Low Turnout Not Hopeful

Every city has people moving out. Lewisville has grown over the past decade, as have most cities in Texas. What are you trying to say?

Before you answer, I recommend you look at the 2010 Census for a cursory fact or two.

The fact is that there is resident turnover, but who is replacing the residents that leave, and do they vote?

Lewisville is getting poorer. Look at the subsidized lunch rate at the local schools- over 90% of Central Elementary students get free lunch because their families are classified as economically disadvantaged.

Poor people do not regularly vote, (except African Americans, who do tend to vote).

Lewisville is becoming a bi-polar, transient, rental with an odd mix of regular middle class neighborhoods and much poorer areas. Renters vote much less than homeowners. Homeowners are generally more active political participants than renters and they represent a far larger voting block than renters. In particular, homeowners with mortgages are found to be the most politically active housing group and they represent the single largest voting block among the housing groups. This leaves the East side under represented. What is next, single member districts like Irving?

The proportion of people who rent homes has a direct, negative relationship with the level voting.

The bureaucratic tasks required to vote are a greater impediment for some groups than for others. This observation applies to the impediments to registration far more than those to voting itself.

Generally speaking, people residing in more expensive houses are more likely to vote than people in less expensive homes.

Lewisville has a large Hispanic population, but does not elect local Hispanics to office.

Why? Attorney Mike Daniel said, “The growth of the Hispanic population (in the Dallas area) is significantly noncitizens and noncitizens of non-voting age.”

Yes, Lewisville is growing. But, more importantly, what are we growing into? What kind of city are we becoming?

http://www.city-data.com/income/income-Lewisville-Texas.html#b

For some fascinating maps regarding income. You'll find that 'Lewisville' as a whole isn't doing too shabby- and not just because of Castle Hills. It is interesting that parts of the east side are doing worse, but is that simply age of properties and type? How much can you really expect to get for a 1950's or 60's tract home? That also drives income levels.

I don't know if you can say Lewisville is getting poorer based on a free AND reduced price lunch program that includes up to 185% of the poverty level plus anyone receiving temporary assistance or food stamps (think divorcees).

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/legisl ... _school_lunch_program.htm

You might be able to say there are more renters, but again we would have to look at longitudinal data, not anecdotes.

Great post. I <3 data!

It also seems like the kinds of trends discussed - renters, school lunch, income levels - aren't very useful without a benchmark. On all of these there is an economic context to consider. For example, renting - just about every day I see some article about how more people are renting now than in decades past as a result of the housing crisis and also a general expectation that this trend is here to stay. So the relevant question is whether Lewisville's increase, in any, in renters versus owners is more than, less than or the same as this trend.

More on data and hopefully back on point, it looks to me like Lewisville city council elections are trending to have a turn out of around 90% of the last set of regular elections. It's low and it's down somewhat from last year, but it's roughly going to be about 1000 people voting in early voting.

Source: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/aeis/index.html

"Economically Disadvantaged: The percent of economically disadvantaged students is calculated as the sum of the students coded as eligible for free or reduced-price lunch or eligible for other public assistance, divided by the total number of students."

These Lewisville Schools went from 26% economically disadvantaged students to 60% in the 10 year period from 1999 to 2009. So, in 10 years, these schools changed to a majority of disadvantaged students.



Campus 1999 2009 Difference
Central 52% 92% +39%
College Street 23% 55% +32%
Lakeland 32% 83% +51%
Degan 11% 36% +25%
Lewisville HS 9% 40% +31%
Delay 39% 86% +47%
Huffines 14% 38% +25%
Average 26% 61% +39%

The LISD district, as a whole, had 9.3% economically disadvantaged students in 1999 and has a 25.6% rate in 2009.

These are profound economic changes. This explains the reason for the growth in payday loan and car title lending places. These businesses know their market and tend to cluster around poor populations.

Am a registered voter and have lived in Lewisville for over 22 years. Both my husband and I voted on Saturday.
We have no intent of moving to 'greener pastures'.

I would like to know where exactly greener pastures are located at?? (edited this question)......

Other than listening to various candidates over the last years who have made this unsubstantiated claim over and over, do you have even the tiniest scintilla of proof for this?

From 2000 to 2010, Lewisville's population increased by 22.6%. So the idea of "Migration out of Lewisville" is absurd.

But let's take your "majority of voters who actually get out and vote" (thanks for clarifying what "voter" means, by the way) "have moved onto greener pastures (other cities).”

These are the numbers of people who voted in May (city/ISD) elections who are still registered in Lewisville:

• 2008: 1,340 voters


• 2009: 2,023 voters


• 2010: 2,272 voters


• 2011: 2,088 voters

Going back as far as 2008, there were 1,398 voters in that election, meaning that only 58 voters have either moved out of Lewisville (or died) since that election. In other words, you’re full of it.

A note to anyone reading this: the next time someone tells you there is some kind of movement to leave Lewisville, or that “all” their neighbors have moved, or that someone was told by someone else that they were moving out because they’re fed up, or whatever else, tell them off. I’m tired of hearing these worthless anecdotes from political candidates at every forum, desperately trying to feed off the fear that the city is going to the dogs.

Some people just want to believe the worst, I suppose.
-BC

There are people moving out of Lewisville for various reasons. Maybe some are fed up or want their kids to attend different schools. My personal thought is that North Texas is pretty transient. Companies may move jobs to another city. People may want to move to be closer to aging parents. There are many reasons people move and, yes, all of the neighbors that were in our neighborhood 15 years ago have moved away. However, there are people moving in that have made the area grow. In 1995, we moved to Lewisville and the population was around 45,000. Now, in 2012, the population is >90,000. That shows that candidates' arguments about people running from Lewisville is wrong...the city has approximately doubled in size in 16 years. The city and school district have done well to keep up with that fast paced growth but that growth could be another reason why some people move too...they want to live in a smaller, more rural area than what Lewisville is now.

Brandon,
In my neighborhood, I know of 8 families in one block who have left. The houses on either side of me are now rentals. So, yeah, people are still there, but they are not homeowners. Sorry you feel they are "worthless anecdotes" but to my family this is very real.

Renters can still vote if they registered though.

I'd like to see the stats of high school grads voting...I am seeing a lot more students should be voting...I would like High School students to be forced to vote as a project/homework assignment. they don't have to say who they voted for if they don't but I would like to see more young people turn out to vote

The issue with your idea is that you have to be 18 and register to vote in time to qualify for an election. My son will be 18 and a senior next year and is already looking forward to casting his first vote in a presidential election. However, he has friends that won't turn 18 until the summer after the presidential election. They do mock elections at the school and that is about all you could require.

This is a good place to note that under state law, all high schools must have a deputy voter registrar. If a student wants to register to vote, they should go to the office and ask for their voter registrar. They can either fill out the card right there and submit it to the registrar, or they can take it home and mail it back.

For Lewisville ISD, here are the contacts who are Deputy Voter Registrars:
Lewisville High School, Allison Stamey, Teacher/student Council Sponsor
Hebron High School, Cindy Lillis, Secretary
The Colony High School, Carmen White, Secretary
Marcus High School, Carolee Byleveld and Teresa Bauer, Registrars
Flower Mound High School, Joe Brackett, Assistant Principal

did not know that. great info. i have done voter registration drives at my local high school but was never informed that there already was a deputy registrar there. am going to pass this on. thanks, November is just around the corner

here is some info that most people do not know. you can register if you are 17 yrs and 10 months old. this allows people who will be 18 on election day to register in time to meet the registration deadline. always a good idea to keep voter registration cards in your home if you have teenagers. you can give them out as long as you do not take possession of them after they are filled out. have them walk to the mailbox and mail it ASAP. if you take possession of them, you will need to be a deputy registrar.

Some countries try to force their citizens to vote (I believe Australia is one). In the US we don't, and I don't think forcing high school students to vote is a positive way to encourage them to do so. Voting is a privilege (and a for me a responsibility I take seriously). In this country, it's a citizens' personal decision and right to vote or not to vote. I sure wouldn't change this.

I personally like the idea of universal registration, connected to a federally-issued ID card. The ID card would take the place of other government IDs, and be endorsed by your state with drivers license or other info. The card would clearly state on it whether the person is a citizen, and would automatically tie in to voter registration. The address on the card is your voting address.

Of course there are religious fanatics who think national ID is evil, but I think they need to get over it.

with the way our society is so mobile it only makes sense. i used to be scared of Big Brother but the way i see it...the Biggest Brother of them all, my insurance company, already has all of my personal information.

The city website always posts voting information prior to municipal elections. This was posted on the City website back in April:

http://www.cityoflewisville.com/wcmsi ... ly+voting+begins+April+30

Denton County also posts information about all elections in the county, including this weekend's local elections and the party primaries being held later this month. You can find it here:

http://elections.dentoncounty.com/go.asp?Dept=82

My suggestion is to bookmark the city and county websites and go there anytime you need information about an upcoming election. Works very time.

Thanks for jumping in.

Of course, neither the City nor the County or school district can or will offer any sort of candidate interviews, background info, discussion or recommendations. We're one-stop shopping for the local stuff.

But agreed, and totally recommend bookmarking Denton County Elections, because any changes to schedules, locations, or ballots will be there almost immediately, and we often only will list LOCAL polling places. Speaking of which, I need to get on the stick and get election day locations posted.

We would see much higher voter turnout if we could just have a little controversy in town. Flower Mound always has the gas well and development controversies, and those get thousands of people out to vote every year.

I think the best thing for voter turnout would be to put a smoking ban on the ballot next May. I have been told (but do not know personally) that the best voter turnout in recent history was when the wet/dry issue was on the ballot. We should ask the city council members to put it on the ballot next year.

We also have to do something to make up for not having many homeowner associations in Lewisville. There is no way to reach whole neighborhoods with one blast email as they do in newer cities that have numerous homeowner associations.