Now that the 2017 Election is over and the results are final, we’re happy to share with you our voter turnout statistics!
For the 2017 Election, we had 5376 total eligible voters. Of those, 682 voters cast a ballot, which represents 12.7% of the potential voters. Our voter turnout is somewhat less than that of last year, which had a turnout of 15.1%. We also saw a decrease in the number of ballots cast, from 951 to 682, which represents a 28.3% decrease. The 2017 election did, however, improve in other areas: Six candidates ran for three positions, doubled from 2016, when three candidates ran for two positions on the Board.
Elections is committed to continuing to reach out to our eligible members to encourage them to vote in elections. Whoever is elected to the Board of Directors can have an important influence on the long-term health of the OTW’s projects, and we want our members to have a say in that.
For those who might be interested in the number of votes each candidate received, please note that our election process is designed to elect an equal cohort of Board members in order to allow them to work well together, so we do not release that information. As a general rule, we also won’t disclose which of our unsuccessful candidates received the fewest votes, since we don’t want to discourage them from running again in the future when circumstances and member interest might be different.
Once again, a big thank you to everyone who participated at every stage of the election! We hope to see you at the virtual polls next year.