Analyzing the UFT Election – the retiree vote

(This is the second of a multi-part series analyzing the vote in the UFT elections earlier this Spring.
Intro – Retirees – more to come)

The simplest part of the UFT vote to analyze are the retirees.

1. Retirees tend to be steady. This is partially confirmed by slate voting – it was higher among retirees than among any group of active voters.
2. Retirees have their numbers decreased by those who in the last three years have passed on or become incapacitated.
3. Retirees have their numbers increased by those who have retired in the last three years.

I’ll turn these into a few simple assumptions.

1. Retirees rarely change the caucus they support
2. If a retiree votes in this election, it means they voted in the last election, and for the same caucus. A retiree who didn’t vote continues not to vote.
3. About 5-10% of retirees who voted last time were no longer here or are unable to vote this time. Those retirees were distributed amongst the caucuses in the same proportion as the 2007 retiree vote was distributed across the caucuses.
4. The new retirees who voted can be calculated by looking at the difference between each caucus’ 2007 and 2010 total, after adjusting for the 5-10%. The new retirees who voted were voting the same way they voted as active members back in 2007.

Some of these are gross oversimplifications, but none should be wildly off, and it is possible now to examine the numbers and read them.

I read the relatively higher numbers of retirees voting slate as an indication of steadiness in the numbers.

The number voting also remains fairly steady:

The totals and percents do not reveal many changes, except for a small uptick for New Action in this election.

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But trying to uncover how the new retirees voted, it appears that New Action retired a greater proportion than the other caucuses.

I am assuming that about one in fifteen retirees who voted in 2007 did not do so in 2010. That’s just a guess. And I assume that they are distributed proportionately to the total retiree vote amongst the caucuses. Also just a guess. And then I look at the difference between the remaining votes and the 2010 vote to create a guess to how many new retirees  voted for each caucus.

(slate only)

Seeing that New Action had a jump is different from understanding how or why.

One possibility is that I’ve captured a whole lot of ICE/TJC voters switching to New Action. But there is a high proportion of slate voting amongst retirees, which would indicate less flexibility in voting patterns.

Another possibility is that between 2007 and 2010 there was a demographic blip. Many of those who retired would have been first active at the height of New Action’s strength, when Michael Shulman was elected high school vice president, and when New Action had great strength in the high school and middle school divisions.

A third possibility is that more ICE/TJC retirees stopped voting than retirees from the other caucuses. But there is no particular reason to suggest that this is the case.

Most likely, New Action’s vote among retirees benefited primarily by a disproportionate number of new retirees being New Action supporters, and secondarily by a small number of retirees who voted ICE/TJC in 2007 switching to New Action in 2010.

I’ll use these numbers and assumptions later, when I analyze the vote in the four active member divisions.