City of Hudson's weighed voting system under scrutiny

[jimrtex]

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I'm not sure I understand your question.

I think you are asking  something related to this:

Let's start with 5 aldermen with equal weights of 20, which total 100 votes, and a majority of 51 is required.  It still requires 3 aldermen to pass anything, and while a majority of 51 is required, any winning combination will actually have 60 votes.

There are only 2⁵ or 32 combinations of 5 members, including 5:0 and 0:5 unanimous votes.   ^5! / _{3! 2!} or 10 combinations will be 3:2 votes.   3 members are critical to each of these 3:2 combinations, making 3 x 10 or 30 vote changes that are critical, with each member the critical change 6 times.   As we would expect, the voting power of each member is 6/30 or 20%.

Now let's change the weights some.   A 29, B 20, C 20, D 20, E 11; Total = 50, majority = 51.   The voting weight for A is now 45% larger than the average, and a combination of (A,B,C) will have 69 votes, while a combination of (C,E,F) will have 51 votes,

Nonetheless, it still requires 3 members to pass any resolution since the strongest pair (A,B) only has 49 votes, and any 3-member combination will succeed since the weakest triplet (C,D,E) has 51 votes.  The voting power of each member is still 6/30 or 20%.  If the voting weights were proportional to population (eg District A has 29% of the population, while District E only has 11%), then there is a large discrepancy between population and voting power.

To actually change the voting dynamics, we need to make some 2-member combinations succeed, or equivalently require four-member combinations fail.   So let's tweak the weights to A 31, B 20, C 20, D 20, and E 9.  Now any two-member combination of A and any of B, C, or D succeeds, and a combination of E and two of (B,C,D) fails.

Suddenly, A is critical to 12 combinations.  It is critical not only to (A,B), (A,C,), and (A,D), but also to any of the 6 3-member combinations it is a member of (If A leaves (A,B,E) it fails), and the 3 four-member combinations that include A,E, and 2 of B,C,D.

B, C, and D are each critical two 4 combinations.  B is critical to (A,B), (A,B,E), (B,C,D), and (B,C,D,E).

E is critical to zero combinations.  There are no combinations, where it would pay off to get E to switch his vote, whether through convincing arguments, cajoling, bribery, or coercion.  E has no voting power.

There are 24 critical changes, A is critical 12 of them or 50%, while B, C or D are each the critical  vote 4 times or 17%.   E is critical 0% of the time.  This clearly is not acceptable.

So let's try (A,B,C,D,E) = (29, 22, 20, 18, 11)

Critical swings are now (8,8,4,4,4) or on a percentage basis: A 29% (on target); B 29% (way overpowered); C and D, 14% each and underpowered; and E 14% also overpowered.

The best I can come up with is (A,B,C,D,E) = (30, 21, 21, 21, 10) .  Critical swings are (9, 5, 5, 5, and 3) for a total of 27,  Power shares are (33%, 19%, 19%, 19%, 11%).   If the populations shares were 29%, 20%, 20%, 20%,and 9% this is not too bad, though the relative error for A is 15%, and for B, C, and D it -7%, and E 1%.  The deviation range is 22% which is pushing what a court might accept.

Problems with weighted voting and small bodies include few voting combinations, and few critical combinations.  In our example, there were only 32 combinations and somewhat fewer critical changes.   With 27 critical swings total, each represents 3.7% power share, which is quite coarse in terms of resolution.   And where we had 3 districts with the same population (and it wouldn't really matter if they had populations of say 1538, 1511, and 1487), many of the combinations are equivalent (A,B), (A,C), and (A,D) for example are equivalent in their population share, number of members, and relative voting strength between the members.  There are only 16 non-equivalent sets of combinations:

Empty set.
(A), (X), (E)
(AX), (AE), (XX), (XE)
(AXX), (AXE) (XXX), (XXE)
(AXXX), (AXXE), (XXXE)
(AXXXE)

Here X represents any one of B, C, or D; with no duplicates within a combination.

I didn't answer your question, but I think you may be able to re-ask it now.

[jimrtex]

And part 2

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I don't believe that there is a mathematical formula.

Power share does not vary proportionately with voting weight.   As we saw above, we could adjust the weights from (20, 20, 20, 20, 20) to (30, 20, 20, 20, 10) and see no change in voting power, and then suddenly at (31, 20, 20, 20, 9) there was a catastrophic change.

On the other hand, I've noted that by using simple population-based weights, but changing the threshold for success to  something slightly different than 5%+1, that I could get just as good proportionality between population share and voting power, as by changing the voting weights.   I sort of did this in my examples above.  I initially had 100 total votes, so that a majority was 51 or 51%.  In my last example, I used 101 total votes, and a majority of 51, or 50.5%.  And in an unweighted 5-member body, a majority is 3/5 or 60%.

Simple-minded judges won't accept a redefinition of "majority" even if the new percentage is only slightly different and still represents the notion of "bare concurrence:.

But we can trick the judges by adding an extra weighted vote.  Let's say that the at-large member has a 10% voting share.   Then if he joins with district members who have votes representing more than 40% of the total vote, then the motion passes.  A district member who is critical to getting past 40%, is also critical to the combination including the at-large member.

But we could boost the at-large member to 11%, and proportionately reduce the other shares.  The district members now only produce more than 39% of the total.   In the original version they needed 40/90 of the district vote (or 44.4%).  In the second they needed 39/89 (or 43.8%).

We've subtly switched from "majority" which is fixed at 50%+, to "significant district concurrence" which can float.

This currently happens in Hudson, where the President's voting weight varies quite widely between votes for a simple majority, and the 2/3 and 3/4 super-majorities.

Use of an odd number of members, plus a president may have other problems.  Consider an unweighted council.  If the district members vote 2:3, the president can not change the result.  Only if they vote 3:2 can he in effect veto their decision.

If there were an even number of members, he has a casting vote, whether formally or informally.  If the district members vote 3:3 he breaks the tie.  If the district members vote 4:2, then he has no effect.

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I use Computer Algorithms for Voting Power Analysis, in particular the program lpgenf.

If you set your voting weights in a column, you can copy and paste them directly in the "Weights" box, and be sure to set the correct "quota" or majority.  You can then copy and paste the results from the web page into your spreadsheet using the "Match Destination Formatting" which will simply grab the numbers.

You are most interested in "Swings".   The Normalized Banzhaf Index is the power share among the voting members.   But in Hudson you want to use the power share among the district members, which is each member's swings divided by the total number of swings, excluding those of the president.

Add in a column with population, you can calculate population share and power share, and deviation (power-share / population-share - 1).   All of these are expressed as percentages.  I usually copy the results from the program over to the right side of my spreadsheet, and then copy the swings into a column used for computation.

The spreadsheet that I use is set up specifically for Hudson (11-members).  It brute force generates the 2048 voting combinations, and then counts critical swings, etc.

In either case, using the program or the spreadsheet, iteration is doable, but not automatic.  I could clean up the spreadsheet and send you a copy.

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The 10% limit may not be applicable to local governments.  See Abate v Mundt and
Roxbury Taxpayers Alliance v Delaware County Board of Supervisors  In the latter case, the deviation range was 16.79%.

5% of 1280 is 26, which doesn't permit much flexibility when many individual blocks have more than 26 persons.

Nearly equal-population wards can be a problem with weighted voting.   See Cortland County, which has a 17-member legislature where the districts are either combinations of towns, or divisions of the city of Cortland or the town of Cortland.   Each member has a voting weight equivalent to the population they represent.   But the districts are so similar in size, that any combination of 9 members represents a majority of the population (and therefore a majority of the legislative votes), and no combination of 8 members represents a majority.

[jimrtex]

This is the beginning of an analysis of the problems with weighted voting when there are only a few number of members.  I am using the official Hudson numbers, so as to not dirty up the analysis with other issues.   Each ward was assigned a weight proportional to its population, such that they added up to 1000.  Thus each weighted vote unit is equivalent to 0.1% of the total population of 6.403 persons.  A simple majority is 50.1%.

W  Pop Vote
1  770 120
2 1281 200
3 1142 179
4  725 113
5 2485 388

With five members, there are only 32 (2⁵) combinations, and at most 32 possible vote totals.

0
113
120
179
200
233
292
299
313
320
=== 1/3
379
388
412
433
492
499
=== 1/2
501
508
567
588
612
621
=== 2/3
680
687
701
708
767
800
821
880
887
1000

If we consider any vote that receives more than 2/3 support, or less than 1/3 support as representing a consensus for or against, then there are only 12 combinations that are close or somewhat contentious (for Hudson, this is not really true, since with Ward 5 having almost 39% of the population, their support could be critical to passage of motions that receive well in excess of 2/3 support.

If we look at the actual critical votes, there are only 22 of them, which means that each critical swing represents 4.5% of the total, and that it would extremely difficult to match population share (4.5% of 20% is 22.5%, which illustrates the extreme coarseness of the critical votes)

The actual voting power is:

Ward            Vote   Swing  R.Pop.  R.Pow   Dev. 
Ward 1           120       2  12.03%   9.09% -24.40%
Ward 2           200       2  20.01%   9.09% -54.56%
Ward 3           179       2  17.84%   9.09% -49.03%
Ward 4           113       2  11.32%   9.09% -19.71%
Ward 5           388      14  38.81%  63.64%  63.97%

It turns out that Ward 5 has an extreme share of the power and the remaining four wards have equal power.   It turns out that Ward 5 and any other ward represent a majority of the population (Ward 5 + Ward 4 = 50.1%, Ward 5 + Ward 2 = 58.8%).  Further, the three largest of the wards other than Ward 5, do no represent a majority.   To overcome Ward 5 opposition, all four other wards must vote together.

For the 4 wards other than Ward 5, their critical votes are (1) When they join with Ward 5; or (2) When they join with the three other smaller wards.

For Ward 5, the 14 critical votes are when they join with any one of the 4 smaller wards; with any of the 6 possible pairs of the four smaller wards; or with any of 4 triplets of the smaller wards (14 = 4 + 6 + 4).

The total range of the deviations is 118.5%.   So while we can get quite close to matching population share,

Ward            Vote   Vote   R.Pop.  R.Wgt   Dev. 
Ward 1           120     120  12.03%  12.00%  -0.21%
Ward 2           200     200  20.01%  20.00%  -0.03%
Ward 3           179     179  17.84%  17.90%   0.36%
Ward 4           113     113  11.32%  11.30%  -0.20%
Ward 5           388     388  38.81%  38.80%  -0.03%

Total deviation 0.57%, we are far far away on voting power.  A compromise is likely to give a bad mismatch of voting weight to population AND votiing power to population.

[jimrtex]

On the Subject of the Weighted Vote purports to show the equal population map used for the 2003 referendum.

I don't think that is the map that was voted on.  The resolution passed in spring 2003 match this map:



This map is more plausible since it addresses the issue of underpopulation of wards 1 and 4 in a straightforward way, shifting them eastward along Warren, and then moving the boundary between 3 and 5 northward.   The other map combined Wards 1 and 4 catty-corner-wise.

Both have a problem of Ward 3 including the prison population, which was larger in 2000 and 2010.   Note the boundary includes the driveway off of Harry Howard in front of the Firemen's Home.  This is a misapprehension of census geography.  Census block boundaries use visible features such as roads.  They aren't loops to capture particular building.  See the cemetery, which has many census blocks, though with no people living there.

Looking closer at the map, it is actually a 6-district plan.

Adding the ward populations on the map, they total 6827.

The 2000 census population was 7524.
The 2010 census population was 6713.
The 2010 population after prison adjustments was 6403.

But the 2000 census population for Ward 1 (as shown on their map) is correct.

The difference between 7524 (2000 census) and 6827 (as shown on map) is 697, which happens to be the 2000 population of the census block containing the prison.   In 2000, the RR tracks were used as a census block boundary which did a better job of separating the prison from the persons along the south side of Union, but not entirely.

The population for Wards 1, 2, 3, and 5 appear to match the 2000 census, if we assume that the population of the prison block was entirely in the prison, which it was not.  Those are clearly houses on the south side of Union, east of where the RR crosses, as well as west of Worth Avenue.   I can't quite get 4 and 6 to match up.

To get the correct population for Wards 3 and 5, the parrot's beak has to be included in Ward 3.

But unless they did a switch on the resolutions, this map was not the one on the ballot.

[jimrtex]

Hofstra Report on Hudson governance

[jimrtex]

Some visualization is in order.

This is based on the current 5 wards, each electing one alderman.   The voting strength of each alderman is proportional to the population of their ward.   The weights are calculated such that they sum to 1000, so that one unit corresponds to 0.1% of the population (6.403 persons).

For example, the alderman from Ward 1, which has 12.03% of the population has 120 votes. Normalization makes it easy to convert to percentages.   For example, a majority of 501 votes is 50.1% of the total votes.

I am using the erroneous populations used to calculate the current weights because it would confuse matters to switch to the correct populations, and might lead to the conclusion that a set of particular populations causes the problem.   The problem is more fundamental.  Weighted voting does not work well, if at all, with small bodies.

Consider the case of a 3-member body.   Under unweighted voting, any combination of two members prevails on any vote.   To change this dynamic via weighted voting, we would have to create situations where a single member could prevail, or alternatively where all 3 members would be required.

But if Adams voting for a measure causes it to prevail, and Brown and Cook can not prevail, then Adams is a dictator, and Brown and Cook are mere observers (example Adams 51, Brown 28, Cook 21).

If the votes of the three members are weighted such that it requires 2 members to prevail (for example: Adams 44, Brown 32, Cook 24; Adams+Brown:Cook = 76:24;  Adams+Cook:Brown = 68:32; Brown+Cook:Adams 56:44; then the dynamics are identical to an unweighted system where each member had one vote.  If the weights were based on population, you simply have a system of grossly non-equipopulous districts, where Adams' district has an excess population of 32%, and Cook's district is 28% underpopulated.  The weights in this case would be tissue paper attempting to hide a OMOV violation.

In a 5-member body it is slightly better.   In an unweighted system, any combination of 3 members will prevail.   To change the dynamics, you have to make it possible for some combinations of two members to prevail (which also mean that the other 3 members can not block the action, or prevail in their own right).   While this is possible, there is a risk that the two most powerful members could become too powerful.  If the two can get together and make deals, they would be able to win every vote.

If the weights are such that only 3-member combinations can prevail, and all 3-member combinations prevail, then again you are back to non-equipopulous districts with equal voting power.   This can also happen in a larger body. Cortland County has a 17-member legislature, in which any 9-members can prevail, even those from the 9 smallest districts, yet each member has a weighted vote (the same as their district's population).  Cortland County could give each member one vote and a glass of water, and the results would be the same (save if the water led to clearer thinking).

The following table shows the voting power of the 5 ward alderman, if they had a voting weight proportional to their population.



Ward 1 has a population of 770, which is 12.03% of the total.  There voting weight is 120, which is 12.00% of the total.  There is, as we would expect, extremely good conformance between population and voting weight.  The small relative error (0.21%) is due to rounding.

There would be two voting combinations where the alderman from Ward 1 would be critical. The combination would prevail, but if he withdrew his support, it would fail.   His vote was necessary for the combination to prevail.   In the other 14 possible combinations in which the alderman voted Aue, either the combination would not have a majority and fail, or his support would be superfluous.  For example, if the vote was unanimous, it would not matter that the alderman from Ward 1 switched to No.  It would still have 88%.

There are 22 critical votes among all 5 alderman.  The Ward 1 alderman's share would be 2/22 or 9.09%.  This is his relative Banzhaf index, or voting power share.  Comparing 9.09% his voting power share, to the 12.02% population share, results in a -24.40% deviation.

Overall among the five aldermen, the range of deviations is -54.56% to 63.97%, for a total range of 118.53%, which is extremely outside the generally accepted limits of 10% for local governments.  The standard deviation is 42.55%, and RMS is 52.23%, which are quite poor (we would expect something around 3% or so).   The RMS takes into account the population of the wards.   In this case, the error is largest wards is the greatest, so a relatively large share of the voters is excessively advantaged (Ward 5) or excessively disadvantaged (Wards 2 and 3).

The small number of critical votes (22) makes it an extremely coarse measurement of power.  If the alderman from Ward 1 increased his critical votes from 2 to 3, his power share would increase from 9.09% to 13.63%.   The relative deviation would go from a deficit of -24.40%, to an excess of 13.39%.   Closer, but not close.  It would like measuring someone who is 5'7" as either 5 foot of 6 foot.   6 foot is the better answer, but not a very good answer.

This coarseness is directly related to the small number of members.  Even if all members had an equal vote, the number of critical combinations is 30 (I suspect this is a theoretical maximum for a five member body).   Using the current weights for the 11-member Common Council, there are 2224 critical votes (this ignores the quite dubious assumption that the aldermen from a ward will vote opposite each other half the time, and that a voter from a ward has power when his two aldermen are cancelling each other out, and loses power if they were to agree).

It may also be quite difficult to improve the voting power for one alderman without making it worse for others.  If you push in one place, it bulges out somewhere else.   Dr. Papayanopoulos literally finds possible voting weights by trial and error, having a computer test nearly a million different sets of voting weights, before spitting out a few favored plans.

The following chart illustrates how the voting power is calculated (It is helpful to see this at a larger scale.   In Firefox, right click, and the click on View Image)



Each row of circles represents the votes of an alderman (Ward 5 on the top and so on).   Each column represents the votes for a particular combination of alderman, with the horizontal placement representing the total votes for that combination.   An open circle indicates a No vote.  A filled blue circle represents an Aye vote.  Those on the left side are votes that failed to secure a majority.  Those on the right side receive a majority, but the vote was not critical to success.  A red filled circle is a critical vote, where if the vote were switched to No, the combination would no longer prevail.

At the extreme left is the case where a motion received zero votes because everyone voted against it.  At the extreme right is a unanimous vote, which results in a 1000:0 victory.  No member's vote is critical since any motion with 4 members will still prevail.   A combination of wards 3 and 5 results in a prevailing vote of 567:433.  Both ward 3 and 5 are critical, since the removal of either would cause the motion to fail.  A combination of wards 1, 4, and 5 results in a prevailing vote of 621:379, but only Ward 5 is critical.  Removal of either Ward 1 or Ward 5 does not cause the motion to fail.

If we count the filled red circles, we will find 14 critical votes for Ward 5, and 2 each for other 4 wards, just as is shown in the above table.   Carefully looking at the different combinations, we see that Ward 1 will be critical if it combines with Ward 5 or if it combines with all 4 smaller wards.   The same is true for Ward 2, 3, and 4.   Ward 5 and any other ward represents a majority of the population, a bare majority of 50.1% for wards 4 and 5, and a comfortable margin of 58.8% for wards 2 and 5.   But since passage of a motion is a TRUE/FALSE proposition, there is effectively no difference between the two.  Wards 4 and Wards 2 effectively have the same power, despite Ward 2 having a 76% larger population.

Ward 5 is given credit for a critical vote for combinations involving itself and Ward 1; or itself and Ward 4; or itself and both Wards 1 and 4.  In a sense this is double counting.   Imagine the freshman alderman wants to get a stop sign in his ward.   Being new, he goes to the other members, and starts with Ward 1.   The alderman from Ward 1 agrees, in exchange for support for a paving project in his ward.   But they still are short votes.   The Ward 4 alderman suggest going to Ward 2 next, but the more experience alderman from Ward 1, knows to go to Ward 5.  The alderman from Ward 5 may ask for sodding a park, plus another project.

If the alderman from Ward 5 made a deal with each of the other alderman, then there would be 4 projects in Ward 5, and 1 in each of the other wards.   Ward 5 would get 50% of the projects, despite having only 39% of the population.  Wards 1 and Wards 4 would get about a proportional share, and ward 2 and 3 would be shortchanged.

[jimrtex]

This is Torie's proposed 5-ward map, which will apparently be subject to a referendum in the November 2015 election, either by the Common Council or the initiative.



It keeps the current split of the block off of Harry Howard.   Since that split was the apparent source of misadminstration of elections, and not taken into account when calculating the voting weights, I don't think it should be perpetuated.   The only reason to use it, is to get better population equality.  But you would not split a block to get better population equality, and if yu did you wouldn't run the dividing line through somebody's living room.

This alternative eliminates the split block.



Torie's proposal uses Rope Alley as a boundary between wards 2 and 4.   While alleys are named in Hudson, and the census bureau uses them as block boundaries, they are still alleys, lined by garages, with the houses at the front of the lots.

This alternative switches the split between wards 2 and 4 to be between Warren and Columbia.



This leaves the area along Mill Street east of 2nd street isolated from the rest of the 4th ward.  The only reason they would be included is because of the census block does not recognized settlement patterns on a city scale.   The block is currently split betweenwards 2 and 4.

This alternative restores the area to the 2nd ward.  The split is different than that of the Harry Howard block, because there are no houses near the boundary, and the area in Ward 2 only has a couple of dozen persons.

[jimrtex]

Here is a little Hudson update. The smell of litigation is in the air. Of course this is but the tip of the iceberg, but this one is well, an exemplar of upstate politics in New York. It's a contact sport.   Mr. Nastke is the Pub Elections Board member by the way, and Virginia Martin is the Dem member. It's one of the reasons I changed party registration. The Dems around my hood tend to be - well - more law abiding. Who knew?

My comment generated some interesting emails from one of the power players, but whatever.

Under New York Statute, Election Code 4-100, the legislative body of a city or town has responsibility for defining election districts ("election district" is New York-ese for voting precincts).  There is an exception if a city or town has requested the Board of Elections (BOE) to define the election districts.  Read carefully the last sentence of the section, where it is absolutely clear that the legislative body (ie Common Council) has primary responsibility.

Even if the City of Hudson has in the past has made a request to the BOE, surely they can rescind that request.

It is both a legal and functional requirement that election districts not cross ward boundaries.  Surely the Board of Elections is not going to claim that they have the authority to override the charter.  Even the Common Council is unable to do that.  They may only make a proposal that would take effect upon approval by the voters.

The Board of Elections might have authority to define the internal boundary between 5-1 and 5-2, but it appears that this does not comply with state law, since it doesn't appear to follow visible features.

Unless the SBOE has promulgated some sort of regulation that is contrary to statute, vesting authority in CBOE for defining election districts, this is pretty clear cut.

The simplest solution may be for the Common Council to pass a resolution defining the election district boundaries.  Except for the boundary between 5-1 and 5-2, they should conform to the ward boundaries.   If I were doing it, I would clarify which addresses are in:

Ward 1/Ward 2 along Front Street.
Ward 2/Ward 4 in the area where 3rd street stops.
Ward 4/Ward 5, including the split on Clinton, the incomplete block of 5th-Washington-Short-(Clinton), the east and south side of Harry Howard for its entire length; the houses on Lucille and Mill at the turn of Harry Howard, and the Fireman's home.

[jimrtex]

Are those the only two election board members? What official role do they have in NY?

Board of Elections in New York have two commissioners, one chosen by each major party (top two gubernatorial parties).  Larger counties may have four commissioners, and NYC has its own structure.  The statutes describe it as a board, even though it may only have two members.  The board hires clerks, voting machine technicians, custodians, etc, and election inspectors, and poll clerks.  They are in charge of registration and conducting elections, including local elections.  But it appears that in the that capacity they are acting on behalf of the cities and towns.

[jimrtex]

It sounds like the map errors occurred at different times, and the boards at those separate times reacted differently to the errors.

Does the board have a staff, or do they actually maintain the voter lists themselves?

The Board of Elections has two members, designated as commissioners.  The Board of Elections is in charge of registration as well conducting elections.

It appears to be common practice to have explicitly partisan staff.  Columbia County's BOE has two Deputy Commissioners, two elections specialists, and two voting machine/HAVA specialists, one of each party.  My guess is that "deputy commissioner" is actually a staff position.

[jimrtex]

It sounds like the map errors occurred at different times, and the boards at those separate times reacted differently to the errors.

Does the board have a staff, or do they actually maintain the voter lists themselves?

Yes, they have staff. Other than the Columbia triangle, most of the errors occurred with respect to the 2010 census. At about that time, the city clerk used the erroneous BOE map rather than the city charter to count ward populations (and did some block allocation errors), which map the BOE said was just an approximate guide and not exact (somebody is hiding something),  and Crosswinds was built, nobody is explaining why the voters were put in the wrong ward, other than three houses on that side of the street were in the wrong ward, and apparently had been for years for unknown reasons, and body bothered to check either the city charter or the erroneous map.  So either the BOE are sort of incompetent drones, or somebody was playing ball with what certain politicians wanted (and still want). We will never know probably.

I suspect that part of the error results from the definition of VTDs, which began with the 1980 Census.  PL 94-171 (passed by the 94th Congress in 1975) actually provides for the Census Bureau to tabulate data on a basis that is useful for states when apportioning legislative bodies, more so than what is now thought of the purpose of PL 94-171 (early releases of racial data to the census block level).  In the 1970s Alabama reapportionment litigation, one of the issues was that the court did not respect election precincts, since they only had enumeration districts, and didn't want to make estimates.  Instead, they told Alabama that they had to modify election precincts, and would love it.

VTD's, which have been known as election districts, voting tabulation districts, and voting districts, were introduced with the 1980 census.  They retain the acronym of VTD.

The Census Bureau doesn't define what they are, and not all states define them.  In 2010, two states did not, and two others only did so only in some counties.  In Maine, they somewhat match up with legislative districts when they divide cities or towns.  In Alabama, they vary quite a bit in what they represent.  An in issue in the current litigation is the number of VTDs that were split, but there also statements that a particular VTD had to be divided (because it was larger than a House district).  "Anniston VTD" has 40,000 persons, even though the election web site shows maybe 15-20 polling places in the city.  In other cases, it appears based on names, that several polling places were conflated into a single VTD (the name appears to be the polling places separated by slashes (/).

The definition of VTD is a cooperative program between the Census Bureau and the States.  The Census Bureau sets the criteria and then determines if a state program is consistent with that.  So it was likely that there was some communication between the SBOE and the Census Bureau, and then between the SBOE and CBOE's.   The CBOE's might not have paid much attention, or simply sent their best paper maps.  Somewhere along the line, they would have noticed that the ED boundaries didn't follow visible features and merged EDs.  Who knows where these decisions were made (Census Bureau, SBOE, or CBOE?).  It was likely not an executive decision.  The recognition by the Census Bureau was probably made by a computer.

The VTDs for 1990, 2000, and 2010 in Hudson are the same.  I don't know about 1980, or even if New York participated in 1980.

Hudson used to have seven election districts, with wards 3 and 5 divided into two ED's each.  The two ED's in ward 3 were merged fairly recently, I've seen election results online with results from the two EDs.  The names of the VTD's reflect the ED's that they were composed of (ie, "1-1 2-1 4-1", "3-1 3-2", and "5-1 5-2").

The VTD's correspond to visible streets, but there are two errors.  One is the notch back from 5th Street to Short Street, which is on Prospect, rather than Washington.  I assume that someone misinterpreted a map, and thought that they were taking into account that a a Harry Howard-Washington-5th-Clinton block does not actually exist, and moved the notch a block south.

The other error was the Columbia Triangle.  The Common Council resolution defining the ward populations following the 2000 Census had the Columbia triangle in Ward 5 (this matches the charter).  I had assumed that Ward 3 did conform with the VTD, but the VTD population did not match the post-2000 resolution, and the discrepancy exactly matched the census block total.   But even with that adjustment, the "Ward 5" VTD did not match the post-2000 resolution.  The post-2000 resolution thus did follow the ward boundaries in the charter.

The Columbia Triangle is shown as being in Ward 5 in tax records.  But Mayor Hallenback was the (county) supervisor for Ward 3, so the boundary may have been accidentally shifted some time before then.

The street one block north of Warren was Diamond Street.  It was Hudson's red light district (IIRC the 300 block).  The 1891 atlas shows it as Diamond Street, with the small diagonal segment going northeast being Columbia St to where Union Turnpike and Columbia Turnpike came together.  Since the alignment is closer to that of the Union Turnpike, they may have wanted to emphasize that the street was the connection to the Columbia Turnpike rather than part of the Union Turnpike.

Presumably when Diamond Street was renamed to Columbia Street, the segment of Union Turnpike was included in the renaming.  I don't know why the renaming occurred, but it might have something to do with creation of highway routes.  9G is along Columbia, rather than Warren.  Before there was signage, it might have been considered confusing to have the street name changed.   A route guide might have advised motorists to stay on 3rd Street when entering Hudson from the south and then make a right turn on Columbia Street.   US 9 originally took Prospect Ave to a short stretch of Columbia Street, before turning north on Fairview.  The current alignment is much more complicated.

In rural areas, roads are not good precinct boundaries, since they likely form the connection to the polling place.  It would be natural to designate both sides of a road as being in a single precinct, just as they would be for a school bus route, mail route, etc. 

The houses south of Harry Howard, just north of Underhill Pond were there since at least 1929 (they are shown on topo maps), and they are in fact in Ward 4.  If any of the houses on Lucille and Mill street at the turn of Harry Howard existed then, they would have been in Ward 4.  And the Firemen's Home was in Ward 4.  It would not be unnatural to believe that all houses on Harry Howard were in Ward 4.   The same sort of rule may be the norm in the other portions of the county.  Since town officials are elected at large, election districts are solely for the convenience of voters (and election officials).  If the BOE came to believe that all Harry Howard addresses were in Ward 4, it would be natural to add the couple of houses on the east side of Harry Howard further out, and then the new apartments.

Meanwhile the VTD delineations would come in handy if you had to publish a map on the web.   Until the mid-90s, there would be no need for maps other than a paper map to be sure voters were registered in the correct ED, and perhaps for poll workers to check on election day when a lost voter appears.  They could show them the map, and direct them to the Sleepy Hollow Town Hall.

[jimrtex]

It sounds like the map errors occurred at different times, and the boards at those separate times reacted differently to the errors.

Does the board have a staff, or do they actually maintain the voter lists themselves?

Yes, they have staff. Other than the Columbia triangle, most of the errors occurred with respect to the 2010 census. At about that time, the city clerk used the erroneous BOE map rather than the city charter to count ward populations (and did some block allocation errors), which map the BOE said was just an approximate guide and not exact (somebody is hiding something),  and Crosswinds was built, nobody is explaining why the voters were put in the wrong ward, other than three houses on that side of the street were in the wrong ward, and apparently had been for years for unknown reasons, and nobody bothered to check either the city charter or the erroneous map.  So either the BOE are sort of incompetent drones, or somebody was playing ball with what certain politicians wanted (and still want). We will never know probably.

The 1940 Census has the correct ward boundaries.  Union Turnpike had been renamed to Columbia Street by 1932, the date of the map prepared by the Department of Public Works, City Engineer J. McClure Harold (last name is fuzzy).  The map has a stamp from 1938, and the ward boundaries and enumeration districts were added with colored pencils for the 1940 Census.

The property tax records have the correct wards.

Benjamin Murell was a Ward 4 alderman from 1962-1974, and Ward 4 supervisor from 1974-2003 when he died.

There are two (or three) issues which may be getting conflated here.

(1) Voters voting in the wrong ward.
(1a) Voters on the east side of Harry Howard with Harry Howard addresses (2 or 3 houses) voting in Ward 4.
(1b) Voters in the Crosswinds Apartments voting in Ward 4.
(1c) Voters in the Columbia Triangle voting in Ward 3.

(2) Errors in calculating the base populations used in calculating voting weights.
(2a) Area between Prospect St. and Harry Howard betwen Short/Harry Howard and 5th St 5th Street Extended, which are in the "Ward 5" VTD, but are actually in Ward 4, and apparently vote in Ward 4.
(2b) Possible small errors in allocating population between Wards 2 and 4.
(2c) Misallocation of Front Street block.

(3) Relocation of the Firemen's Home.

Matt Murell could not have campaigned with his father at Westwind Apartments (1b) since it was built after his father died.  It is possible that he campaigned at the two or 3 houses on the east side of Harry Howard (1a).  If so, they were erroneously voting in the wrong precinct.  But there must have been only a handful of voters, and it plain weird to be in a different ward than all of your nearest neighbors.

Matt Murrell might have campaigned with his father along the houses along the Harry Howard just north of Underhill Pond, or in the area bounded by Harry Howard/Short-Prospect-5th St-Clinton(extended) to the south of Underhill Pond (2a).  But these areas are not subject to correction on the voter rolls.

Matt Murrell might have campaigned with his father at the Firemen's Home, but never in the current building, since it was also built after his father died.

Does the Board of Elections have any old registration rolls?

[jimrtex]

Can someone help>  Go to:

1940 Census Records

Click on Getting Started.  Below "Do you know the 1940 enumeration district number?" on the far right side, enter "New York" and "11-35"

You should see a thumbnail of a census form.  Click on it, and you should see image 1 of 28.  See if you can jump to Image 15 (in upper right corner).

=================================

Which ward are 496, 498, and 500 Clinton registered in on the voting  rolls?

[jimrtex]

Hey, Jimtex, that 1891 map you found actually erroneously marks the Columbia triangle in the 3rd ward. Virginia Martin pointed that out. Can you post that 1938 map to which you allude?

1940 Census Records

Click on Getting Started,
"Do you know the location where the person lived?"  Click on Start Your Search
On the left select the Location radio button, and then New York, Columbia, Hudson click on Search,
Select the one map.

Direct Link

You should be able to download this (as a jpg)

The underlying map was prepared by the city planning department and is dated 1932 (lower left of map).  The 1938 stamp is over on the right side.  My guess si that the city would have stamped it when they gave the copy to the Census Bureau.  Or perhaps it is a receipt stamp.  There might be an original, without the census markups in the city records.

By 1932, Diamond Street had been renamed Columbia Street, and the name had also been extended to the Union Turnpike portion.

Notice that the Firemen's Home and the reform school were separate enumeration districts, though noted as being in their correct ward.   When it was originally built, the prison was for girls.  In census records of that time, there is an extreme overage of females 15-18 or so.

I've been looking through the census sheets and have found some interesting things.

Enumeration District 11-35 is between 5th and 6th, north of State St, in the 5th ward, but then expands out.  On sheet 17 it includes 500, 498, and 496 Clinton (the enumeration was east to west down the north side of Clinton).   These are presumably the houses on the north end of 5th Street where it dead-ends at Clinton).   So it appears that they were counted in Ward 5.

Beginning on sheet 17, the enumeration proceeds up 6th street onto Glenwood.  Sheets 18 to 25 are for Glenwood, Parkwood, Oakwood, and Fairview, but nothing further north.  This indicates that the area east of Harry Howard was developed after WWII.

Enumeration District 11-33 is between 3rd and 5th street, north of State St, in the 4th Ward (but does not include the Firemen's Home).   On sheets 10 through 12, enumeration is on Harry Howard, proceeding through 84, so it includes the houses to the north of Underhill Pond.  But then there is one house with "(None)" for the address.

But then on Sheet 14, there are two more houses on Harry Howard with "(None)" for the address.  But there is also the notation "5th Ward".  These might be the houses on the east side of Harry Howard.   One of the occupants is Delaney, so possibly related to the current alderman?

[jimrtex]

One issue in all of this is the assignment of parcels and residences that are split by political lines. It happens frequently in IL. Consider this gem from the Chicago suburbs.



The orange line is a current boundary between state representative districts. The red line is a boundary between state representative, senate and congressional districts. The subdivision sits entirely within a single village, but spans a township line which was used as the red boundary line. Since election precincts are assigned by township, it might make some sense that a line follow the township line and not local streets.

Initially townships were divided into one square mile sections, and then the sections into quarter-sections a half mile on each side. Those section lines are used in survey references and in some parcel descriptions. When subdivisions are built the parcels are typically designated based on the recorded plat of subdivision and not based on the section, though surveys will reference back to the (quarter-)section. The orange line follows one of those old section lines which isn't a precinct line.

In most cases when a subdivision comes in, the census blocks are adjusted for the next decennial census to follow streets, rather than section lines. The exception is when a political line already follows that section line and then census blocks are defined splitting subdivision blocks along the section line. That tends to perpetuate into future censuses, and then those lines can get used for future political boundaries as in the map above.

The difficulty is in the assignment of residences to political districts given the splits that occur. In IL the residence is associated with its address which geographically is generally the main door of the building. Thus someone may actually sleep in one district, but officially reside in another based on the location of the address door. Needless to say it is easy for both the Census and local election officials to miscode these locations and I've caught quite a few such errors over the years. To complicate assignment, school district residence is based on the location of the master bedroom in a residence.

The Hudson ward issue may require knowledge of how individuals are assigned residence, and I don't know if NY uses the same type of assignment as IL.

PL 94-171 essentially requires the Census Bureau to tabulate on the basis of political subdivisions.  The text of PL 94-171 is pretty interesting to read.  I had expected something else.

In the 1990 Census, there were "census blocks" and "census tabulation blocks", which were subdivisions of census blocks.  The census blocks were bounded by visible features, while the census tabulation blocks could be tabulated for populations of political subdivisions.  The 1990 census would have split visible blocks on county lines, since census blocks are nested within census tracts, which are nested within counties.

For 2000 there were census blocks, which could have both visible boundaries and political subdivision boundaries.

For 2010 the Census Bureau did permit non-visible boundaries for VTDs, grudingly. 

The program for (re)defining VTDs appears to be based on coordination between the Census Bureau and a state liaison (likely appointed by the governor).  Presumably this would either be a statewide planning agency or demographic agency.   The challenge is that those with local knowledge and concern for detail don't work for the state.   How good the implementation is would depend on how well the state agency coordinates with county planning authorities.   And with VTD's you would also need lateral coordination with the SBOE and CBOE's.

I see in an earlier note that New York did not participate in the VTD program for 1980.  So the VTD's would have been defined in the late 1980s.

[jimrtex]

Is the Torie plan still slated to go before the voters later this year? If it is and it is approved, does that force the BOE to make the requisite changes to the election districts?

The chair (John Friedman) of the Legal Committee (of the Common Council) circulated a memorandum suggesting either a one-step plan or a two-step plan.  At the next meeting of the committee, the members agreed that the two-step plan would be the best approach.  Friedman indicated that he would be preparing a resolution for the two-step approach:

(1) Voters would approve a plan for 5 equal population wards each electing two aldermen, plus the Council President, the same form as currently in use, without the weighting.  The charter amendment would also provide for a redistricting commission.
(2) In 2016, the redistricting commission would draft a plan which would be used for 2017.

The last referendum to switch to equal population districts had middling support (55%-ish) in most election districts, but was strongly opposed in two of them and lost.  Since two of the wards are less than half a quota, there will be significant sticker shock since the new plan would likely eliminate between 2 and 4 aldermen.  In a one-step process, the Common Council would also have to include the initial map in referendum.  This might be harder to get through the Council, as well as being approved by the voters.  There would still be an initiative option, but there is a risk that it would be voted down, the same as the previous efforts.

My understanding is that the committees in Hudson don't have legislative authority, but are more purposes of oversight, and allow more focused and informal discussion.

My understanding is that the BOE acts as the agent for the city in the conduct of elections.  The city must inform the BOE of which offices will be contested each year (city elections in Hudson are in the odd year). 

The city could simply inform the BOE that they are electing 2 alderman from Ward 4, and describe then go on to describe the boundaries of this area referred to as Ward 4, including clarification in areas that are more ambiguous.

It gets somewhat more complicated because of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors.  There is no requirement that the boundaries of the supervisor districts conform to city ward boundaries.  So they could argue for a different set of "districts".  But they might not want to push that position too far:

(1) They use weighted voting, and thus are using invalid weights because they used the same population numbers as the city.
(2) It is state law that areas of a city from which supervisors are elected have equal population.
(3) It is state law that members of county legislative bodies may not serve on the basis of their election to other bodies, though they may be elected separately.   In Columbia County, the town supervisors, who are elected to head their town board, are also members of the board of supervisors.

[jimrtex]

What is the relationship of Alderman Bartholomew Delaney to the following persons of the same name:

(1) Elected Alderman in 1900, and later City Assessor, and member of the GOP city committee from  Ward 4 early in the 20th Century.

(2) 45 years old in 1940 (born 1894/1895) married to Margaret and in 1940 living with 6 children the eldest of which is:

(3) 22 years old in 1940 (born 1917/1918)

I'm guessing that (3) is the father of the current Alderman.

If so, there is a truly remarkable coincidence.

[jimrtex]

Hey, Jimtex, that 1891 map you found actually erroneously marks the Columbia triangle in the 3rd ward. Virginia Martin pointed that out. Can you post that 1938 map to which you allude?

I found the descriptions of the enumeration districts, and where they are not bounded by visible features, they use "city limits" or "ward line" as if it was well known where these were.

Ward 4 had 3 enumeration districts:

11-32 was bounded by: State, N 5th, Warren, N 3rd.

11-33 was bounded by: N 3rd, Ward Line,
                                     City Limits
                                     Ward Line, N 5th
                                     State
and excluded the Firemen's Home.

11-34 was the Firemen's Home.

So even though 3 of the 3 limits of 11-32 were ward boundaries, they used the named streets,

But 11-33 includes the extensions of 3rd and 5th.   Note the reverse order of the ward lines, as the boundaries are traversed clockwise beginning at State and 3rd.

[jimrtex]

Hey, Jimtex, that 1891 map you found actually erroneously marks the Columbia triangle in the 3rd ward. Virginia Martin pointed that out.

I had noticed that.  The atlas is surely a treasure, covering the Hudson Valley from NYC to Troy at a large scale.  So the cartographer would have depended on local sources, notice that it not only includes street names, but property owners, etc.  I believe the plates are hand colored, rather than color printed.

So it is possible the cartographer made an error, or slipped when coloring it.  The version that is digitized is in Poughkeepsie.  I found another version that is part of the David Rumsey collection, and they are definitely different, though it also skips Columbia Turnpike.

The extensions of the 3rd street and 5th street that form ward boundaries are printed as dashed lines and then colored.

There is another slight error.  The ward boundary between the 3rd and 5th wards runs on a diagonal across what is now 7th Street Park, when it switches from Warren to Columbia (see city charter).  Notice how the atlas kind of fudges the boundary their, with the orange for Ward 5 kind of looping around, and the green for Ward 3 kind of skimming across leaving a gap.

The 1940 Census Map follows the boundary more accurately.

[jimrtex]

There were houses on the south side of Columbia Street, enumerated as part of Ward 5, in Enumeration District 11-37.

The enumerator was rather haphazard:

Aitken 1-29 (W Side)
Aitken 28-2 (E Side)
Columbia 958-916, 946-956 (N Side)
Aitken 10-6
Columbia 910-886 (N Side)
McKinstry 1-17 (W Side)
McKinstry 16-2 (E Side)
Fairview 6-48 (E Side)
Fairview 53-15 (W Side)
Bailey (sic) Blvd 5-15
Jenkins Parkway 2-24 (E Side)
Jenkins Parkway 23--3 (W Side)
Green St 23-165 (S Side)
Green St 162-26 (N Side)
Spring St 1-17 (S Side)
Spring St 26-18 (N Side)
Frederick St 3&4
Columbia St 923-951 (S Side) <== In Columbia Triangle
Columbia St 854-802 (N Side)
Columbia St 764 (N Side, just east of Columbia-State intersection.
State St 736-608 (N Side)
7th St 65-95 (W Side)
7th St 94-86 (E Side)
6th St 68-70 (E Side)
6th St 130 (E Side, almost to Oakdale Park).
Glenwood Blvd 91-3 (S Side)

Then there a bunch that appear to be addenda.  The last entry looks like "Turnpipe".  It was added from "Green Sheet")

[jimrtex]

One issue in all of this is the assignment of parcels and residences that are split by political lines. It happens frequently in IL. Consider this gem from the Chicago suburbs.



The orange line is a current boundary between state representative districts. The red line is a boundary between state representative, senate and congressional districts. The subdivision sits entirely within a single village, but spans a township line which was used as the red boundary line. Since election precincts are assigned by township, it might make some sense that a line follow the township line and not local streets.

The triple-split block with the pond is divided into 3 Census Blocks:

Kane County CT 8530.04, Block 1008 is the southern part in Aurora Township, pop. 25
Kane County CT 8528.08, Block 1074 is the northwestern part in Batavia Township, pop 11
Kane County CT 8528.08, Block 1008 is the northeastern part in Batavia Township, pop 26

Note the root census tract is different between the two townships.  Census tracts don't necessarily have to conform to townships, but they often do.  The Census Bureau doesn't like to modify census tract boundaries since that breaks continuity.  They much prefer to split them.  Since census blocks nest within census tracts, it is likely that the block would be split N/S even without the township or legislative district boundary.

Before development, the N/S section line might have been a block boundary, or perhaps the legislature defined the legislative district in terms of PLSS, rather than metes and bounds, or census blocks.  In any case, the census bureau holds legislative district boundaries as census block boundaries going forward.

[jimrtex]

The history you note is accurate for the Aurora/Batavia line, and since that line still has meaning for the elected township offices, I would expect it to remain as a division for Census blocks. It's the use of the section line and the difficulties associated with the assignment of residents along the line that I thought might have relevance here.

Counties have some say in the definitions of geography in IL, and I've notice that some eliminate the section lines when new subdivisions come in, but others don't bother. The section line could have been removed as a block splitter in 2006-7 as the geographies were formed since it wasn't a political boundary in that decade and the subdivision was well established. I presume the county didn't recommend changes so the line just hung on in the maps. In neighboring DuPage county there were locations where such lines were intentionally cleaned up during the phase where the Census defined its 2010 geography.

The reason that the census bureau won't do street extensions through to other streets is because

As I noted earlier, Census enumeration is prone to error in these split blocks as they may use a landmark like the driveway entrance instead of the door to assign residents to a block. In 2000 I was part of a petition to reassign about 100 people in an apartment building that was placed in the wrong parcel. It was relevant since it had been assigned to an unincorporated parcel and would cost the host city about $10K a year in lost state funds.

But back to Hudson, one possibility is that if a timely change is made to the Charter then the confusing invisible lines could be eliminated from 2020 geography. I would think that would help all parties in the coming decade.

It is ever curiouser.  The area between Birchwood and Pinewood has been developed for a long time, perhaps before 1980 (the Kane County assessor only shows the deed for the current owner, but I found a couple from Cherrywood that appear to be that old).  You can see the difference in the tree cover, and the whiteness of sidewalks.   If you have Google Earth, look at the area in the older images.  There is one stunning image from the spring with the suburban area, with the fields plowed up to their back fence lines.

In the 2000 Census, a stub of Sycamore extended north of Pinewood.  You can see by the whiteness of the sidewalks where the stub ended.   In the 2000 Census a road was shown along the township line, but only so far east as Maplewood.  Since the block with the pond was populated then, it could not have physically existed, but it did split the census block, with the Batavia part having 34 persons, and the Aurora part 41 persons (the whole block declined from 75 to 62 persons between 2000 and 2010).  Even if the road had not been there, the census blocks would have been divided because of the township boundary.  But there was no road there in old USGS topo sheets as far back as 1978.

To further complicate matters in 2000, the village limit of North Illinois was just north of the subdivided area, which caused a very irregular census block, with streets such as Pinewood on one side and the village limits on the other.  The undeveloped area was a very big block.

There was no block boundary on the section line in 2000.  This appears to the result of a creation of an election precinct split during the 2000s.  Further north the section line is coincident with Randall Road (Kane County Highway 34) and also the jog south of the Geneva-Batavia line.  But Randall Road in Aurora is on the half-section line further west, and Randall Road veers to the west about 2 miles north of the township boundary.  This alignment has been in place at least since 1978.

Randall Road does not have an interchange with I-88 in Aurora and kind of peters out as an arterial inside of Aurora, and the county highway designation now terminates at County Highway 71, north of the area of interest.

The old precinct stretched from the Fox River to the west boundary of Batavia Township, so there might have been a need to split because of population size, but it would have made more sense to follow Randall Road than to go careening through a neighborhood.

The new precinct became a VTD, and census block bound boundary in 2010 (taking advantage of the new census bureau of policy of permitting VTDs to be bounded by imaginary lines).  It is now also a county board boundary and a state representative board boundary.  The county board boundary looks like it chose the precinct to the west simply to balance populations.  The state representative district looks like part of a deliberate choice to use Randall Road for the east boundary of HD-50, but they would have done the same if the precinct boundary did follow Randall Road.  And in defining the boundary between HD-49/HD-65 west of the Fox River they did not follow the precinct boundaries.

I thought that it might have something to do with Mooseheart, but the Mooseheart is not laid out on a N-S/E-W alignment but rotated clockwise about 15 degrees, and the Moose owns land west of Randall Road, and quite a bit west of the section line.

So that leaves:

(1) Drunken GIS tech for the county clerk who imagined that he was dragging Randall and veered off the road, or forgot that he had clicked on "snap to section lines".

(2) Someone was looking at the county highway map, and got confused by Batavia'a annexation, which follows the Mooseheart grid.

(3) MALDEF was somehow involved.


The reason that the census bureau won't do street extensions into another street is the concern about misenumerating houses.   They do allow extensions to highways if there is no buildings.   Had the precinct along the section line been created before 2000, they would have forced the VTD boundary, to a street probably to Sycamore.

The split may be permanent.  There are still fossilized remains from the 1990s Frostrosity in Houston.

An advantage of a redistricting commission is that their map won't have to be embedded in the charter.  Instead it can be placed in a local law.

Does Illinois have a policy forcing election precincts boundaries to visible features?

[jimrtex]

Enumeration District 11-33 (1940) is the portion of the 4th Ward north of State St, excluding the Firemen's Home, which was its own enumeration district.  In addition, the Orphan Asylum was to be shown separately (but was part of the enumeration district).

The bounds of ED 11-33 were:
    N. 3rd, Ward line (west)
    City limits (north)
    Ward line, N. 5th (east)
    State St. (South)

Enumeration began at the NW corner:

N. 3rd St (east side) 96-62, 81 persons.   Note the enumerator explicitly indicated the side of the street, when that was a boundary of the enumeration district.

Rope Alley, 3?? and 333, 4 persons.

State St (north side) 302-358, 146 persons.

Carroll St, 424-444, 427-417, 56* persons (north side) and 15 persons (south side)

Note that the enumerator worked up one side of the street, and then back down the other side, but did not explicitly indicate the side of the street.  The split is inferred from the street address in the census enumeration.  *one additional person on the north side of Carroll St was an addenda.

State St (north side) 414-436, 39 persons.   These are between Carroll and Short St (the Hudson Armory is on State St, between Short St and 5th St)

Short St (east side) 59-85, 62, 80, 39 persons (west side), 5 persons (east side).  This is an exceptional enumeration, in that the two houses on the east side were enumerated as the enumerator headed north, crossing to the east side of the street to pick up those two.

Washington St 402, 4 person (402 Washington is west of Short St, on a stub of Washington)

Harry Howard 44-84, 59 person (these are on the south side of Harry Howard north of Underhill Pond.

Harry Howard (none), 4 persons it is not clear where this house is.  86 is the current highest street address along Harry Howard.  Though it was enumerated sequentially after 84, it was done at the start of the next day.  It is also possible that it was where Lucille and Mill St are now.

The residents were: Charles and Marguerite Hardy, 51 and 50; their daughter Dorothy, 16, and nephew William Hapeman, 18.  The parents were a checking clerk and clerk for the RR.  Dorothy had complete 1 year of HS, and William 2 years.  There are other Hapeman's associated with Hudson, but I don't know if they are closely related.

The FASNY Home Facebook page for April 12, told a story about people living at the Fireman's Home putting out a fire at the home of Mr.and Mrs. Charles Hardy on Harry Howard "this week" in 1914.

The November 17, 1917 edition noted a legal case before the Supreme Court (in NY a Supreme Court is not the supreme court, but more like a first level appeals court) of Charles Hardy v John Patterson regarding a partition of land.

N 5th St (west side), 63-119, 70 persons.

Immediately after enumerating 119 N. 5th St, which is just south of Clinton, the enumerator notes two houses on Harry Howard, with (None) for a house number, and includes the notation that they are in the 5th Ward.

The residents of the first house are Andrew and Sarah D'Inguillo, 37 and 31.  In 1930, they were living with her parents William and Mary Nabozny at 229 Allen St, with a slew of Sarah's younger siblings.

The residents of the second house were Bartholomew and Margaret Delaney, 45 and 48; children Bartholomew 22, C(K)atherine 20, John R 18, Thomas 16, Mary 13, Robert P 12; uncle Daniel Martin 71.

What is interesting about this family that I'm pretty sure that they are the grandfather and father of current 5th Ward Alderman; and also the son and grandson of a 4th Ward alderman in the late 19th century.

In 1930 Bartholomew and Margaret and the children lived at 613 5th St (5th Ward)
In 1920 Bartholomew and Margaret and the two eldest children (2-1/2 and 6 mo.) lived 419 Warren St (3rd Ward)
In 1910 Bartholomew then 15 lived with his parents at 331 State St (4th Ward)
In 1900 Bartholomew then 5 lived with his parents at 331 State St. (4th Ward)

This matches up with the father of the 1940 Harry Howard resident having been a 4th Ward alderman (he was also a city assessor).

If the current 5th Ward alderman is the grandson of the 1940 Harry Howard resident (and son of the 22 YO at that residence), he may be able to locate the house if his grandparents continued to live there.  Note that the 1900 Census spelled the name as De Laney, as if it were Norman Irish.  This may have been an affectation by the enumerator, the eldest Bartholomew Delaney had immigrated from Ireland in 1870 when he was 10.

Continuing with the enumeration.

Prospect St. 449-441 (south side) 29 persons, Prospect 442, 446 (north side) 5 persons.

This marks the "end of district".

Note that 3 houses in the 400 block on the north side of Clinton were enumerated in ED 11-35 (part of the 5th Ward).  These were enumerated east to west, and the enumerator might not have noticed that he passed 5th St, since he didn't cross it.

After a skipped page, the Orphanage Asylum at 400 State St was enumerated, with 1 supervisor, 2 matrons, and 25 inmates, for a total of 28.   400 State St. would be just west of Carroll.

After another skipped page there is a singe entry for 434 Carrol St with one person.  There are some initials NH which may indicate someone added these later.  During the initial enumeration, the addresses had skipped from 432 to 436  Carrol.


Summary

81   3rd St (East Side)
4     300 block Rope Alley
146 300 block State St (North Side)
57   400 block Carroll St (North Side)
15   400 block Carroll St (South Side)
39   400 block State St. (North Side)
39   Short St (West Side)
5     Short St (East Side)
4     400 block of Washington St (North Side, west of Short St.)
59   Harry Howard (east side, but actually south of roadway, north of Underhill Pond)
4     Harry Howard (address "(None)" but enumerated sequentially after 84 Harry Howard.
70   5th St (West Side)
11   Harry Howard (address "(None)", these were noted as being in "5th Ward".
29   Prospect St (South Side)
5     Prospect St (north Side)
28   Orphan Asylum

596 Total shown on enumeration sheets.

596 Number entered on summary sheet.

944 11-32 (3rd to 5th, Warren to State)
596 11-33 (3rd (extended) to 5th (extended), State to City limits, excluding Firemen's Home)
202 11-34 (Firemen's Home)

1742 Total for Ward 4.

1742 Published population for Ward 4.

Conclusion: Enumerator recognized that two unnumbered houses on Harry Howard were not in Ward 4, but this notation was ignored by person totalling results.  In addition, 8 residents of 498 and 496 Clinton were counted in the 5th Ward.  Is 500 Clinton considered to be in the 5th Ward?


Sequence of Harry Howard:

Houses with street numbers: April 25(after finishing Short St, and Washington), April 26
First "(None)": April 27th, and enumerator then went to 5th St.
April 28 was a Sunday.
April 29 last house on 5th St, then enumerator did two final "(None)" on Harry Howard (end of day)
April 30 Prospect St.

[jimrtex]

The 1930 census appears to have followed the charter ward boundaries even better than the 1940 census.

The enumeration districts for Ward 4 were the same as in 1940 (but they had different numbers).

ED 11-30 (1930) was from State St north between 3rd and 5th, excluding the Firemen's Home, which was its own enumeration district.

After enumerating up the west side of 5th Street, the enumerator included 498 and 496 Clinton, the two houses west of where 5th street deadends.  In 1940, the enumerator for ED 11-35 (1940) in the 5th Ward had included them as he enumerated east to west in the 500 block of Clinton (ie he enumerated ..., 504, 502, 500, 498, 496 Clinton).

In 1930, the enumerator for ED-30 (1930) enumerated up Harry Howard to street number 84.  He then enumerated a house but did not indicate its number, and finished with 87, which would have been on the opposite side of the street about where Harry Howard bends northeast.

There were two enumeration districts in Ward 5 in 1930, with the division along 6th street and Glenwood Blvd.

ED 11-32 (1930) was the area in Ward 5, west of 6th St or north of Glenwood.  The enumeration began in the northeast portion of the ED (Oakwood, Parkwood, Glenwood (north side), then went down the west of 6th St (ED boundary), 500 block of Warren (north side, ward boundary), and up the east side 5th street (ward boundary), and then east on Clinton beginning with number 500.  That is, the ward split on the north side of Clinton at 5th St was recognized by the enumerators from the different wards.

The enumerator then did the intervening streets between 5th and 6th (Columbia, State, Prospect, and Washington), and the short cross streets (Dodge, Franklin, and Lake).

He then finished up with 3 houses on Harry Howard, with no street address.

By 1930, the area north of Glenwood, including Parkwood, and Oakwood west of Fairview had been developed.  Further north along Fairview is in Greenport.   The areas along the south side of Harry Howard just north of Underhill Pond were developed.  But other than the Firemen's Home and a few isolate houses, there was nothing further out along Harry Howard.  Paddock Place, Riverledge Road, Michael Court, and Joslen Place were not developed at the time.  On the 1940 census map which was based on the 1932 city map, Paddock Place exists, but is unnamed, and also connected to what is now Charles Street in Greenport.  Note that the 1940 census map indicates the driveway to the Firemen's Home off the western end of Paddock Place at Harry Howard.

So the unnumbered houses on Harry Howard were quite isolated from the rest of the 5th Ward.  Their closest neighbors were the the numbered houses on Harry Howard, but those are in the 4th Ward.   They were not really close to the houses on Oakwood, Parkwood, and Glenwood.  Even today, I suspect if there were a hearing on new ward lines at city hall, residents who live on Oakwood, Parkwood, and Glenwood would drive in on Glenwood and 6th, while residents who live east of Harry Howard would drive in on Harry Howard and Short.

The houses on the east side of Harry Howard were the last enumerated in both 1930 and 1940, and they didn't have street numbers (they were out in the country).  In 1940, they were enumerated by a enumerator for Ward 4 - but he noted that they were in Ward 5.  And he didn't enumerate them immediately after the numbered houses.   It was if someone reminded him of those houses way out on Harry Howard, and he took the trip out there, but noted "5th Ward".

In 1930, an enumerator for Ward 5 enumerated the unnumbered houses on Harry Howard, but he did this at the very end.   He had started at Oakwood and then worked his way south covering everything between 5th and 6th down to Warren.   And then finally jumped out to finish up on Harry Howard.  Again as if someone had reminded him of those houses way out on Harry Howard.


In 1930, the Columbia triangle was enumerated with the 5th Ward.  The odd-numbered houses (south side) in the 900 hundred block of Columbia St were enumerated in Ward 5.  Those in the 700 and 800 blocks were enumerated in Ward 3, and those in the 500 and 600 blocks were enumerated in Ward 5.  Even numbered addresses from 500 upward were enumerated in Ward 5.  There were also a few houses on Columbia Turnpike enumerated in Ward 5.  They had low numbers since numbering begins for Columbia Turnpike begins at one where it splits off from Columbia St.

[jimrtex]

In the 1920 Census, Ward 4 was in a single enumeration district, 31, north of Warren between 3rd St (extended) and 5th St (extended)

The enumerator began on Warren and began to work northward.  At the time of the 1920 Census, Columbia was still named Diamond, so the rename must have happened in the 1920.   But then the enumerator jumped out on Harry Howard did a farm with 8 persons, and then the Firemen's Home.  It is not specifically indicated as such but it had a Superintendent, his wife and son, 9 servants, 1 cook, and 96 inmates (inmate did not have the connotation its does now of a prisoner or someone in an insane asylum).   The inmates were male, mostly in their 60s and 70s, with a few in 80s, mostly widowers.

The enumerator then returned to Warren and Diamond and eventually State, while also doing houses lon 3rd, 4th, and 5th.   Later censuses tended to do the full length of the numbered streets,  In 1920, it appears that it was more doing the ends of each block.   The enumerator then went out Short Street and continued on to Harry Howard.   There were fewer houses then, with the highest house number, being 64.  So many of the Harry Howard houses north of Underhill Pond were built in the 1920s.  There was one unnumbered house.

Coming back into town, the enumerator did 402 Washington, which is west of Short and was enumerated in 1920, 1930, and 1940.   The enumerator then did 496 and 498 Clinton, the only two houses on Clinton within Ward 4.

The ward also contained the orphanage at 400 State, which was not specifically noted, but had 4 adults, and 39 inmates who were children.


In 1920, Ward 5 was divided in to two enumeration districts, 32 and 33, which corresponded to election districts 1 and 2 (of Ward 5).   The boundary between the two election districts (and enumeration districts) was 7th street and 7th street extended.  This suggests that the connection from 6th Street to Glenwood had not been made.  In later censuses, the boundary between enumeration districts moved to 6th street, continuing on to Glenwood.

The southern boundary of Ward 5, was clearly 5th and Warren along Warren to 7th Street, diagonally across Public Square (now 7th Street Park) to Columbia St, to Columbia Turnpike to the city limits.

Enumeration District 32 was fairly straightforward, working southward from Clinton between 5th and 6th streets.  As the enumerator moved southward, he would pick up the ends of the block (east side of 5th, west side of 6th), and also picking up the internal streets of Lake, Franklin, and Dodge.  It appears that in 1920, Columbia Street between 5th and 7th was Gifford Place.  To the west of 5th Street it was Diamond Street.

After completing the 500 block of Warren, the enumerator began on the 600 block of Warren.  Since 6th and 7th are fairly close together there are fewer houses.  After reaching Gifford Place (modern day Columbia Street), the enumeration jumped out to Harry Howard to record 16 persons.   Remember that the area just north of Underhill Pond, as well as the Firemen's Home was enumerated in Ward 4.  We can conclude that this area of unnumbered houses were on the east side of Harry Howard.

After leaping out to Harry Howard, the enumerator returned to finish up the area between 6th and 7th.

An addendum made by the Census Office added 498 Clinton to the end of the enumeration.  498 Clinton was also counted in Ward 4, and the same two persons were recorded in both places.  It appears that they were double counted.


In the other enumeration district in the 5th Ward, enumeration proceeded down 7th Street (east side), then did RR Avenue, the 700 block of State, and then did the entire north side of Columbia Street to the city limits.  The enumeration then did the south side of the 900 block of Columbia Street, followed by Paul Street.   There may have been one house on Columbia Turnpike, but the address of 961 is not consistent with modern practice.

After completing McKinstry and Frederick, the enumerator did 704 Gifford Place.  When enumerating Columbia Street he began with 720.  704 is north of Public Square (modern 7th Street Park), while 720 is where the street bends north to follow the path of Union Turnpike into the city.

So in 1920, current Columbia Street, was Diamond Street to 5th Street, where it then became Gifford Place, at the eastern edge of Public Square it became Columbia Street and continued to the eastern city limit, while Columbia Turnpike branched off to the south.

The enumeration of the remainder of Election district, included Green Street, Fairview, Aitkens, Spring, Glenwood, Parkwood and Oakwood.   Only a few houses on the latter three streets had house numbers.   Either they were quite new, or the Post Office had not extended delivery to those locations.  There were also houses on the extreme ends of Green, Columbia, and Fairview without addresses.  There were no enumeration on Bayley or Jenkins, indicating their development after 1920.