A bit of bullet voting?

S.J. CAHN

Those in the know probably guessed what phantom issue appeared in the

Daily Pilot during the past week.

A commentary by Geoff West on May 30 didn’t quite get specific

enough, but subsequent discussions with him confirm that he was

alluding to “bullet voting” when he spoke of how he believed Chris

Steel managed to get elected in 2000.

Bullet voting is when voters purposefully do not vote for all

their choices to keep down the numbers of their candidate’s

opponents. It can work in elections, like Costa Mesa’s, when there

are more candidates than open seats.

The goal is fairly clear. If you want one candidate to get into

office, you avoid giving any help to an opponent.

Think of it this way: There are three candidates running for two

seats and there are just 10 voters (producing a total of 20 votes).

Six of them very much want candidate A to win and vote that way. They

then divide their second vote between candidates B and C.

At this point, candidate A is looking good, leading with six votes

to three each for candidates B and C.

But then the other four voters split their choices between

candidates B and C. Candidate A suddenly is left in the dust, having

just six votes while the two winners have seven.

But what if those six dyed-in-the-wool candidate A voters only

vote once? Then candidate A wins, while candidates B and C have a

runoff with four votes a piece.

That’s bullet voting.

Trouble is, while there is a bit of circumstantial evidence that

Costa Mesa voters have bullet voted, there is no proof there’s a

concerted effort to do so.

The evidence is this:

Two years ago, 22,494 votes were cast by Costa Mesa voters. If you

double that -- since each voter could pick two city council

candidates -- the total votes should have been 44,998. But the five

candidates drew only a combined 34,658.

In the 2000 race, when three seats were open, 34,000 people voted.

That should have meant more than 100,000 votes. But the total was

73,000.

Master political gamesmanship? One alternate theory, which I wrote

about in December 2002, suggests that, in general, city council races

with multiple choices generate only about a 70% turnout.

That insight, from David Wilson, a former reporter and now

employee of the Segerstroms, holds pretty solidly true in the two

above elections. The 2002 election had a total of 77%, and 2000 was

just above his 70% mark.

Still, there clearly is an impression in town that bullet voting

happens. And there are many, like West, who don’t think it’s right.

“Bullet voting is a misguided corruption of the voting process,

which robs each voter who succumbs to it of the opportunity to fully

exercise their right to select candidates for public office,” West

wrote in an e-mail to me. “Those who espouse this tactic cheat their

fellow citizens of the best representation possible to further their

own narrow agenda.”

He’s hoping it doesn’t happen again -- if it ever happened, of

course.

REAGAN REMEMBERED

Three years ago, I wrote a column that had a few of my more

liberal friends frothing at their ultra-donkey-like mouths.

The “Editor’s Notebook,” titled “Reagan was the president” and

written while I was the Pilot’s city editor, told how I clearly

remembered when I heard that former President Ronald Reagan had been

shot. It was much like I always heard about people’s memories of

President Kennedy’s death.

On the occasion of his 90th birthday, I wrote:

“But Reagan is the first president I can remember in the White

House. Jimmy Carter, somehow, doesn’t make much appearance in my

memory. And I remember Chevy Chase’s ridiculous Jerry Ford

impersonation during the first year of ‘Saturday Night Live’ far

better than I remember Ford.

“So it’s Reagan, whether I like it or not, who jumps into my mind

when I think of the presidency: his Morning in America theme; him

standing tall and proud in a cowboy hat; that voice and attitude he

could, at times, turn into pure, firm leadership.

“His presence, simply, was that powerful.

“Call me impressionable. But he was my country’s leader during my

formative years. And I’m not alone.”

I added later:

“But there was no escaping his shadow.

“For that reason alone, as he turns 90 and continues his fight

with Alzheimer’s disease and his recent fall, Reagan should know that

he succeeded in something few others before him, and certainly none

since, have.

“He was the president.”

Those sentiments have played out even more strongly in the days

following Reagan’s death. And it led me to think this:

I don’t see America having such reverence for a leader again. I’m

not entirely sure why. In part, it’s because we’re so much more

polarized today, and I don’t see that changing. Even new-found

patriotism following the Sept. 11 attacks didn’t match the collective

goodwill of the past.

But perhaps it more has to do with knowledge, or more particularly

that we can know so much now. One can find information about

President Bush’s youthful brushes with the law. There are photos of

Sen. John Kerry at anti-war rallies. Former Vermont Gov. Howard

Dean’s scream didn’t fade into the past; it was ever-present on the

Internet and elsewhere.

People’s failings are too easy to find, and that will help keep

the polarization alive. And that will ensure a lack of reverence,

which will mean people will be intent on getting negative information

out, which will make that information easy to find, and, well, you

get the picture.

Perhaps there is more than just Reagan’s passing that we should be

lamenting.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (949)

574-4233 or by e-mail at s.j.cahn@latimes.com.