Voting and party registration in these four towns

The article in The Millerton News of Oct. 14, 2010 (“Area Political Party Affiliationâ€�) is incomplete in its conclusion that “registered voters in the Northeast Corner of the county are more conservative and more independent than all of Dutchess County.â€� By looking only at voter registration numbers rather than election results, it misses the extent to which results in the Northeast Corner are very similar to the results in Dutchess County, but diverge from those results when analyzed on a town-by-town basis.  

In analyzing election results, I will look at voting for Republicans and Democrats and avoid the use of the terms “conservative� and “liberal,� as these terms no longer have generally accepted meanings.

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As a general matter, the aggregate voting results in the towns of Amenia, North East, Pine Plains and Washington track closely those of Dutchess County.

Thus in the presidential election of 2004 John Kerry received 47 percent of the vote countywide and 47.3 percent of the vote in the four towns.

In the congressional election of 2006 Hilary Clinton received 55.1 percent of the vote in Dutchess County and 54.8 percent of the votes in the four towns. In 2008 Gillibrand received 60.2 percent countywide and 60.2 percent in the four towns.

Finally, in the race for Dutchess County family court judge in 2008, Joan Posner received 54.6 percent of the vote countywide and 54.2 percent of the vote in the four towns.

However, aggregating the election results in the four towns masks the differences between the towns. To make a generalization to which there are of course exceptions, it seems that North East votes most Democratic, Amenia next, Pine Plains next and Washington is the town that votes most Republican.

Thus in the 2004 presidential election, Kerry received 54 percent of the vote in North East, 47.5 percent in Amenia, 43.6 percent in Pine Plains and 45.1 percent in Washington.

In the 2006 Senate election, Clinton received 60.9 percent of the vote in North East, 59.9 percent in Amenia, 56.3 percent in Pine Plains and 53.7 percent in Washington.  

Ranking the four towns in the 13 contested elections over the last three election cycles, North East was the most Democratic in eight elections, Amenia was second in eight elections, Pine Plains was third in nine elections and Washington was fourth in 10 elections.  

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The election results over the last three cycles do not coincide with party registration. Thus, in North East in 2008, 29.2 percent of the electorate were registered Democrats and 38.6 percent were registered Republicans or Conservatives. Further, a slightly higher percentage of Republicans voted than Democrats. Yet in 2008 Obama got 60 percent of the vote and Gillibrand 63.9.   

There are at least two reasons for this disparity. First, members of the Independence Party and voters not affiliated with a party have tended to break for the Democrats. Second, because the Republican Party has moved well to the right, there are Republicans in North East who now vote Democratic because they do not agree with many of the positions taken by the Republican Party.

Jon Arnason is the chair of the Democratic Committee for the town of North East.