Professional Documents
Culture Documents
OF THE
bv
Number 30
October 196R
massachusetts
institute of
technology
~i
50 memorial drive
bv
Ellen P. Fisher and Franklin M. Fisher
Number 30
October 196R
The views expressed In this paoer are the authors' sole responsibility, and do not reflect those of the Department of Economics nor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technolo.^v. The comnutations reported in this paper were performed bv Alan Marin at the MIT Sloan School of Management Computer Facllitv.
1.
Introduction
I'^ft?
ma^or, and ten in all) the electorate was fragmented into a number of
separate groups.
other elections, or if support for candidates in the 1967 race was a matter
of personal anpeal rather than anpeal to definablv different voter groups.
In particular, we are interested in this regard in the voting
voters was in fact unique or whether it was a splinter group of the more
writing in the Boston Sunday Globe , August 6, 1967, Robert Healy observed "... there is a Republican in Logue's future who is also worth It is doubtful that a Republican watching. His name is John Sears .... But his kind of campaign can take can win a preliminary election victory. awav votes from Logue .... With the field this size and with an aggressive campaign by Sears, Logue could be hurt."
-2-
similar.
supporters of Mrs. Hicks formed a close-knit group coming out to vote for
No
The
in a few of the city's wards is great enough to elect two Republican repre-
sentatives (John Sears was one of them) and one Senator out of a total city
Senators.
The winners in
Robert Healv, Boston Globe September 11, 1967, p. 11, "Her people were with her last year and the year before that. It is a loyal and vocal .' following
, .
. .
David B. Wilson ( Boston Globe September 21, 1967, p. 37) reported that the proportion of voters choosing Mrs. Hicks in the preliminary election would be about the same proportion which would choose her in the final election and that, while this would win her a snot on the final ballot it would not be sufficient to elect her mayor.
,
-3-
this preliminary election were Mrs. Louise Day Hicks (43,722 votes)
and
Mrs. Hicks was a three term member of the Boston School Committee and former chairman of that committee. She had been embroiled in a
neighborhood school and brought her audiences to their feet repeatedly during her camoaign with the slogan "You
knor*
where
stand."
The daughter of a
former municipal judge, she resides on a street named for her father.
Kevin
IiThite
wards
and
in Boston.
financier.
Mayor John Collins as a result of his work in urban renewal in New Haven.
Shortly before the preliminary election Mayor Collins gave a modest
endorsement to Logue.
Christopher
A.
council in 1965.
t'Jhite
2
The sixth candidate received only about half of lannella's total and candidates six through ten together received less than 15,000 votes.
-4-
study were:
1)
Not since
19/tQ,
when Boston
began electing councllmen at large, had anvone who was not of Italian or
Irish origin been elected to the city council.
(In the 25 vears before 19A9
9
Yankees,
Italians, and
2)
The school committee elections of 1963 and 1965 in which Mrs. Hicks
In 1963 Melvin King, a Negro, was an unsuccess-
John Volpe defeated Democrats Joseph Belottl (1964) and Edward McCormack (1966)
Of Interest here was a test of ethnic voting nattems, in particular the
^'/hite
-5-
prellminary election for mayor. It seemed likely that voting nattems among
Negroes would differ from those among l#iites.
Accordingly, we removed all
separately.
Indeed, if Italian-Americans
tend to vote for candidates of Italian origin this should show up in the
?.
than one candidate is to be elected, each voter can cast as many votes as
1960 was the most recent census year. It seems likely that precincts which were more than 10 ner cent Negro in I960 had a rather higher Negro proportion by 1967. The choice of 10 ner cent as the cut-off does not materially affect the results.
-6-
there are nositions to be filled (nine in the case of citv council and five
in the case of school committee).
completely.
Tliis
raises a problem
One might
-just
as well be treated as
vote for a
The
a
fictitious candidate.
fictitious candidate is not the same as that of the same number of votes for
a real opponent.
same as voting.
f)n
eliminating voters who failed to vote for the office in question or who failed
to vote as manv times as they legally could.
to remove the latter group.)
(2.1)
B =
kV
- T.
-7-
B thus
measures the extent to which the actual number of votes cast falls
It Is reported for each nreclnct (or if not,
From B, we can compute the average number of blank ballots cast per
voter, D = B/V.
It Is evident that a given nonzero value of D can come
at all for the given office, while others filled out the ballot completely.
Second, evervone may have voted but not as many times as he might have done.
Thus, for example, a value of D of
1/?.
out the ballot completely and the others not at all or if all voters fill
out half the ballot.
so because the fraction of nonblank votes that can be cast for a particular
candidate depends on whether the nonblank votes are cast by the same or
different voters.
can be Interpreted as effects which hold with the average number of blank
This may not be really annronrlate, since it can be argued that the casting of blank ballots is itself a nhenomenon that we may wish to explain We take in terms of voting nattems in the preliminary mayoralty election. up this matter in the Anpendlx where it is shown that most of the results are insensitive to this nroblem.
-8-
(2.2)
Y,
1
XI
ji
Ai
I,.
+ a^S. + a,0^
^1
01
are
defined as follows:
a^,
a,
parameters to be estimated
Y.
H,
I.
similar fraction voting for Christopher A. lannella similar fraction voting for Kevin
'.iThite
W
L.
S. D.
A few remarks about the model and its interpretation now seem in order.
It works
Second, we have
normalized the variables in per voter terms so that large nrecincts do not
dominate the sample.
Thus the coefficient of H
,
between precincts in which the vote for Mrs. Hicks in the 1967 mayoralty
-9-
This is, taken literally, the value of the dependent variable (the fraction
of voters voting for the candidate studied) which would have occurred in a
Of course, no
that is,
among voters who did not vote for one of the five nrincipal candidates in
the 1967 nreliminary election for mayor (either because they did not vote in
Similarly, the
measuring the extent to which the given candidate ran better (worse) among
those supporting Hicks, lannella, Logue, '<^ite, or Sears, as the case may be,
than he did among voters othen<7ise not classified.
Tlius
coefficient of
zero for H., for examnle, would not mean that supnorters of Mrs. Hicks failed
1
to vote for the candidate in question, but that they did so in no greater
did so in smaller numbers and a nositive one that they did so in greater
numbers.
turn.
3.
which a comparison of precinct mans with census tracts showed to have had
more than 10 ner cent Negro nonulation in 1960, since it seemed likelv that
Negro and White voting nattems would differ in ways not captured bv our
-10-
variab]es.
The 5A "Ne^ro" nrecincts were treated separately to see if this The remaining precinsts were 221
The first election which we shall consider is that for citv council
in November 1967.
for particular attention for reasons already e;iven were Thomas Atkins and
John Saltonstall.
We first present the results of estlmatinj^ equation (2.2) with
votint^ for
(3.1)
Atkins
4-
.422 L (.122)
+ .723
(.072)
+ .244
(.OP-2)
n.
"^
All coefficients
from zero at least at the one-tenth of one percent level and frequently well
bevond.
The coefficient of D
is significant at
Hicks and lannella voters voted against Atkins (in the sense that he ran
Data for all elections prior to 1967 were taken from the Annual For 1967, we used the official Penorts of the Boston Election Department. tally sheets on file at that department.
-11-
Logue supporters did so to about the same extent (.455 and .4??, respectively),
voters were located in different places (otherwise the regression would not
they acted
Sears voters
behaved more like these two groups than like anv other, but clearlv formed
9
average blank ballots were high than he did where thev were low.
See the column by Robert Healv, Boston Globe August 11, 1'567, p. 9. On the other hand, the evidence in the Appendix sho^^/s that lannella voters tended to cast blank ballots in this (and other) elections, so that part (but not all) of the explanation of the negative coefficient of I may be that many lannella voters did not vote at all for citv council whereas Atkins tended to be strong among voters casting only nartiallv blank ballots as If this is true, then lannella voters, given their value of discussed below. See the Annendix D, voted less for Atkins than did voters in other classes. for further discussion.
,
level
-1?-
place, Atkins was not the best-knor-zn candidate for citv council.
Peonle
voting for someone else for citv council and starting to fill out the full ballot might not automatically put his name down (we shall see the reverse
of this true when we come to better-known candidates)
.
Rather, we would
exnect him to have done well among neonle who came out to vote partlcularlv
for him.
ballot blank.
Mrs. Hicks, we should expect Atkins not to have benefitted from relatively
inattentive voting.
home
out both bv
the coefficient of D and bv the relatively low value of the constant term,
variable by
SA,
(3.2)
Saltonstall
SA.
^
+ .236
(.066)
+ .353 W
(.091)
^
+ .579
(.106)
L.
^
+ .768
(.06'')
S.
^
.532 n. (.072) ^
= .837
N = 221
The average value of T> across the 221 nreclncts was .338 in this On the average, one in every three voters cast one blank ballot election. or one in everv six cast two blank ballots, and so forth.
-13-
Hicks,
and Sears.
for Atkins but here Hicks and lannella supporters no longer behave the
same:
further,
'v'hite
He was clearlv
when discussing the results for Atkins, we should expect him to have a
relatively high constant term and to do better where ballots are filled out
than where D is high. results.
We turn now to some partisan elections for state and natioanl office.
The first of these is the gubernatorial election of 1966 in which John A. Volpe, the incumbent Republican governor defeated
VJith VO
lildward J.
McCormack.
(3.3)
Governor, 1966:
VO
= .606 -
,'i25 n.
+ .396
(.06A)
(.066)
(.078) ^
R^ =
.539 W (.111)
+ .333 L
(.130)
+ .347
(.074)
.746
N = 221
-14-
A(aln the
jooc!
as before.
All coefficients
are significant at better than the one-tenth of one percent level with the
The results are what we would expect in a partisan election and (like
some of the other results to he presented)
,
our methods.
Supporters of
those of Logue who himself had strong support in the business community.
An interesting difference lending added confidence to our method
defeated Francis
X.
who had himself unset the incumbent governor, Endicott Peabodv, in the
Democratic primary.
(3.4)
Governor, 1964:
Vn.
^
.214 (.067)
.621 W (.116)
+ .465 L
(.136)
+ .332
(.077)
.731
N = 221
The blank ballot variable does not enter in a gubernatorial or senatorial election since we can take as the denominator of the dependent variable the total votes cast for the office thus simply eliminating voters In fact, we also discarded the very small not voting for that office. number of votes for candidates not from the two major parties.
-15-
than the one-tenth of one percent level with the exception of that of
which is significant at the one percent level but not quite at the one-tenth
of one percent level.
The pattern is obviously the same as for the 1966 election with one
notable exception
expect remembering
The last of the partisan elections which we studied was that ^or
Senator in 1966.
Brooke as the dependent variable, and denoting it bv B., the results are:
(3.5)
Senator, 1966:
.031 W (.0A)
+ .206 L
(.098)
^
+ .736
(.056)
.871
N = 221
The coefficient of
is
is significant
coefficient of L
The
coefficient of W
In a wav
,
is not significant.
observed in the 196 7 citv council election (and continued in the school
committee results below) and that observed in the gubernatorial elections
-16-
just discussed.
Hicks, lannella,
LoRue, Sears
This is reasonable.
be characterized as Democrats with some anti-Negro bias, both the fact that
Brooke was Renublican and the fact that he was a Ne{ro should lead to a
Logue and Sears voters are liberal (in civil right matters) Republicans.
Roth effects lead to a nositive coefficient here, and the larger coefficient
on S.
1
than on
T,.
Saltonstall.
characterized from
and the fact that he was Republican should here have pulled in opposite
who in the results above and below are closer to Hicks voters when a Negro
runs than is anv other groun.
faced McCormack in the gubernatorial race (see Equation (3.3), above) and
there mav have been some carry-over.
Italian bom.
The last
reported Gloria Negri in the Boston Globe for November 1, 1966 (p. 1?) 'She is a great favorite that Remigia Brooke campaigned even at grocers: in the North End, East Boston and other Italian communities and lately has been tossing in a bit of campaigning while doing her grocery shopping in the North End."
,
Similarly, Timothy Leland wrote on Sunday, November 6, 1966 (p. 16)" "His wife, Remigia, took over for her husband on the campaiCTi trail where he left off, touring the North End with all the verve and velocity of a seasoned
politician."
-17-
In 1963 and 1965 when Mrs. Hicks was herself a candidate for school coimnittee.
Particularly in 1963 when she was the incumbent chairman, the school committee
election was highly publicised and turned largely on the issue of treatment
and sej;regation of Negro children in the schools.
We begin with the 1963 election and turn first to the candidacy of
(3.6)
King
= -
.165 (.073)
+ .5A7 W. + .All L
(.102)
"^
+ .711
(.069)
S.
^
(.121)
A30 n. (.085) ^
.
.734
N = 221
The
coefficients of W
and
V>
the coefficient of
level;
These results are very interesting when compared to those for the 1967
citv council election.
as one would exnect.
voters and more than did Hicks or lannella voters. tended to do so more than did the other two groups.
as
King was
stronger, other things equal, where blank ballots where high than where thev
were low.
It is
and I..
1
-IR-
results for Atkins In 1067 (Equation (3.1)), we find all three proups
'fhat
to he less favorable
.
to a Ne^ro candidate for citv office than the reinaininp three ^rouns
Indicate, however, that Hicks voters were more favorable to Kin? than to
Atkins.
classlfie d voters
committee election was fought and in view of Mrs. Hicks' own position and
candidacv the second hypothesis is more reasonable.
It is borne out bv the
had the same attitude in 1063 toward the candidacv of King as did
That attitude
was preserved bv Hicks voters relative to Atkins in 1067, but it was not
It
is of Interest to
different wav when we examine the results for Mrs. Hicks' own candidacies
for school committee In 1963 and 1065 (she led the ticket on both occasions)
Denoting the dependent variable bv HI, the results for 1963 are:
As we have so far done, we shall use the term ''Hicks voters" to refer to those votin"; for Mrs. Hicks in the 1067 nreliminary election for mavor, not to those voting for her in the 1963 and 1965 school committee elections.
-19-
(3.7)
Tllcks
}\1
= 1.30? -
(.071)
.031 H (.061)
r''
.387 (.061)
.384 W
(.Oft6)
^
.45ft L
(.101)
.746 S (.058)
.936 n (.071)
= .837
N = 221
which
si^ificant.
For 1965, the results are similar:
(3.8)
Hicks
.371 (.088)
= .794
N = 221
j;ood.
A>ain all
coefficients are
significant
v;ell
of the coefficient of H
ran strongly among unclassified voters and equallv well (but not stronger)
among those who would later support her in the 1967 preliminary election.
She ran weaker than this among lannella. White, Logue, and Sears voters,
where blank ballots ner voter were high, other things equal, than where
they were low, the effect being particularly strong in 1963.
This is what
we should expect from our earlier discussion of the blank ballots variable.
-20-
since Mrs. Hicks was far and awav the best known and (especially in
the most controversial candidate.
19(S3)
from 1963 to
19*^5
mentioned that in both elections Mrs. Hicks failed to run better among 1967
Hicks voters than among unclassified voters (although, of course, she ran
very stronglv among either group).
had Mrs. Hicks run for school committee in 1967, she would again have run
1963 and 1965, when running for school committee, Mrs. Hicks ran well among
mayor in 1967, bv definition, she ran extremelv well among Hicks voters and
extremely badly among unclassified voters.
Moreover, this phenomenon was not slmnlv restricted to the preliminary
election.
The results for the final mavoraltv election of 1967 are in sharp
Thev are:
(3.9)
.943 W (.085)
M = 221
.881
-21-
The results show clearlv that while Mrs. Hicks ran relatively well
among unclassified voters, she Hid not run as well amonj? them as she did among those who supported her in the mayoralty primary.
This is not
In the
1963 and 1965 school committee elections, Mrs. Hicks ran equally well among
the
as
n-zo
groups of voters.
was not simply a matter of losing votes in the preliminary election which
then returned to her in the final.
'-Jhile
final election among unclassified voters than among any group save those
voting for her in the preliminary election, she was significantly weaker
among unclassified voters than among those supporting her in the preliminary.
This is in sharp contrast to the results for the school committee elections.
It is thus quite clear that the hvpothesis
running for
committee she had broader-based support than when runnlnq for mavor.
I^Ihether the
It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that Mrs. Hicks lost the final
^'rs.
Hick.s
running
However, as
opposed to the results for the school committee elections, there was almost
no difference in this regard among Logue and Sears voters in the 1^67 final
election for mayor, both groups going strongly for Kevin UTiite.
(The larger
It
-22-
is
exnect since our earlier results tenH to show the five candidates strunf? out
l^^^ite,
Lo^ue, Sears.
^t.
Summary of Conclusion s
this point to summarize what we have learned
In hroad outline,
It seems annropriate at
the main
electorate into six groups of voters (Tlicks, lannella, VJhite, T.ORue, Sears,
and unclassified).
studied and
knoxr;ing
for mavor goes a long wav toward exnlaining its vote in the other elections.
variahles
2.
end of the range, but much more so in the school committee elections of 1963
and 1965 than in the 1967 elections.
3.
I^fhite
might expect.
-23-
5.
Logue voters are rather like them, but in others, Logue and VJhlte voters are
rather similar.
voters.
In elections
can cast more than one ballot, other things equal, blank ballots help Megro
candidates (Atkins, Kintr) and hurt prominent or controversial candidates (Saltonstall and especially Mrs. Hicks).
This is consistent with the view
that voters fillinti out a complete ballot naturallv tend to vote for the
most familiar name and that 'lepro candidates tend to benefit from bullet
balloting.
7.
l'>63
Only one of
these groups supported her in the 1967 preliminary mayoraltv election, and,
while both groups supported her in the final election, thev did not do so
to an enual extent as had been the case in her winning school committee races,
Sears voters clearly tend to be Republicans or at least to he where there are Republicans. We regressed the fraction of the Sears located vote in the 1967 preliminary election for mavor (S ) on the ratio of registered Republicans to the total vote in that election. variable by R the results were:
(A.l)
S
r^ = .Syo
Both coefficients are significant far bevond the one-tenth of one percent level
Our other results do not denend on our particular treatment of the blank ballot problem. See the Appendix.
-2A-
5.
these were those nreclncts which had a Negro population of more than 10 percent
Typi-
cally, we would expect them to have had a higher percentage of Negroes by the
The results for these precincts are rather different from those already
discussed and, while the additional results do not seem worth reporting in
detail, the broad nature thereof does merit some comment.
In the first place, as opposed to the 221 precincts already studied,
the 1967 preliminary mayoralty election did not appear to divide the electorate
patterns.
indeed, voters supporting four of the five named candidates in ]967 were
I'^'S?
proun whose behavior in other elections differed sharply from that of the
this is largely because her candidacy did (as the others did not)
tend to
In
separate the electorate in these nreclncts into Negro and white voters.
other words, while there are some exceptions, it helps to explain behavior
in other elections in these nreclncts to know where Hicks voters were located.
It does not heln slp;niflcantlv to know how tho rest of the electorate split
Tvpi-
ner voter
'''1.
In the 10(S5
.?4'S
and .?''6,
while in the
T^fi?
further,
in contrast to
tlie
from the rest in casting a greater number of blank ballots (see the Anpendix)
in these 54 precincts. Hicks voters were notablv different from the rest:
cast sitmificantly fewer blank ballots.
thev
These results are consistent with our earlier discussion which argued
that Mrs. Hicks tended to run well in school committee elections wherever
blank ballots were used in these 54 nreclncts for bullet voting, esnecially
for Negro candidates.
results for the 54 precincts to sav that the two items which tend to matter
in the regressions are the location of the Hicks voters and the extent of
blank balloting. Among the non-Hicks voters in these nreclncts, then, our results
suggest that what mattered was whether thev voted purposeful Iv
,
so to speak.
and
T).
tend to
be highly negatively correlated occasionally makes it difficult reliably to distinguish the two effects.
-26-
Given that, the split of the electorate by the 1967 nrellminary election
with different voting patterns in the wav which we found to be clearly the
case in the precincts without a stibstantlal Megro population.
Indeed, thev
It would
different appeal from the other candidates in these precincts and we have
already controlled for the principal difference between the voters here and
done, heterogeneity within these precincts excent along the indicated lines,
is not verv pronounced.
-27-
Appendtx:
fact that in some elections more than one vote can be cast bv each voter.
In the main text we handled this by entering average blank ballots per
voter
(D,
This is so
because blank balloting is itself not Independent of the other effects which
we are investigating.
Thus, if Sears voters,
for example,
tend to blank
ballot more than Hicks voters, we may want to leave the blank ballot
variable out and attribute its effects to the snlit between Hicks and Sears
voters.
On the other hand,
to leave out the blank ballot variable is
to
attribute to a given fraction of the vote for a given candidate the same
(3.1')
Atkins
.U6
(.063)
.271
.U6
(.061)
+ .510 W
(.106)
N = 221
+ .AIT
(.12A)
1..
+ .7?
(.070)
(.07S)
P"
= .R26
I.
The coefficient of
percent level and the constant term is significant at the five percent but
-28-
(3.2')
Saltonstall
SA
.070 (.058)
I ^
+ .234 W
(.101
N = 221
^
+ .555 L
(.118)
^
+ .640
(.067)
R^ = .794
and W
The coefficient of H
that of W
(3.6')
King
+ .050
(.063)
+ .577 W
(.108)
N = 221
+ .348
(.127)
+ .764
(.072)
R" = .702
The coefficients of W
is
and S,
(3.7')
Hicks
HI
= 1.141 -
(.069)
- .322 L
(.135)
.863 S (.076)
R" = .706
N = 221
The fit here deteriorates more than in other cases, which matches the fact
-?q-
that blank ballots were found to r>lay a fairlv large role In Equation (3.7).
All coefficients save those of H. and L. are significant well beyond the
The coefficient of L
is significant at the
that of H.
is not significant.
(3.8*)
Hicks
HI
.577 (.070)
S
^
.780
significant far bevond the one-tenth of one percent level with the excention
of the coefficient of H
The results are qualitatively similar to those in the text and our
The principal
in comparing Equations (3.7) and (3.7'), it might be thought that the latter
equation shows lannella voters strongly opnosed to Mrs. Hicks while the
former shows them onlv mildlv opnosed. means "not voting for."
In a wav, this is true if "onposed"
In fact, however,
voters not voting for Mrs. Hicks in 1963 were not voting for anvone for
school committee.
I-j^
in that regression
does not moan the same thing as a high negative coefficient for some other
variable associated with voters who are voting against Mrs. Hicks when thev
do not vote for her.
-in-
constant in the text, but it is comforting to know that it makes verv little
on the other
(A.l)
Hlank Ballots
D.
^
+
^
.?.2ii
+ .045
(.101)
1,
+ .?A1
^
S.
^
(.086)
N = 221
(.057)
Only a bit
in blank balloting in this election is not associated with the split in the
coefficient of W
The remaining
(A. 2)
Blank Ballots
+ .501
(.0A7)
I. ^
+ .071 W
(.082)
.1A5 L (.096)
.1''5
(.054)
R~ = .571
N = 221
The constant
is significant at
-31-
(A.*^)
Blank Ballots
+ .S27
(.OAA>
.7"'.
I,
^
+ .015 W
(.076)
N =
?.21
.19 L (.0S9)
.075 S. (.050) ^
the coefficient of H
level;
the
we have already anticipated in comparing our other results with and without
the blank ballots variable.
vote blank.
method for handling the blank ballots problem which we did not adopt.
This
would be to take as the dependent variable not the fraction of voters entering the voting booth who voted for the given candidate but rather the
voters casting non-blank ballots the same as precincts with almost all voters
doing so.
people.
It can thus weight far too heavily the actions of relatively few
-32-
all the relevant repressions with this change in the denendent variable,
and while it does not seem worth while taking the snace to renort the
Date Die
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^^^-
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.
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23fi
MIT LIBRARIES
3 TDflD
TDflD
TDfiD
^OflD 00 3
iST "33
Jiil
lull
ill
3 TOflO
57=]
111
II mil
nil ill
mil nil
3 TOflO
D3 TEA ETS
MIT LIBRARIES
IllJllUli
3 TOflO
003 ^EA