The joint appointment of a new school committee member has certainly energized supporters of both candidates for the position. For the most part, the public debate has generated some interesting advocacy by supporters of each candidate. However, the recent letter to the editor from Mr. Jim Danielson (“School Committee member selection ‘fishy’”) takes the prize for the most creative use of fuzzy math.
Among the points Mr. Danielson makes, presumably in support of his candidate, David Ford, is that Mr. Ford received more votes than Ms. Courtney Rau in the April election. I have heard this argument from other people as well. On reading this, one would thing that these two candidates faced one another in the April election. That simply was not the case. Mr. Ford finished third in a three-person race while Ms. Rau finished second in a separate three-person race. In Mr. Ford’s race, a voter could cast two votes for two candidates while in Ms. Rau’s race a voter could only cast one vote as only one seat was available.
Simply put, more votes were cast in Mr. Ford’s race than in Ms. Rau’s race. So the fact that he received more votes is absolutely irrelevant.
A more accurate measure of voter preference would be to look at the percentage of votes each candidate received in their separate races. Using this measure, Ms. Rau’s percentage of votes cast in her race exceeded that of Mr. Ford’s.
The use of the “more votes” rationale reminds of other interesting ways people try to spin facts. Some time ago, former Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette boasted that the Sox had done well since they had spent more days in first place than the Yankees. This was an attempt to make us feel better when the Yankees ended up in first place on the last day of the season, the true measure of success.
That kind of fuzzy math makes for a creative excuse but doesn’t change the end result.
