To help Amherst citizens make informed voting decisions, inAmherst.com is providing a database of Town Meeting tally vote results going back to November of 2003. With it, you can check the voting records of individuals or whole precincts in order to see how your priorities match those of the people whom you are voting for and who are representing you.
A few words about tally votes. Most questions at Town Meeting are decided by voice vote. If the outcome of a voice vote is not clear, a standing vote is taken. In a standing vote, all the “Ayes” and all of the “Nos” are counted in turn, and those totals are recorded. This provides a record of the exact number of people voting for and against each question, but doesn't record the individual vote of each member. To do that requires a tally vote, which is taken upon the request of fifteen members. In a tally vote, members vote Yes or No using cards that are pre-printed with their names. Only tally votes record specifically how each member voted on an issue. They are the only vote that provides accountability. But they also take extra time, so it is not always considered worthwhile to do them. 2006 showed a marked increase in the number of tally votes called for, perhaps reflecting a new or renewed desire for accountable representation.
How the database works
First, choose the votes you want to see. You can choose to see all the votes in the database at the same time, choose just the ones from a specific Town Meeting, or you can select a single vote or multiple votes from the complete list.
Next, choose the members whose votes you want to see. You can choose all current and former members (going back to November of 2003,) or just current members, or you can choose various groups of members – by precinct, by candidacy for a particular office, etc. Or you can choose any and all of the members whose votes you want to see by selecting each one from a long list.
Next, you can choose how you would like the results sorted, which is pretty self-explanatory, except for one thing. One of the choices there is “rating.” What's a rating?
The rating choice only works if you rate the votes. This is an entirely optional step. If you wish to rate the votes, you will specify your preferred outcome – Yes or No – on any or all of the votes. Once you do that – just one time; it should retain your choices –the votes will appear highlighted in green when the vote aligns with your set preference, or in red when it is opposite your preference. If you choose to sort your results by rating, the ones that most closely align with your choices will be at the top, while those differing the most from your choices will be at the bottom. Note: only specify preferences for votes that you know a lot about. Without the context of the discussion, you can't really know if something is as good (or as bad!) as the summary makes it appear. And because so few votes become tally votes, you don't know what the alternatives were for any given option.
Some other things to know:
•· If you move your cursor over the vote number at the top of the results column, or over the blue details after the short vote summary, a box will pop up with more information about that particular vote, including whether it passed or failed. I have tried to summarize the description of these votes accurately. Please feel free to e-mail any corrections.
•· Unless you have chosen one of the “current members” options, your results may contain people who are not currently on Town Meeting. “Current” refers to today, not to people who were current members at the time of a specific vote.
•· Also, every name is linked to only one precinct, so anyone who changed precincts only shows up under his or her most recent one.
•· The goal is for this to be as user-friendly as possible. If you have questions or suggestions, please e-mail those along as well.
•· All data is from the Town Meeting section of the Town of Amherst web site. And if you just can't get enough Town Meeting information, check out my blog.
Ready to go? Enjoy the inAmherst.com Town Meeting Tally Vote Database.
-- Stephanie O'Keeffe
Comments
What a great tool! The town should have something like this on its website. I'm also going to point it out to the LWV. Thanks again for all your work.
Posted by: Chris Hoffmann | February 10, 2007 02:23 PM
Yeah...but now that Ken is gone, who will (loudly) advocate for Tally Votes?
Posted by: Larry Kelley | February 10, 2007 03:07 PM
Can't wait to try this out, Stephanie!
Posted by: Mary Carey | February 10, 2007 03:18 PM
I haven't looked at my votes yet -- but it's good to have a conscience in the form of a tally vote database. Too bad that we don't have a ballot notation beside every town meeting member seeking re-election as to how many sessions they attended over the term they served. For example: (34 attended out of 36 possible).
Posted by: Alan Root | February 10, 2007 03:44 PM
Clarity:) what a concept. Thanks so-ooo much for putting it together. I agree too that it should go on the town website.
Posted by: Dolly Jolly | February 10, 2007 03:46 PM
This is terrific. Thank you so much, Stephanie.
Eva
Posted by: Eva Schiffer | February 10, 2007 11:53 PM
Alan -
Ask and ye shall receive. We have added attendance figures to the results. All results now display attendance data, and you can choose to sort by attendance percentage in addition to the previous sort options.
Note that all attendance figures only go back through Spring 2002 - the town does not provide access to attendance figures before that point.
Posted by: Jonathan O'Keeffe | February 11, 2007 04:37 AM
This database is quite an impressive undertaking, and I hope it will evolve
into a helpful tool for the public. It's
a lot of fun to use, and I have learned a
lot playing with it this wekend (my statistics department colleagues could probably mine it for years ;-)!
But two cautionary comments:
1) As Stephanie observes, most Town meeting decisions -- often the most important -- are decided by voice votes. The tally votes generally come up when the vote is either very close, or very "controversial". And thus,
while they do provide some measure of accountability, what they measure is not
very robust (and may be more sensational
than substantive), though they are (in some sense, but see below) "all we have". For example, one of
the most important changes to Amherst's zoning bylaw, which is
progressive both for economic development and environmental sustainability, was passed last spring by a voice vote. This article approved higher densiity development in the
Town and village center business districts when mixed uses are present
(e.g. in multistory commercial/office/residential structures, as promoted by
the "new urbanist" architecture school).
The Select Board strongly advocated for
this article, I spoke on its behalf, and the Town Meeting vote was nearly unanimous. I think that reflects what best about Town Meeting - consensus building - and it reflects my record much more robustly than the handful of tally votes (somet of which are multiple votes on a single article),
where I may take a more nuanced or skeptical position than my colleagues.
(Since zoning changes require 2/3 votes, I take such decisions very seriously, so when I see flaws, I am inclined to vote to refer or re-work them, and get them right the next time). So if the record which tally votes
provide is to be a meaningful measure
of the performance of Town Meeting members, then I hope the greater
accessibility offered by this new tool
will thereby encourage the recording of *all* Town Meeting votes. Short of that, users of this new tool must take care interpreting the results (and in the
case of Ex-Officio members like myself,
should look to the more nuanced, in-depth discussions at Select Board meetings, or in our written reports to Town Meeting, which record our votes on almost all the articles).
2) The attendance records are very helpful, and I appreciate their quick inclusion by Jonathan (along with his
poetic reply to "he who sought" ;)! But
some care again needs to be taken in
the interpretation. Members may be absent for various reasons: personal health, illness of a family mamber, child care, school or business travel, sabbatical leaves, unexpected scheduling of Town Meeting sessions and so forth. Some of us in academia find ouselves organizing (or accepting invitations to) professional meetings years in advance, and only learn (much too late to do anything about it) that Town Meeting is scheduled for the same night when one is giving an invited address to the International Congress of Pure and Applied Politiicans (I found myself in that position more than once in June 2005
and had to miss a session or two of Town Meeting after my election to the
Select Board - I tried to persuade the Moderator and the Select Board chair to
hold more sessions in May, which had been scheduled but were then cancelled, to no avail). Aside from that,
after my election to the Select Board in 2005, I have missed no other Town Meeting sessons (and fewer Select Board meetings than any of my colleagues - I even turned down an all-expenses paid trip to Kyoto to lecture, so that I could be at the Select Board meeting which selected the new Town Manager - originally the slection process was to have finished weeks earlier, so I had tentatively accepted the invitation, but luckily I hadn't purchased the airline tickets ;).
But the year before I was elected to the
Select board, I was out of town (and occasionally, out of the country) on professional business associated with a
sabbatical leave; while I expected to
return before spring Town Meeting
commenced, an invitation to Germany
came up at the last moment, and I regrettably would up missing those Town Meeting sessions. At other times, however, I have travelled back and forth (at great expense, of both money and time) to accommodate professional meetings and Town Meetings (in fact, later in
June 2005 I participated in one pre-Town-Meeting Select Board meeting via
cell-phone, whiled delayed in highway-construction traffic coming back from a Gordon Conference in New Hampshire, and arrived just in time for the
quorum call at Town meeting itself - and I've seen others on the board, Ms.
Awad and Mr. Weiss particularly, juggle
their busy professional schedules with
the duties of public office). So I hope these attendence records (mine included :-) will be understood in this more thoughtful, nuanced context.
Keep up the good work,
Rob
Posted by: robert Kusner | February 11, 2007 10:22 PM
What a tremendous service. The voters owe you. Mr. Kusner's remarks, while thoughtful and informative, do, in total, have a flavor that suggests perhaps, "he doth protest too much".
Posted by: John Coull | February 12, 2007 11:19 AM
This is what I would do after each town meeting (just for that current town meeting.) Now you have done what we all needed. Thank you Stephanie
Posted by: H.Oldham Brooks | February 12, 2007 11:24 AM
Kusner is no lady, and
Coull is no gentleman.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 12, 2007 05:15 PM
Excuses, excuses... Mr Kusner has not been to a town meeting in almost 2 years (Spring of 2005). But, that is town meeting for you - show up if you feel like it.
Posted by: Bob Taxpayer | February 15, 2007 03:00 PM
Great work! Thanks Stephanie and Jonathan. This is a wonderful tool.
Posted by: Carol Sharick | February 17, 2007 09:03 AM