Update: SaintPetersblog has identified the discrepancy with Darden Rice’s vote in the Pier survey. Rice’s vote was filed with the city as unverified because she provided her current home address. The Supervisor of Elections database had not been updated with that address and instead listed Rice’s address as a previous residence. Rice said it was an oversight on her part and has updated her address with the SOE’s office.
SaintPetersblog is working to find out how Rice’s vote – and others who may have been in similar situations – were counted and whether or not they were included in the vote totals.
The City of St. Petersburg has a database of more than 160,000 registered St. Pete voters. The data includes each voter’s address, full name, voting status and party affiliation.
It also includes whether or not they voted in the city’s online public survey to choose a new Pier design.
Given that, reportedly, only about 10,000 residents voted in that survey, there aren’t many Y’s indicated.
According to the data, no one on City Council voted in the survey.
But that’s not true.
Darden Rice said she did vote.
In fact, she even knew the date in which she cast her online ballot. March 5.
After submitting her picks on the survey, Darden tweeted that she had in order to boost participation.
“I just voted in the New St. Pete Pier survey. Please join me in shaping St. Pete’s future. (Deadline is Fri Mar 6),” she tweeted with a link to the city’s survey.
The city’s data has already been called into question. The survey was unscientific and required very little verification of who was voting. Voters need only know a person’s address and date of birth in order to cast a ballot in their names.
This led the company St. Pete Polls, to conduct its own independent survey. The results mostly corroborated the city’s results, potentially lifting doubt that the data was flawed.
Except for one tiny detail.
The city’s survey results ranked the design known as Alma as the public’s number five choice. The St. Pete Polls survey had it ranked dead last.
A second St. Pete Polls survey commissioned by SaintPetersblog asked residents about the three remaining designs – Alma, Destination St. Pete Pier and Pier Park. In that survey, fewer than 9 percent of respondents indicated they approved of Alma, the Pier Selection Committee’s preliminary top pick.
When dealing with this volume of data – more than 160,000 registered voters in St. Pete and some 10,000 who voted – a certain margin of error is to be expected.
But this isn’t just some random resident whose vote was cast aside. It’s the one and only member of City Council who cast a vote. Six of the eight council members verified that they chose not to vote. Wengay Newton hasn’t responded to the question.
Rice hasn’t said which design she voted for, but it doesn’t matter. She was the only one who did vote.
There are any number of reasons the city would see fit to hide that.
First of all, the city did not put in a place a way for the public to find out who voted for which designs through a public records request. Only whether a person voted is available in the data. So, it doesn’t matter which designs she chose in her top three.
Second, the fact that she was the only one who voted casts her as an outlier. An easy question for the public – and reporters – to ask would be: Why didn’t the others vote?
Karl Nurse said he had planned to, but time got away from him. Others indicated they didn’t think it was appropriate.
If Rice’s vote is missing from record by accident, it calls the entire survey, again, into question.
If it wasn’t by accident, the city has some explaining to do.
Either way – the plot thickens.
