Dawidziak: A rearview look at Election 2011

Sometimes, it's downright discouraging to be right. Two weeks ago, I predicted a dreadfully low 25 percent turnout for last week's local elections. Although I make a living based on the accuracy of my predictions, I would've been happy to have gotten this wrong.

But as of last week's unofficial results, Suffolk County's turnout was 26 percent and Nassau's was 23 percent. Islandwide turnout was 24.5 percent. Add in the absentee ballots, and the turnout will be the predicted 25 percent.

And remember these are the percentages of registered voters, not the percentage of 18-and-older eligible voters. When figured this way, the way national turnout figures are calculated, then ours was more like a 20.6 percent turnout. Such low numbers, while not surprising, are troubling.

We tend to blame the results on voter apathy. Yet when you interview prospective voters, they don't seem apathetic at all. They seem angry, frustrated, upset and worried. They have no shortage of opinions on who's to blame and how to fix things. They hunger for change. Still, four out of five of them can't bother to vote. It's astounding that many of these same people vote for their favorites on "Dancing with the Stars" or are eager to know who "The Biggest Loser" was. The democratic process is the biggest loser here.

The anti-incumbency feeling that was picked up by many pollsters did not translate into votes here last week. With a few notable exceptions, incumbents won in most of the county and town races. Does this mean that more of the angry, disillusioned voters simply stayed home? Probably yes. The power of local incumbency was largely at work. The old joke in politics is that voters think, "They're all corrupt -- except my representative." The joke often proves true. Congressional approval ratings are around 22 percent; voters tell pollsters that they feel that Congress as whole is corrupt and needs to be changed. Yet, more than 90 percent of congressional incumbents get re-elected every two years.

As also predicted here, moderate swing voters made the difference. Generally on Long Island, 60 percent of voters go straight across on either the Democrat or Republican line, so it was the 40 percent ticket-splitters who actually picked the winners.

And split their tickets they did! Take a typical ballot cast by one of the 40 percenters in the Town of Islip. Reading from left to right across the races, these voters went to the Republican-Conservative line for Supreme Court judges, then to the Democratic line to elect Steve Bellone for county executive. Then they went back to the Republican-Conservative lines for Jack Toomey for County Court judge. Many of these voters returned to the Democratic line to re-elect a popular legislator, Presiding Officer Bill Lindsay. But hold on, we're not done: They then went back to the Republican-Conservative-Independence Party-backed town candidates who, at this point, seem to have swept the townwide races. Democratic Supervisor Phil Nolan is one of the rare incumbents who lost last week, to Republican Tom Croci.

It's undeniably bad news that only one in five of those eligible decided to vote. But there is good news, too. Those who did go to the polls are more informed and casting intelligent ballots. Jumping from party to party shows that they are getting to know the candidates and issues, and voting accordingly. If you do the math, 40 percent of the 20 percent who voted were the deciding swing voters. This translates to 8 percent of the citizenry making the decisions for everybody else. We don't call them swing voters for nothing. They literally swing the outcome of most elections on Long Island.

Michael Dawidziak is a political consultant and pollster.