UFT elections: Unity’s shrinking vote totals

There is no way to sugarcoat the results – Unity’s vote totals fell hard in the 2013 elections. Worse for the ruling caucus, despite an uptick in 2010, this follows an equally dramatic drop in 2007.

Retiree totals for Unity are flat:

But totals in each in-service division show sharp downward trends:

A friend suggested this reflects decreasing numbers of teachers with tenure – that tenured people probably vote Unity in the same proportion as years ago. This seems possible, as a contributing cause, but easy to overstate. The totals (below) suggest that people who used to vote Unity stopped.

Subtotals and totals:

Ten thousand in service members stopped voting Unity, or retired. But their number of retiree votes did not go up. Any analysis points in one direction: Unity has not replaced significant numbers of the votes it has lost.

How dramatic are the drops?

Unity vote percentage drop by division 2004 – 2013

Remember that this has occurred while the non-Unity vote has stayed small, but fairly constant. (Despite votes flipping this election from New Action to MORE, or last election from ICE/TJC to New Action)

My guess is that Unity doesn’t care much, as long as they win. And despite the dramatic looking numbers, they are not close to losing.

(note:  I am not certain if all retiree numbers are reported as non-weighted. Weighting can change the percentages in the grand total only)