prob_elected    candidate prob_elected    candidate prob_elected
1  CAPPUCCI 99%              CAPPUCCI 99%              CAPPUCCI 99%
2  LEBOWITZ 99%              LEBOWITZ 98%              LEBOWITZ 99%
3    CANNON 86%                CANNON 94%                 KUBIT 86%
4   GOLDMAN 84%                 KUBIT 94%               GOLDMAN 86%
5     KUBIT 83%               GOLDMAN 94%                CANNON 86%
6    COOPER 49%                COOPER 22%                COOPER 44%

The percentage after each candidate’s name gives the predicted probability of that candidate winning a seat.

These predictions, as you might expect, shouldn’t be taken too seriously. They are based on models that, for obvious reasons, can’t account for chance and, for simplicity reasons, don’t try to account for anything but nomination status and performance in the primary election. And when a model predicts that something is 99% likely, we shouldn’t believe it; it’s way more than 1% likely that model itself is wrong. Perhaps most importantly, November is a long way off. There’s plenty of time for candidates to shake things up – or flame out.

Still, the models manage to explain most of the variation in the 2007 and 2009 elections, so they are likely to offer some insight into the upcoming general election. I think I’m safe in saying that Cannon’s got a pretty good shot of winning a seat.

What do you think about my models’ predictions? How do they compare to your own?

The results of the May 17, 2011, primary election

From the relevant Allegheny County elections page, here are the summary counts from last night’s Primary Election. For convenience, I have listed the candidates in order of descending votes:

       ********** (Republican) **********

School Director MT LEBANON       Votes     %
Vote For Not More Than  5
 James Edmund Cannon .  .  .  .  1,542   20.51
 Scott D. Goldman .  .  .  .  .  1,302   17.32
 Ed Kubit.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  1,300   17.29
 Elaine L. Cappucci  .  .  .  .  1,194   15.88
 Lawrence Mark Lebowitz .  .  .  1,099   14.62
 William L. Cooper.  .  .  .  .  1,014   13.49
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     67     .89
                                 
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 1   
Vote For Not More Than  1        
 Thomas Michael Brown.  .  .  .    320   91.95
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     28    8.05
                                 
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 3   
Vote For Not More Than  1        
 Joseph J. DeIuliis  .  .  .  .    318   61.15
 Elaine T. Gillen .  .  .  .  .    176   33.85
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     26    5.00
                                 
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 5   
Vote For Not More Than  1        
 William L. Hoon  .  .  .  .  .    244   90.04
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     27    9.96


       ********** (Democratic) **********

School Director MT LEBANON
Vote For Not More Than  5
 Elaine L. Cappucci  .  .  .  .  2,074   22.55
 Lawrence Mark Lebowitz .  .  .  2,034   22.11
 William L. Cooper.  .  .  .  .  1,795   19.52
 Ed Kubit.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  1,561   16.97
 Scott D. Goldman .  .  .  .  .  1,513   16.45
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    221    2.40
                                 
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 1   
Vote For Not More Than  1        
 John Bendel.  .  .  .  .  .  .    484   99.38
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      3     .62
                                 
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 3   
Vote For Not More Than  1        
 Kristen Linfante .  .  .  .  .    440   93.62
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     30    6.38
                                 
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 5   
Vote For Not More Than  1        
 Kelly Fraasch .  .  .  .  .  .    431   75.48
 George Jackson.  .  .  .  .  .    135   23.64
 WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      5     .88

ZIPskinny

I came across ZIPskinny tonight while perusing my normal list of blogs. It's a pretty interesting site that uses data from the 2000 Census.

They have a "What You Need To Know About This Site" section which states the following:

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information, errors and omissions can occur, and visitors are encouraged to use the actual Census site instead of this one for any serious research.

Additionally, we wish to point out that there are certain important limitations to the data presented here. Because many of the measurements are based on sample data, certain results may be skewed in some cases, especially when the ZIP code area in question represents a very small sample. Please bear in mind that ZIP codes are not uniform population units. They were invented for mail delivery, not population comparisons.

The site provides an interesting "first glance" at a ZIP Code area, but it should only be seen as that -- a first glance. It is not a substitute for the more thorough research you should do prior to making decisions about relocating to or conducting business in a particular location.

It's interesting to see some of the statistics that they provide about the ZIP codes of Mt. Lebanon. I've broken down all of our ZIPs in the following list:

• 15216
  
• 15226
  
• 15228
  
• 15234
  
• 15243