12 December 2018 - 2018 Voter Challenge - Final Results

Below are the final results of the 2018 Voter Challenge. There were actually 2 challenges, between Huntington Woods and Pleasant Ridge, and between Berkley, Ferndale, Oak Park, Royal Oak and Southfield. The challenges were designed based on the historical voter turnouts and what seemed to be fair competitions. I publicized the challenges using Next Door Huntington Woods (which includes at least some portion of these 7 cities) and also wrote to the Mayors and City Council of each city. I erroneously omitted Lathrup Village from the challenge, but it will be included in the 2020 Voter Challenge.

These results are based on the official results from Oakland County, posted here (I used the detailtxt.zip file in the spreadsheet below). In six cities, the final voter count was within 4 votes of the preliminary results. In Southfield there were an additional 3,114 voters (8.8%). This was the explanation from Oakland County Elections: 

On election night, the City Clerk transmitted a zero for eight of the absentee precincts.  During the canvass, the Board also determined that there were untabulated ballots in every absentee precinct.  Those ballots were also tabulated during the certification and added to the totals. This certainly isn’t typical and the Southfield City Clerk has promised to rectify the situation for future elections.

Congratulations to the winning cities. I will write to their Mayors and City Commissions and send them checks for their recreation departments: Huntington Woods ($1,000), Berkley ($1,000) and Ferndale ($500). 

Congratulations to all of the cities for the increased turnout from the 2014 elections, as indicated below.

If you have questions, please contact me at NatPernick@gmail.com.


















Nov 2018 General Election


Votes Reg voters Turnout 2014 Turnout Change





Berkley 9,190 12,607 72.9% 54.0% 19%





Ferndale 11,053 15,725 70.3% 44.6% 26%





Huntington Woods 4,251 5,380 79.0% 66.5% 13%





Oak Park 14,173 24,235 58.5% 44.1% 14%





Pleasant Ridge 1,796 2,352 76.4% 64.8% 12%





Royal Oak 32,899 48,316 68.1% 48.3% 20%





Southfield 38,364 60,785 63.1% 49.1% 14%





Total 111,726 169,400 66.0% 48.8% 17%





Source: Oakland County Website, retrieved 12Dec18

See https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/MI/Oakland/91321/220656/en/reports.html#





Contests: Huntington Woods vs. Pleasant Ridge - $1000
Berkley vs. Ferndale vs. Oak Park vs. Royal Oak vs. Southfield - $1000, $500