Democrat Bill Adamson thinks I’ve been thinking too much about his illegitimate and thus deservedly failed bid for District 7 House. Wait ’til he sees this….
In a comment this evening, Adamson claims that I have misanalyzed the five-way District 7 House race and asserts he would have had a 50-50 chance of beating right-wing extremist Doug Post for second place if that pesky independent Cory Ann Ellis had just kept her nose out of politics:
Your analysis of the District 7 House race is equally flawed. I lost by 664 votes to Doug Post. It is a reasonable assumption that I would have gotten enough of Cory Ann Ellis’s (who was running as a moderate like myself) 1976 votes to beat Doug Post. Doug (who is a good person) is more conservative than what District 7 (basically, the city of Brookings) voters typically elect. Without Cory Ann in the race, I probably could have won a close race with Doug. This is speculative, however, because Brookings County like the much of South Dakota saw an increase in voter participation and most were Republicans. It is just as likely that I would have lost a close race to Doug [Bill Adamson, comment, Dakota Free Press, 2018.11.07].
Now I’m not sure what part of my analysis Adamson thinks is flawed. Here’s the only post-election sentence I’ve written so far:
Democrats surrendered a House seat in District 7, as right-wing extremist Doug Post placed a weak but effective second over the illegitimate Democrat candidates and the strongest independent in South Dakota, Cory Ann Ellis, to join thankfully mild-mannered Rep. Tim Reed in the House [CAH, “Republicans Lose One House Seat, Gain Billie Sutton’s Senate Seat,” Dakota Free Press, 2018.11.07].
Perhaps Adamson contends with the verb surrendered, since the thrust of his claim seems to be that the independent, who filed her petition on February 7, somehow lost that seat for the Democrats, who didn’t field Adamson and Kovach until a month later. But even that claim is uncertain, as Adamson one moment tells me that he “probably” would have beaten Doug, but then dismisses his own “probably” as speculation and says it’s “just as likely” that he’s had lost an Ellis-less race against Post.
If we’re going to speculate, let’s do it with a spreadsheet:
| Ellis 2nd | Reed | Post | Adamson | Kovach | zero | |
| Reed | 40 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 | |
| Post | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Adamson | 25 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 5 |
| Kovach | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| bullet | 25 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 10 |
| 100 | ||||||
| Ellis | Reed | Post | Adamson | Kovach | zero | |
| actual | 1,976 | 4,593 | 3,132 | 2,468 | 1,780 | |
| Shift E/R | 0 | 198 | 198 | 0 | 395 | |
| Shift E/P | 20 | 0 | 20 | 20 | 40 | |
| Shift E/A | 198 | 0 | 0 | 198 | 99 | |
| Shift E/K | 20 | 20 | 40 | 0 | 20 | |
| Shift bullet | 119 | 0 | 119 | 59 | 198 | |
| Vote sans Ellis | 4,949 | 3,349 | 2,843 | 2,057 | 751 |
The top half of the chart shows my assumptions about the make-up of Ellis’s voters and what their second choices might have been. In the first column, I posit the following assumptions:
- 40% of Ellis voters cast their second vote for GOP Rep. Tim Reed. He’s well-known, well-liked, and moderate like Ellis.
- 5% of Ellis voters cast their second vote for hard-right-winger Doug Post. Most of the hard right vote was already marking two Rs, so I estimate there were only a handful left who had some beef with Reed (maybe some RINO-itis?) and were willing to extend their second vote to an independent lady who wasn’t shouting about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ enough.
- 25% of Ellis voters cast their second vote for Adamson. He’s not as well-known as well-known as Reed, and he’s a Dem, so he gets a smaller share than Reed.
- 5% of Ellis voters cast their second vote for Kovach, probably because they’re just a fringe of malcontents who want to upset the system by voting for the independent and then the least likely of the other four.
- 25% of Ellis voters “bullet-voted,” marking only her name and withholding their other vote. These are the smart voters (and Ellis appealed to smart voters) who recognized that the surest way to put the sole independent on their ballot inot the Legislature was not to give any of her opponents any additional votes.
The columns to the right of those percentages show how I guess those voters would have split their votes had Ellis not been there to scratch their itch. Adamson contends he’d have won a lot of Ellis’s votes with his similar moderatism. He fails to account for the Ellis votes that would have gone to Reed’s similar moderatism and many other factors. For instance, on row 1, I speculate that out of 40 Ellis/Reed voters, sans Ellis, 10 would have gotten back in line with the party and cast their second votes for Post, 10 would have gone for Adamson, and 20 would have simply bullet-voted for Reed, deeming both radical Post and dastardly Democrats unworthy of their vote.
Math, math, math… upshot: take Ellis out of the race, run those reasonable assumptions, at least as speculative but based on more dimensions that Adamson’s I’m moderate and Doug’s from Volga argument, and you get the same result: Reed and Post win, with Adamson closing one one percentage point of his 4.8-point gap.
But hey, as I said, this is speculative. It’s just as likely that if Ellis hadn’t run, the SDGOP would have gone after Adamson’s and Kovach’s petitions as well, Attorney General Jackley would not have found those pre-World-War-2 precedents, and the Brookings County Democrats wouldn’t have been able to find replacements for two guys who already struggled to fulfill the basic requirements of legitimate candidacy.
Cory, after reading your latest post, I am surprised by your continual utilization of logical fallacies in your arguments. Certainly, you should be aware of pitfalls of fallacious analysis. First, you selectively used just part of my argument about how an independent candidate can disrupt the outcome of an election. The full argument was:
“Your analysis of the District 7 House race is equally flawed. I lost by 664 votes to Doug Post. It is a reasonable assumption that I would have gotten enough of Cory Ann Ellis’s (who was running as a moderate like myself) 1976 votes to beat Doug Post. Doug (who is a good person) is more conservative than what District 7 (basically the city of Brookings) voters typically elect. Without Cory Ann in the race, I probably could have won a close race with Doug. This is speculative, however, because Brookings County like the much of South Dakota saw an increase in voter participation and most were Republicans. It is just as likely that I would have lost a close race to Doug. This is the problem of running independents as opponents to Democrats in South Dakota. Both appeal to moderate-to-liberal voters and scavenge votes from each other, giving Republicans a much easier path to winning. In the future, if we don’t want to just cede elections to Republicans, independents will have to join Democrats in a coalition to have a unified front against Republicans. Finishing last or next to last as we saw in this election should be a clear signal that independents don’t have enough recognition without a party label to be competitive in most races.”
The point I was making was that having moderate independents in the race can potentially split the moderate vote and allow a more conservative candidate to over-perform in the election. I do not blame Cory Ann for costing me the election. So, please don’t infer some ulterior motive. I cost her any chance of winning as well because we were competing over the same group of centrist and progressive voters. Either of us could have potentially beat Doug Post if the other wasn’t in the race (with the caveat that Doug probably would have had enough votes to beat either one of us individually based on the strong performance of Republicans in the last election).
I was simply pointing out the futility of running two Democrats and an independent with similar policy views in the same race and competing over the same voter block. Democrats and moderate independents should work together to move good policies forward, because we can’t do it with Democrats competing against like-minded independents. Given their sheer number of registered voters, the Republicans will beat us every time. That is why like-minded pols need to cooperate with each other rather than compete against each other. We should look at forming a hybrid party. It could be called the Democratic/Independent Party. Independents don’t have enough brand recognition without a party label to be competitive in most races (they finished last or next to last in this election) and would be more competitive with a recognizable party “brand” in the general elections. I would be a win-win for both like-minded parties.
By truncating my full statement, you are committing the Fallacy of Omission which leaves out necessary material in an argument or misdirects others from missing information. I grant you, the omission probably was an oversight.
Your spreadsheet is an interesting exercise. I am not aware of any exit polling data from the District 7 election, so the probabilities for the 2nd vote of Ellis voter in your Table 1 are what statisticians call subjective probabilities or in common parlance SWAG (i.e. Scientific Wild-Ass Guess). You made some reasonable assumptions about the distribution of Ellis vote to show that without Ellis in the race, Doug Post would have won anyway. That is cool, but in the case of subjective probabilities, everyone is entitled to their own SWAG. I change the assumed probabilities in the table below in the Reed second choice row. I assume that Ellis’s supporters are moderate to liberal. So, I only allot a .05 probability of Ellis supporters moving to Doug Post, and only a .10 of Ellis supporters’ bullet-voting (while they may bullet-vote for their first-best preference, I think they will be more likely to vote for two less preferred candidates as their second-best choice). That assumption would give me a .25 probability of getting disaffected Ellis voters who vote for Reed as a second choice. That assumption gives me an additional 296 votes. I was somewhat confused by your bullet assumptions. You assumed a .25 probability that the 2nd Ellis vote is a bullet-vote. I would argue that this by itself is reasonable assumption. What I would question is your assumption that the disaffected Ellis voters would have a .10 probability of not voting for any of the remaining candidates. I assume that many of the first-best Ellis voters are women but I question that 10% of the disaffected Ellis voters are misandrists. I think a .01 probability might be a more realistic assumption and I redistributed 90% of the bullet-vote to other candidates. Based on my bullet-voting assumptions, I would pickup 99 more votes, giving me 3337 votes. Doug loses 99 votes because of my assumed lower probability of getting disaffected Ellis voters second vote. Under this scenario, I would win by 87 votes.
MY TABLE WOULDN’T CUT AND PASTE IN TO THE COMMENT BOX
This math, math, math and an entertaining exercise, but it is just garbage-in-garbage-out mental masturbation because there is no way to test the subjective probabilities. The results are just BS. Furthermore, this exercise is an example of the fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient (i.e., non-testable) evidence. This is also an example of circular reasoning. We are making assumptions that determine our preferred conclusions.
I now realize that I might have torqued you off when said you were a blogger and not a journalist. I was just making a point that a blog site doesn’t adhere to journalist standards. (For all I know, you might have a journalism degree). You don’t have an editor that reviews your article before it is published. If you worked for of a newspaper, your article would muster editorial review before publication. Also, I did read the previous post but stopped at the election map because it appeared to be the end of article on my phone. After re-reading it, you did mention your loss to Al Novstrup. Sorry, I wasn’t being fair in my criticism. That being said, you do rely on ad hominen attacks in your posts on District 7 Democrats.
Here are some examples:
“Tell me, Bill, in what way your and Zach’s petitions and thus your candidacies were legitimate (response to yesterday’s post).”
Under SDCL §12-6-11, the Secretary of State (SOS) certifies to “county auditors of the state the names of the persons in whose behalf nominating petitions have been filed in his office as candidates for each political party…” A certification by the SOS legitimizes a candidacy. The certification process by the SOS may be flawed, but under §12-6-11, anyone certified by the SOS is a legitimate candidate.
“Please note, all, Adamson’s attempt to campaign like a Republican, trying to portray factual critique as “unusual obsession,” some sort of emotional defect (response to yesterday’s post).”
No, I am pointing out that your “factual critique” is flawed. I am just defending my and Zach’s integrity which you have consistently attacked by claiming that our candidacies are illegitimate and illegal. Your attack on us is fallacious due to faulty analysis, making your claim that we acted illegally unwarranted.
SDCL §12-6-8 specifies the legal requirements of the verification process. I didn’t see any reference to this statue in your post you linked. The guidelines for acceptance of petitions are specified in ARSD 5:02:08:00. The administrative rule states that “the person or governing board authorized to accept the petition for filing shall determine if it meets the stated requirements for acceptance.” In the case of legislative petitions, the governing board would be the SOS. 5:02:08:00(3) states that to be accepted, “Each sheet of the petition contains an identical heading and is verified by the circulator. …The [petition] verification was completed and signed before an officer authorized to administer oaths.” You made the same claim in your “Perpich Out; District 7 Ready for Another Independent?” post on 2018-04-09. [note: the hyperlink was stripped in the cut and paste].
Under this rule, the petitions notarized by Spence Hawley would have been invalidated. §12-1-15 requires that the SOS notify the candidate that their petition was declared invalid. If the SOS’s office had followed the administrative rule, the notary error could have been identified and remedied in a timely manner, and no District 7 legislative candidate would have been knocked off the ballot. I am much wiser about the nominating process now, but without this experience, I would have never thought to check whether a notary was on the SOS notary data base. Neither would have you. The law just stipulates a process of validation and notification of invalidation which is conducted by the SOS.
In your post “Hawley Strikes Again: District 7 House Democrats’ Petitions May Be Invalid,” [note: the link was stripped in the cut and paste] I would also dispute your assertion that my petitions didn’t have the required number of 50 signatures under SDCL §12-6-7. Rule 5:02:08:00(3) wouldn’t have applied to 64 signatures that you claimed were invalid because the circulator signature notarization didn’t have the commission expiration date. ARSD 5:02:08:00.01(b) states that “[No signature on a petition sheet may be counted if one of the following conditions is present:] the circulator’s verification is not completed or is improperly completed, according to subdivision 5:02:08:00(3) unless the missing information is completed elsewhere on the petition sheet.” The commission expiration date was on the Declaration of Candidate part of the petitions in question which means that the missing information was completed elsewhere on my petition. If my Hawley notarized petitions had been invalidated, I still would have had 91 valid signatures. My petitions were not “gravely flawed.”
Regardless of the notary errors on our petitions, the SOS certified our petitions which made us, under §12-6-11, legitimate candidates. Petitions are either verified or not verified by the SOS who then either certifies or doesn’t certify petitions depending on errors and any challenges by opponents. Candidates are not involved in the verification process which is controlled by the SOS. The only penalty a candidate can suffer is not being certified and failing to be placed on the ballot. Once the SOS certifies your nominating petition, you are on the ballot (barring any challenges allowed under the law). Your factual analysis is faulty. I didn’t violate any laws as you allege. If still think I violated a law by making errors on my petitions, then you don’t understand the certification process. I am not arguing over spilled-milk. You challenged my ethical integrity. My integrity is important to me, and I will defend myself.
Cory Ann had every right to challenge our petitions under SDCL §12-1-13, and if she was unhappy with the SOS’s remedy, she had the right to petition the Circuit Court under §12-1-16. SDCL §12-6-9, however, states that if a candidate is unopposed, there is no primary election, and they automatically advance to the general election. This is why her petition challenge had to be timely. §12-1-13 timeline for a challenge is 5 working-days. Delaying the petition challenge to after the primary election made her challenge tardy and would have prohibited political parties from running any candidate in the general election and disenfranchised voters. This is the rational of the Bakewell (1940) decision and is why the court rejected her challenge. The intent of Bakewell (1940) was to eliminate the tactic of knocking your opponent out of the general election and so to win by default. You call it “some crazy and outdated precedent.” Is it really crazy for the courts to prevent electoral chaos (i.e., each party trying to knock the other parties’ candidate off the general election ballot) that would undermine the legitimacy of elections? Courts take established precedent seriously and are unwilling to overturn precedent unless there is a legal inconsistency. Would you call Brown v. Board or Roe v. Wade “some crazy and outdated precedent?” If you do, you might be nominated by President Trump to the federal bench. It is the function of the courts to interpret the meaning of statutes and how the law is to be applied. Do you seriously think Jackley would have saved my bacon? That just isn’t credible. Why would he save any newbie Democratic candidate? He just did his job and applied the prevailing law.
I really don’t want to engage in these tit-for-tat insults. It wastes your and my time and energy and serves no productive purpose. Your blog forum is a great venue for advancing Democratic/Independent causes. I would just ask you not to attack your Democratic brethren. It sets our cause back when we need to advance our policies for the betterment of South Dakota.
I don’t attack my Democratic brethren… but I also can’t make excuses for my Democratic brethren who make really big mistakes.
I don’t continually use logical fallacies. You engage here in incorrect generalization.
I did not truncate your argument. I pointed out your specific analysis of the District 7 race as a response to my one sentence of earlier analysis. Your subsequent paragraph about your general observation about the “problem” with independents running against Democrats does not follow logically from the paragraph I quoted.
One moment you said Ellis “probably” cost you the election. Before that paragraph was done, though, you negated that probably and said your win or loss was just as likely with or without Ellis in the race. If your loss was just as likely with or without an independent contender, then there is no “problem” with independents running against Democrats. But then in your next paragraph, you claim there is a “problem.”
Part of my problem in responding to you is that I can’t pin you down to a clear statement.
Now, let’s be clear about the illegitimacy of your petitions.
Suppose you were Secretary of State. Suppose someone submitted petitions with the errors your petition contained. Would you certify that petition?
Point blank, the lost in District 7 is solely on the Brookings County dems and their ringleader Mary. She was informed that an independent (who by all accounts is progressive) was running and instead of sitting down and actually thinking about who the party should put forward (maybe just 1 qualified candidate) they rang up every dem in the county asking them to run. But maybe giving Mary credit for this loss is too much…the state party shares the blame with pushing D candidates in every single district without making sure 1) they are viable and 2) giving the resources necessary to win. But I say that not supporting the qualified female candidate who supports women and children is fault enough to revolt her “pussy hat”
Kaylee, I understand. You are an Ellis supporter. If you look at the election results, no independent candidate had a strong finish. Part of this problem is that independents due not have a party identity can be conservative (as in the US House race) or progressive (as in the District 7 State House Race). The problem is that most voters don’t really know what an independent candidate stands for. If there were no Democrats in the any of the races in District 7, the results would not have changed. The Republican candidates would have won anyway. Without Democrats in the race, Democratic supporters would not turnout, and Ellis would have lost by an even larger margin. Point blank, having a full field of Democrats in District 7 races gave progressives the best shot because it was the best way to Democrats and progressives to the polls. The problem is that more conservatives turned out than progressives. That is not an easy problem to solve. If the independent candidate had worked with Mary and ran as an Democrat/Independent, her candidacy would have been more competitive. Mary did as good of a job that could have been done. You are deflecting blame to the wrong person.
Bill. That’s a completely false statement. Most progressives did not come out to vote for the house or senate race, so having you and that college kid on the ticket did nothing to change voter turn out. If there was a reason they came out to vote it was either a) a disgust with the current administration/results of the last election, or b) for Billie Sutton.
I don’t like this idea of anyone stealing votes from anyone since no candidate is owed any votes. But the fact is, the republicans even knew keeping the dems in the house race helped the republicans. Why else did they not challenge your petition? Instead of calling me a “Ellis Supporter” (which is kinda a strange thing since I supported and donated to 5 other campaigns this cycle), just call me a Democrat. A Democrat that has worked on every single dem campaign since college including Obama in Iowa years ago. This is the first place I have lived where I haven’t been active in the county dems and that’s because of the out of touch venomous nature of Mary. And I’m not the first person that has shared this. Maybe she’s good if you’re doing what she asks you, but don’t plan on bringing anything new or different to the table without being attacked. Dems in Brookings don’t stand a chance until she gives the reins to someone that wants to bring people together not tear them apart.
I don’t have much to say other than I agree with Kaylee. As a registered democrat I believe the Brookings County Dems need to reorganize. They are ineffective and dramatic. Blaming others for their obvious faults, failing to organize, and failing to properly campaign on a platform that is broader than college debt.
Bill
If memory serves me correct. Cory Ann was in this race long before you ever got involved. I also believe she reached out to the Dems to see if they would support her candidacy. They chose to field their own candidates.
My analysis would actually be that the Dems lost it then selves running two candidates. Kovach not only has any experience but inflated himself is a political god this entire election. I heard him say multiple times that he was an expert on politics because he is going to school for it and listens to political podcasts but apparently he can’t get his treasure to fill out his pre campaign finance form which is a misdemeanor.
Don’t act like Cory Ann was the problem. She ran a clean campaign based around the community. The Brookings County Dems need to get it together and have some thought moving into 2020.
Kaylee, that was exactly my point. Democrats turned out because of Bllie Sutton running as a Democrat. If he had run as an independent, there would have been a lower turnout of Dems. Both Zach and I benefited from Sutton being on the top of the ballot. True, the election had been nationalized by President Trump. There was high turnout for progressives and supporters of the administration. The Dems added over 30 House seats because of strong Democratic turnout in the urban and suburban areas. The Dems lost Senate seats in states that are becoming redder, Indiana and Missouri, but gained seats in states that are becoming bluer, Arizona (at least the Dem is leading in a close race) and Nevada. South Dakota had a similar trend. Dems did well in SF and in counties with a Native American reservation, but Republicans trounced Dems in the more rural areas of the state. That is why Dems didn’t make any progress in the legislature.
I don’t agree that having Dems in the District 7 helped the Republicans. Tim Reed was going to win because he had strong support from moderate voters. It is reasonable to argue that the Republicans felt that having Ellis in the race would dilute the Democratic vote and Doug Post would win. The Repubs challenged Perpich’s candidacy because she was running against a newbie candidate and saw that as a bigger threat. They didn’t see Zach as a threat and didn’t challenge his petitions. They didn’t challenge my petitions because Spence Hawley notarized only a couple of my petitions. If they had challenged by Hawley petitions, I would have still had 91 valid signatures, and it would have been a pointless challenge.
I am glad you are a strong Democrat. Obviously you have had some personal disagreement with Mary Perpich and don’t like her. Regardless, she has done all of the administrative heavy lifting and has organized all of the Brookings County Democrats’ events. Without Mary being the chairwoman, who would have done all this work? I didn’t see a lot of volunteers that would have been willing to step-up. So, don’t say that Mary didn’t help the local Dems. If you think you have a better idea how to organize the Brookings Dems, then volunteer to be on the Board of Directors and make a positive impact on how to move the Dems forward. The SD Dems will need a fresh inflow of new volunteers because the current ones will be discouraged due to the drubbing we suffered in the current election cycle. The old manta that Dems can’t win in SD will sap the will of the will of the large number of volunteers and candidates we saw in this election. After all, the election cycle in 2020 will be much different. It will be a referendum on the worst president in US history, and we will probably be in a major recession. Facing 10% unemployment, SD votes may finally realize that voting for Republicans is not in their best interest. The day is always darkest before it becomes lighter.
Wait a minute: the presence of two Democrats on the ballot helped the sole independent get more votes and come closer to matching the GOP candidates’ percentages? What evidenced political theory shows that to have ever been the case?
Let’s check what happened in 2014, when Democrats fielded candidates for only three of the six sub-gub statewide offices.
The average turnout in the no-Dem races was 241,000.
The average turnout in the with-Dem races was 256,000.
That’s a voter drop-off of less than 6%. Having no Dem in the race doesn’t seem to have a big impact on participation on a single ballot.
This year, turnout in Brookings County was 64.4%, Turnout in Brown County, where we had no independents on any of our three Legislative ballots, was 62.9%. Hmmm… did the presence of an independent on the ballot, of a five-way race, bring more voters to the polls in Brookings County?
Mary Perpich was on the ballot as an independent against a Republican with no Democratic challenger. Are you contending that, had an official Democratic candidate been listed on the ballot, Perpich would have come closer to beating Smith?
District 25 had two independents on its Senate ballot, one incumbent Republican, and not official Dems. If a Dem had been on the ballot, would either Wirth or Klebanoff have been more likely to increase their percentages?
In District 33 House, independent Nick Reid got 13% of the vote, below sole Dem Jarding’s 20% If Jarding hadn’t been on the ballot, and if all 3,357 of her votes disappeared, Reid’s vote percentage would have risen to 16.5%. 465 of the people who voted for Reid—20%—would have had to have decided not to show up at the polls to drop Reid to a lower percentage than he got Tuesday… and that assumes that all of the alleged “Oh, darn, no Dem, so I won’t go vote” people would have voted for Jarding and Reid and not Jarding and either of the Republicans.
I’m just looking for data here to support assertions. The idea that an independent can get more votes when there are challengers from both major parties on the ballot instead of just one does not seem to stem from data. I welcome examples of elections that would prove my guess here wrong.
Kurt, if you are looking for political allies in Promoting RCV, besides the obvious answer of “every minor party and independent candidate”, you could inquire with BOTH Adamson and Ellis in District 7.
If Adamson is serious about his spoiler claims, he should put his $ where his mouth is, and support RCV. Similarly, as the strongest-performing independent in the state, Ellis could claim that RCV could have put her over the top. Plus it is a somewhat balanced district with lots of college students that might be more receptive to something new.