Indianapolis City-County Council Race; Don't Forget the Female Factor

Over at Indy Democrat, Jon Easter pens a column about the effect ballot placement has on election results.  He suggests that the Republican challenger to the slate, Jocelyn-Tandy Adande, who is first on the list of five candidates could have an advantage.

Easter is right, of course. Ballot placement does have an effect, in  particular on who wins in a list race.  The worst place is to be in the middle of a list.  Candidates at the very end tend to stand out a little more than those who are in the middle of the pack.  The best place to study this effect is in delegate races where most primary voters know few if any of the delegates.  In those races, those who are near the top of the alphabetical list tend to score better.

This "alpha effect: is most pronounced in low-profile elections.  When you get to the big races where voters actually know the candidates the order of those candidates does not matter nearly as much.

But if you look at those list races, such as a delegate contest or a race for judge, another bias rears its head. Female candidates almost always do better in list races than males do, at least here in Indianapolis.  If the race is between a little known male Candidate A and an unknown female Candidate B, B will almost always win.

I would put gender ahead of the "alpha effect" as an influence on low profile list races.  Another factor, which isn't just confined to list races, is that if a candidate has an unusual or foreign sounding name, they tend to lose support.  Sorry to say, but there is still some xenophobia out there.  I always thought Vop Osili was at a decided disadvantage because of his name.

Let's not forget that in 2007, Barb Malone (a common American sounding name) beat out slated Republican at large candidate, Michale Jezierski.  Mike had the strike of being male and having a somewhat unusual last name.  Of course, he didn't receive any support as the slated candidate either. Then GOP county chairman Tom John decided to assist just just one Republican slated at-large candidate, Kent Smith.

Let's look at the 2011 Republican at-large candidates:

Jocelyn-Tandy Adande
Jackie Cissell
Michael Kalscheur
Barbara Malone
Angel Rivera

Jon Easter theorizes that Rivera is safe because he's an incumbent.  I'm not sure I agree with that.  Rivera has never been in a Republican primary before.  He's not that well known and his time on the council certainly has not endeared himself to fiscal conservatives.  Plus, there is an unfortunate segment of voters, many Republicans, who have a knee jerk reaction to anything Hispanic.  They might not say it out loud, but it is a bias that could show up in the privacy of a voting booth.

Still if one of the four slated candidates dropped for the list, I'd have to guess Michael Kalscheur.  He's male, in the middle of the pack, and has an uncommon last name.

On the other hand Jocelyn-Tandy Adande is not an unknown for many voters. She's run for several offices as both a Republican and a Democrat.  Plus her name is unusual and has a hyphen.  Voters don't like hyphens for some reason.

All in all, I'd predict the slated candidates would win, but it's not the slam dunk some people may think it is.  Again, think of the 2007 Barb Malone example.