We’ve heard the complaint over and over again: There’s not enough voter participation in Lewisville. In short, they’re right, but perhaps not in the way that they think. In truth, voter turnout in Lewisville has remained fairly consistent since 2009, when it jumped up by 50%:
Year
Lewisville Voters
Percent Change
2007
1,220
2008
1,398
+14.6%
2009
2,099
+50%
2010
2,114
+2%
2011
2,048
-3%
2012
2,035
-.6%
It’s important to remember that the purpose of voter participation is to make society better through democratic participation, not just to have more voters. Higher turnout does not always result in better government, because the factors that affect that rate are often beyond our range of control. Some races are more competitive, and thus attract a higher number of voters. New voters, many of whom may not return the next year, are often activated by specific issues. Setting purely quantitative goals without looking at the the specific circumstances surrounding an election isn’t practical. Short of putting some kind of alcohol ordinance on the ballot every year, there aren’t many ways to generate a spike in voter turnout. To increase overall participation, not just voting, we need to address some underlying issues:
Most voters participate because they feel the outcome will personally affect them. People are not apathetic about things like property tax rates and schools. People who don’t vote are not the source of the problem. If they don’t vote, odds are it’s because they’re simply unaware of what’s going on. Regardless of whether that’s their fault or not, the era of labeling nonvoters as lazy, troglodytic boobs should have been over long ago. So too should be the practice of preaching voter participation to those who already participate or of setting up arbitrary “competitions” between Lewisville and other cities. None of these methods generate a recognizable increase in voter turnout. We don’t vote in a national presidential election because we were shamed into doing it or because we’re aiming for a higher voter turnout than Canada’s. There’s no reason to think this wouldn’t apply to local elections either.
Simply saying “this affects you, go vote” is not enough. Take the time to explain how city and school district policies affect us. This means educating and promoting participation year-round, not just during election season. I’ve heard the arbitrary figures on “political memory” (whatever that means), but if you treat people like goldfish, don’t be surprised if that’s how they act.
You will have to pick a candidate and support him or her publicly. The “I don’t care how you vote, just vote!” approach sends an awkward message to voters, as if it doesn’t really matter who you vote for. This begs the question “If it doesn’t matter, then why vote?” It’s also important to understand that the absence of a public endorsement is not the same thing as true impartiality. The former is just a disingenuous way of imitating the latter.
This public support should include donating to campaigns. No, we don’t need the kind of spending free-for-alls that we’ve seen in other cities in the area. But consider this: In 2011, seven candidates competed for three open spots on the Lewisville City Council in two elections plus a runoff. Not counting in-kind donations or self-financing, there were only about 79 donors to candidates last year. Unless you want to spend taxpayer dollars for the city to advertise elections, the main promoters for elections will always be the candidates themselves, and that promotion is not free. In a local election, a little cash can go a long way. Almost all campaign donations in local elections typically go towards some kind of publicity expense, which in turn lead to more educated voters.
Generally speaking, a consistently high voter turnout is a positive indicator for a society. It’s also true that when a small minority speaks for everyone, it can often result in political disaster. But increasing turnout is not a miracle cure for political ailments and it should not be the ultimate goal; rather, a more educated populace is more likely to be involved in local political affairs, which in turn will increase voter participation and thus make our community a better place to live.
Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
I'm afraid this piece isn't up to your usual standard. Parts of it sound quite patronizing, perhaps even elitist. "Simply saying “this affects you, go vote” is not enough.", for example. Getting someone to go vote is the first and most difficult step in forming a knowledgeable voter. I know when I made my first vote for Barry Goldwater I had very different values than today. Mostly because my high school American Government teacher told me voting was a rite of passage.
During the two canvasses I made of my immediate neighborhood during the recent election I heard mostly agreement about the candidates I was supporting, but the 30 to 45 minute effort to go to the Annex and vote was overcome by apathy, it exhausted me.
Please don't take offense at my opinion, but you have written much better, and certainly much more definitively on many previous occasions.
Your closing paragraph should have been your main point.
I think four things drive the low turnout in Lewisville for municipal elections:
1. Lack of Controversy and Pain We have it pretty good here in Lewisville: Low tax rates, low debt, vibrant business environment, and excellent city services. The water and sewer always work, the garbage gets picked up, and police and fire come when you need them. It's exceedingly rare to have a scandal. We have nice city amenities. That's not to say everyone is happy about everything, but the vast majority are well satisfied.
2. Transient population Something like half of our population live in apartments. They have no major investment here, so they care more about what amenities their complex provides. Many (but not all) of these folks consider themselves to be residents of the DFW Metroplex, and do not have much attachment to the community.
3. Live and let live population People who moved to Lewisville did so knowing that we don't live under the whim of homeowners associations and their petty tyrants. Our people just feel less inclined to try to use the government to control what their neighbors do.
4. May elections and 3 year terms Our elections are in May, so we don't have to piggyback off hyper-polarized partisan November elections. This means the folks who do vote are engaged on local issues, and not just responding to bullshit. If we were to move it to November, we would have more voters, but probably 4 out of 5 would have no clue who to vote for, and our Council candidates would have a tough time competing for voter attention. Since our Council members have 3 year terms (unlike our neighbor to the West) we have more continuity in government. We're not going to have one election come along and completely shift the balance of power from one extreme to the other, since only 1/3rd of the Council is generally up for election at any given time. I think this makes it harder for special interests to come along thinking they'll buy an election. It's less incentive to run slates of candidates.
I would agree that the apathy is more than it should be, and I hope that we can get people engaged. But I want to make sure they're engaged with the facts, and know what really matters. The last thing I would want is increased voter turnout at the expense of good, consistent, practical government.
Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
One photograph, two sentences, an elegant expression, thank you.
I still have issues with the implied exclusivity in Runfellow's original piece, and with our esteemed editor's stated fear of uneducated voters causing unpleasant election results. I can feel my Sam Rayburn Populist parents rotating in their graves with the use of such an air of superiority.
To me, this anti-progressive attitude can result in the election of the ventriloquist Gorena and his current "dummy". Did anyone happen to notice Mr. Ferguson's winning margin was much slimmer? Hill's cadre is not growing, apathy is overwhelming his opposition.
I have spent time on both sides of the tracks, most people are good and decent, so let them become knowledgeable thru voting. The implication that their lack of familiarity with the issues makes them lesser is not what the republic I was taught about meant in the Constitution.
By the way, is the above photo one of former candidate Mike McCary's rentals? His neighbor told me he has 9 rentals in Lewisville, some of them rented to undocumented visitors (This neighbor is a documented immigrant.).
Poster
Thread
Anonymous
Posted: 2012/5/28 0:42 Updated: 2012/5/28 7:38
Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
No, that is NOT one of McCary's rentals. He actually limits the number of cars that can be parked in the driveway to the number of bedrooms in the house. No cars are to be parked in the yard or street. He actually has a pretty tight lease agreement. I wish all landlords in Lewisville took that much effort into their properties.
Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
I'm actually looking at a couple of properties out of area and have wondered about this myself.
At the risk of thread-jacking, can a private lease really keep someone from doing something on public property (parking on the street)?
Poster
Thread
Anonymous
Posted: 2012/5/28 10:33 Updated: 2012/5/28 11:06
Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
I am not a lawyer but I would imagine that you can put stipulations in a lease that are tighter than city laws but not looser than city laws. You can then break the lease and kick your tenant out if they break the stipulations in your lease.
Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
I recently had to call Code Enforcement, 972-219-3486, because a neighbor who already had 6 cars (only 4 drivers in the house) bought a 24 foot cabin cruiser and had either parked it on the street or on his backyard. Ordinance Section 15-134 states any vehicle must be parked on an improved surface at least 1 foot wider than the vehicle. As far as street parking a vehicle must not be parked in 1 place for more than 48 hours, Section 15-129. Also a vehicle on a trailer can not be parked on a public street at all unless it is attached to an operational mobile vehicle. Violations concerning street parking will be dealt with by our Police Department, those on private property will be resolved by Code Enforcement.
Can you tell retirement is wearing on me?
Poster
Thread
Anonymous
Posted: 2012/5/28 10:31 Updated: 2012/5/28 11:06
Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
There is actually an city ordinance in Lewisville that doesn't allow people to park in the yard. You must park on a hard, improved surface like concrete or pavestone. If someone is parking in the yard as shown in the picture, you can call code enforcement or the non-emergency number of the police and report it. I had to do this as we had a neighbor several houses down that insisted on parking his car in his front yard by his front door and leaving it there. I believe he was given a warning and would have been given a ticket if they came back and saw it in the yard or if someone reported him again. He heeded the warning.
jbcglc: A fair critique, and certainly no offense taken. I don't think we disagree on the goal, but rather the process to get there. Voting has to be somewhere in the middle of the participation cycle, not the beginning. Someone becomes informed on the issues, votes, then participates in other ways, and the process repeats, hopefully. I'm not really worried about any sort of tyranny of the majority because someone who isn't well-versed on the issues isn't likely to vote at all.
You may enjoy what I'm working on right now a bit more when I publish it in the next week or so.
Regarding code enforcement: Once again, the spotlight fallacy comes into play. According to the city's budget for this year (page 197, PDF 213) the vast majority of properties in target areas three and four are in compliance. Regardless of what that percentage is, though, you're assuming that fixing these code issues will somehow change the housing back from rental to single-family, and that that difference will significantly change the voter participation levels of a city of 95k people. -BC
Curious about your term spotlight fallacy- the non-medical definition I found is: Assume's that the media’s coverage of a certain class or category is representative of the class or category in whole.
Where is the media coverage of lax code enforcement or this house out there?
"The Spotlight fallacy is when one assumes the same properties for all instances of a subject or object when a particular instance in focus has those traits. In other words, the observer is only aware of what one example of a object/subject is like, because it's the one that has the spotlight shining on it, lighting it up, and assumes the rest are the same."
rationalwiki has a similar definition.
It's like when a person has a predetermined idea about something. It's human nature to find all the things that support that view and filter out those things that don't fit. Similarly, when I get a new car I suddenly see the same model and color everywhere I look.
"The name comes from a joke about a Texan who fires some shots at the side of a barn, then paints a target centered on the biggest cluster of hits and claims to be a sharpshooter."
I misused the term, my bad. I didn't mean media coverage (although I will say I gave the subject more attention than most other news sources) but rather an incorrect inductive conclusion based on exceptional cases. Perhaps a more accurate term would be "misleading vividness". -BC
Since you brought up code violations, I looked at your posting of the budget performance measures. Target area 4 stays the same for 4 years- 95% with no improvement expected or forecasted. So, this means that 50 out of 1,000 properties will continue to be substandard.
If those 50 were around your house, is that acceptable to you?
On the 99% response time in 48 hours, I think that number is bogus. My average response time is 1.8 weeks, with a wide variation of response from 1 day to over 2 months, if I get a response at all. I did not count the "no response" in my metric.
Plus, 49,000 code violations with voluntary compliance equals one code violation for every other person in Lewisville. How is this possible? That is 23.5 violations per hour for 5 officers, or 4.7 violations every hour for every inspector, for one work year of 2080 hours, not including vacations, training etc.
Just curious. Let me know if you want to see the violations around my neighborhood- I would be happy to walk you around and we can make a count.
Maybe we should do an open records request and analyze the violations. At one point, I had a breakdown of them and was planning to do a story - then got busy. That's the curse of trying to do this in my spare time.
I clearly wasn't the person who brought them up. Quote:
If those 50 were around your house, is that acceptable to you?
You're assuming that a) all houses not in full compliance with code are "substandard" and b) that 5% is always the same 5%. Quote:
On the 99% response time in 48 hours, I think that number is bogus.
The response I'm sure regards their actual investigation into the matter and contacting the actual landowner if needed, not contacting you to let you know about the case's progress. Not everything is about you. Quote:
Let me know if you want to see the violations around my neighborhood
Let me know if you want to actually discuss anything else besides your pet issue. We get it; you don't like multi-family housing, you think code isn't being enforced enough, and you think the code enforcement department officers are liars.
Since you seem to be a fan of rhetorical questions, let me ask you this: Has being the squeaky wheel of the neighborhood helped your cause in any substantial way? Is your cause furthered at all by trying to make every thread on this site about your neighborhood? Have you considered a different approach? -BC
I'm guilty of the "squeaky wheel" approach. It is not pleasant to take on that role, but when a really rotten element moves in and starts imposing on neighbors space someone has to speak up. From my past occupations I have had to be the pain in the butt neighbor, but I refuse to submit to the suburban rot starting to crop up in this area. Code Enforcement is only as effective as we ask them to be, if no one speaks up they will be happy to let things go. They have been very effective when I have shown the determination to follow up on complaints.
Sorry I so upset you, Brandon. Life is far to short to let these little things get to you.
On response time, I am a customer of the city utilizing their services. I just want to know they received the complaint. When I don't hear anything back at all, I am not sure they even received the message.
I would be happy to discuss other issues with you. Let me know a good time and place for you. I prefer in person rather than posts on a blog, though. Since this seems to be your preferred communication portal; a few corrections:
Never said I don't like multi-family housing, I just don't like illegal, non-zoned multi-family housing.
Your comment: "you think the code enforcement department officers are liars"
I never said that and I actually think the code enforcement officers we have are pretty good. They work hard and I think they are overwhelmed. Please do not ascribe comments to me that I did not make.
Actually, being the squeaky well is working pretty well. We have got the city to fill in an abandoned pool, for instance. It took 6 years of steady communication, but it is done. We have several abandoned houses that got boarded up and a few have been demolished. We got sidewalks installed in 2002.
We have brought in church and Boy Scout groups to clean the neighborhood, brought in roll off dumpsters for clean up, and we frequently mow and help in basic maintenance for those unable to help themselves.
I am really interested in your idea of a different approach. What specifically would that be? What do you think I should do differently?
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Re: Lewisville Voter Participation: A Different Approach
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