Thursday, November 28, 2024
2024 Hamilton County Election Turnout Analysis
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
There is an Election Next Month, Have You Noticed?
Sunday, July 21, 2024
I Am Giving Up On The News Media
I made a choice about this blog. I changed the tag line. I took out the "media analysis," but kept the "analysis." I am giving up on the news media.
My efforts at blogging has entailed many things over my 20+ years of activity, but being a critic of the media has been a fairly constant thread through it all. I am publicly stating I am taking that off the masthead, so to speak. The news media is hopeless and there is nothing to be done about it.
I am not saying I won't consume the news, I will continue to do that, but I no longer respect what is left of the profession anymore. The only thing remaining is trying to entertain an audience, and this is from the "reputable" outlets. The disreputable outlets are unabashed agents of propaganda and manipulation. I'm not going to name names, but they are obvious.
I am giving up on all forms of the news media: broadcast tv, cable tv, newspapers, websites, and radio. This is includes national and local outlets. The death of local news has been the most painful to watch the last decade. The slow death of local newspapers and the nationalization of local TV news programming has turned local news into a mockery. The only way people will know somethings local is by individuals posting about it on their varied social media accounts. That is a dangerous and terrible situation as social media is a cesspool without any reliability or trustworthiness.
I will point out that there is still good journalism going on. There are individuals, even those employed by vapid outlets, who do good work. I am not trying to bash every journalist. I am hitting at the profession. That is what I am giving up on and if I have disappointment in some individual journalists it is when they defend their outlets or colleagues actions when they chase after drama and entertaining stories. Seeing some journalists get defensive at criticism has exasperated me. They don't want to come to the reality what they are doing is not journalism, it is entertainment. Some of them don't see a difference and that is just sad.
At this point I am going to guess you might be looking for someone to blame. Some of you might want to throw blame on corporate media. Sorry Charlie, they only get a relatively small portion of the blame. The overwhelming majority of the blame goes on the public. Most of the public does not care. They don't consume news. They may say they follow the news, but they don't. At best they read some headlines, but they don't regularly consume anything. Sure, they know about the sports and entertainment news. They know what is trending on social media. They are immersed into the marketing feeds (TikTok, YouTube, Instagram) and are up to date on what they are spoon fed while sitting on the couch or on the crapper.
All of this is done willingly, by the way. People are inherently lazy and foolish. They want what is easy and quick. They make time to play endless video games, or watching sports or viewing reality TV (modern day soap operas), but they don't want the mental veggies that is the news. They are willingly embracing a path that would lead society to Idiocracy and not Star Trek.
So, the failure of the corporate world is not in marketing to these people, but instead for requiring the news media to pay for itself. In the broadcast TV world of the long past, news programming was a loss for the networks. They could make more money from a sitcom. They provided the news as a service to society. Partly for legal reasons, but also for civic reasons. Owners had a tiny shred of duty that kept news coverage going. That eroded over the years, but prior to the internet, it sort of worked. The Internet killed the newspaper. With the death of the newspaper, the Wire Services have been decimated. The blood of the news is reporting: who, what, where, and when. With the lack of reporting, an artificial blood of drama and entertainment has been created and killed the credibility of the news. With apathy of the public, the news media has been gutted. So, no one else cares, so I am giving up on media analysis.
I am admitting defeat. I am still not sure what I am going to write about. Politics is pointless at this point as well, much because of the same terrible media and apathetic public. I am not sure if I will even keep this blog going. This was always just a fun little project and 20 years ago it had a small but consistent audience. Well, that is long gone. There is not much point as people don't care. I suppose this is blog post is just a tree falling in the woods. No one will notice. Well, if I am going to go down, I wanted to at least say something on the way to ground.
Tuesday, January 02, 2024
What to Write About for 2024?
Saturday, December 09, 2023
Hamilton County 2023 Turnout by Generation
Hamilton County voter turnout was the highest level for a local election in recent memory. Abortion rights drove most of the additional turnout. Here is voter turnout by Generation:
These numbers are based on the updated voter registration data, not the final results, so there is a small variance. Below are final summary turnout results in the county. First broken down by City vs Non-City:
Tuesday, November 07, 2023
What to Watch For in the Election Night Results in Cincinnati
For news junkies like myself, election night gives off a holiday eve vibe with lots to get exited about. Here is a list of what I look for:
What time will the initial results come in from the Hamilton County Board of Election? The board of election reports actual voting results as fast as it can, but the first report is what I call "The Flop." This initial report is of no election day votes, but does include nearly all of the absentee and early voting results. Under the old punch-card system, the BOE would report these results in a few minutes after the polls close. Since we changed to an optical scan system around 20ish years ago, they don't move as fast. I like to guess the time it posts, a friendly game to play while we wait for results. For most elections it is within 30 minutes of polls closing. After The Flop the next time to look any additional results is when the first precincts are reported. That time is widely variable and has far more elements and people to determine when that information is reported. I don't expect those before an hour after polls close. Unless there were long lines or other delays with certain precincts, all of the precincts are reported by midnight. There are still some absentee mail ballots pending for days and the provisional ballots, which have many other steps to go before all votes are tabulated. This can take many days.
What will the Flop tell us about who will win? In the past The Flog was mostly just mail in votes, but since Obama's first election in 2008 this has grown bigger. Early voting has become a normally large portion of voting, especially for Democrats. For Ohio the tilt to Democratic voters is still a clear variation, but the variances now are not as drastic as 2020, but still show a clear lean for Democrats.
For County or lower level races this gives a very telling snapshot, depending on the snap shot. In the case of the City of Cincinnati, it really sets the table on any likely outcome. For all of the City elections you should have a very clear idea of possible outcomes and likely the winners.
There are two main factors to consider: 1)What area does the race cover and 2) what is the variance between choices in the race. For example, let's look at Issue 23 with fairly uncontroversial elements. This issue covers the City of Cincinnati only. This means that the City results are what to watch. The City is heavily Democratic, so The Flop is providing a more common representation of the overall vote. The variance between the Yes/No results is then considered. There is no magic number or chart to check, but the bigger the lead one result has, the more likely it will win, no matter what variance may occurr with the election day vote base. For Issue 23 if is winning 58% to 42% after the Flop, it will win. If it is winning 52% to 48%, then odds are good it will win, but not as good. The closer it gets, the more the electorate on election day could sway. One VERY IMPORTANT thing to remember, these odds are not going to be enough in most cases to call the race. The number of votes out there will be such that the other side "could" still win. Issue 22 is one race that has less predictability on it, as the variation of which voting blocks are for or against the issue are not clearly drawn. That being said, on any ballot issue in the City, you NEVER want to be behind on the Flop. This ends up being a situation when people confuse possibility with probability. This happens to often.
For the City Council race, with a non-binary voting options, the issues are different. The gaps between each candidate then become the first question. After the Flop the key issue is the vote result gap. How far out is the 10th place from the top 9 places. The bigger the gap, the smaller the chance that #10 can over take that candidate. The next question would the voting blocks each candidate relies upon. For the Democrats this year, they have the Dem Ticket and that block is strong. If they have all 9 slots and Republican Keating is last, her gap needs to be very small with the 9th place to give her the chance to pick up the small influx of Republican voters on election day (vs early voting). If Keating is not in 10th Place, she would be in a great position to win. The higher she is in order, the more she locks in finishing in the top 9. There is far less certainty is this type of race, so less certainty comes from the Flop. If this was a mayoral election, it would be a different story.
What about State Wide Issues? Hamilton County results are not going to be an indication of anything alone with State wide issues, but there is an expectation game. On Issues 1 and 2 HamCo would be expected to beat the polling numbers for those issues to pass. That gets more pressing when look at just the City of Cincinnati results. The same factors on what will happen can come from The Flop, but then the party swing with early voting becomes a bigger factor. What this means: If the Yes polling result for Issue 1 is 58% for the State, Hamilton County should be significantly higher on that for it occur. That direction is what should be examined. When The Flop happens, Issue 1 should be dominating the county. Then as the election day results come in, when more Republican voters go to the polls, the Yes percentage should drop. There is no set number to watch for, beyond The Flop. If they Flop is close or less than the polling numbers, that is a indicator of where things are going. Again, this is not anything definitive on actual results, but it can tell you that the polling was off.
Where are the Election Night Parties? Ok, this is one that is far less fun than it used to be. Firstly it is less fun for me as I've gotten much older and can't stay out late. The other reason is the toxic state of politics. In the past, you could be friendly with those that don't agree with your politics. Today, it is very difficult to put aside politics and be humans. This is even true within political parties as well as between political parties. The negative and very nasty way the Anti-Issue 22 campaign waged demonstrated this more than anything. It is so toxic. I've seen people behave so terribly online with this campaign that it is very troublesome. People could put aside the conflict once the polls close. I will do my best to hold my tongue when Issue 24 crash and burns, but there are political groups who just spew so much negativity, I am not going to consider myself congenial if I just say nothing at all.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Cincinnati City Council Election October 2023 Update
Reggie Harris (D)*‡
Meeka Owens (D)*‡
Victoria Parks (D)*‡
Jeff Cramerding (D)*‡
Mark Jeffreys (D)*‡
Scotty Johnson (D)*‡
Liz Keating (R,C)*‡
Seth Walsh (D)*‡
Anna Albi (D)‡
Key
* = Incumbent
‡ = On Ballot
D= Democratic Party
R= Republican Party
C= Charter Committee (aka Charter Party)
G= Green Party
I= Independent