Otherwise Like-Minded Voters Split on Prop. 2

The most notable feature of the Proposition 2 vote was the closeness. Overall, the "nays" only took 52% – a margin of just 10,164 votes out of more than a quarter-million cast. It seemed that any group of politically minded Austinites that got together before Election Day, even if they normally fell on the same side of the political coin, had a split opinion on this one.

In reviewing the precinct-by-precinct results, it was striking how, rather than the normal geographic splits common in other races, this one had a plethora of evenly split neighborhoods. We decided to reflect this split opinion with an unusual take in this map: Rather than showing a straight up or down decision for each precinct, we painted the close ones (those where the totals ranged from 48.00% to 52.00%) all in one color. For the rest, we showed our more common shadings of weakly (52.01%-55.00%) or strongly (more than 55%) supportive or against.

A surprising 55 precincts fell into the "even" category, and with no real geographic uniformity. Ultimately, Prop. 2's biggest problem was that it came out behind in raw number of precincts that favored it. Thirty-nine were weakly supportive, and a mere 19 were strongly in favor – and many of the latter were precincts that didn't yield a lot of votes. On the flip side, 31 were weakly against, and 57 came out strongly against.

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The Extremes

(Precincts where vote differential was greatest.)

Precinct	For	Against	Margin	Winning%
148	1,951	1,500	451	56.5%
420	969	716	253	57.5%
461	1,193	948	245	55.7%
342	1,775	1,544	231	53.5%
352	1,530	1,314	216	53.8%
460	1,082	866	216	55.5%
136	1,599	1,390	209	53.5%
332	1,084	875	209	55.3%
440	988	804	184	55.1%
433	733	558	175	56.8%
354	1,289	1,687	-398	56.7%
214	460	862	-402	65.2%
249	817	1,242	-425	60.3%
347	1,123	1,571	-448	58.3%
231	761	1,219	-458	61.6%
253	815	1,286	-471	61.2%
337	833	1,364	-531	62.1%
256	686	1,226	-540	64.1%
345	690	1,241	-551	64.3%
367	1,567	2,211	-644	58.5%

Note that in Prop. 2's strongest precincts, the margin was often modest, but in its weakest ones, Prop. 2 was beaten more soundly. In the 10 boxes that provided the greatest vote differential, Prop. 2 won by 2,389 votes, and it didn't hit 58% in any precinct. In the 10 precincts where it gave up the most votes, it lost by 4,868 votes and a better than 61%-39% margin.

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Power Boxes

Precinct	For	Against	Margin	Total Votes
367	1,567	2,211	-644	3,778
148	1,951	1,500	451	3,451
342	1,775	1,544	231	3,319
366	1,491	1,735	-244	3,226
328	1,371	1,750	-379	3,121
349	1,479	1,525	-46	3,004
136	1,599	1,390	209	2,989
354	1,289	1,687	-398	2,976
242	1,516	1,445	71	2,961
352	1,530	1,314	216	2,844
266	1,398	1,314	84	2,712
347	1,123	1,571	-448	2,694
406	1,331	1,317	14	2,648
360	1,283	1,271	12	2,554
350	1,287	1,219	68	2,506
277	1,289	1,172	117	2,461
355	1,257	1,181	76	2,438
262	1,088	1,342	-254	2,430
429	1,257	1,097	160	2,354
218	1,020	1,315	-295	2,335

Among the Top 20 "power boxes" – those with the most voters – Prop. 2 actually won 12. But again: The victories here were modest (average win: 142 votes), while the failures tended to be more spectacular (average loss: 339).