Over a period of time, the Provo Municipal Council is addressing the potential voter redistricting of the city. Whether they do or not data shows what most residents already know — if you live in northeast Provo, you win.

During the last meeting, the council asked staff to investigate and report on the pros and cons of either keeping five Council Districts with two City-wide Districts or going to seven Council Districts.

Councilmembers indicated a desire to know where city-wide candidates and councilors resided in the city.

“We were asked about costs to run campaigns on a district versus city-wide basis, and we investigated voter turnout by precinct,” said Cliff Strachan, executive director of the council. “We used election data from the last four election cycles as well as campaign finance reports for the same time period and we also looked into the representation of city-wide seat going back to 1999.”

“We used voter registration for the entire city, district level and precinct level. We looked at voter turnout as a percentage of ballots cast compared to registration again using the entire city, district level and precinct level,” Strachan added.

This let them look at voting behavior on city-wide and district levels.

“We were able to compare voting behavior at the precinct level and see how that affect districts,” Strachan said.

What the data shows is that District 1 (northeast Provo and precincts within that district) is very politically active, and as such, plays an oversized role in determining the mayoral and city-wide races.

While District 1 represents about 20% of the population of Provo, it makes up 25% of registered voters and has averaged 33% of all ballots cast in the last four election cycles. District 1 voters are constant in their voting patterns meaning there is little fluctuation between cycles when the district seat appears on an election and when it does not.

District 4 (Provo’s west side) has been gaining ground in terms of registration and voter participation, to the point they will act as a counter to District 1 in the future.

The staff found out that the cost per vote is least expensive in city-wide seats compared to both the mayoral and district races, but because the number of votes required to win is greater in city-wide races, the total cost is higher.

What the data shows is that District 1 has produced the most candidates, and the most councilmembers, for the city-wide seats. In the studied time period, 66.6% of the councilmembers in a city-wide seat have lived in District 1. Even controlling for incumbency, 66.6% of the councilors lived in District 1.

In District 3, 25% of councilors came from that district, when controlling for incumbents it drops to 22.22%. For District 4, 8.33% of the councilors came from that district, and when controlling for incumbents, they accounted for 11.11% of the councilors.

“We controlled for incumbents because out of the twelve cycles an incumbent only lost once; most ended their service by retiring. In terms of time those twelve cycles represent a total of forty-four years and District 1 has been represented on the city-wide seats a total of thirty years or 68.18% of the time,” Strachan said.

District 3 has been represented for twelve years or 27.27% of the time. District 4 has been represented for two years or 4.55% of the time. Districts 2 (around Brigham Young University) and 5 (central Provo) have not been represented by a city-wide seat.

Looking at the voter data on a district level the staff saw trends within each district.

“We used voter information for the election years of 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021. It should be noted that for the election year 2017 there was an open mayoral race and a special election for a Congressional seat; both these occurrences would cause an increase in voter participation,” Strachan said. “For the 2019 election there were four open seats, including a city-wide seat. It appears as though that increased voter participation.”

Also, in the 2021 election there was a mayoral race and two open council seats, one of which was a city-wide seat, this also appears to have an impact on voter turnout.

The voter turnout as a percentage of ballots cast for Provo in 2015 was 18.30%. In 2017, with the Congressional special election and the open mayoral race, voter turnout increased to 38.09%. In 2017 voter turnout was still high only one percentage point below the 2017 turnout at 37.17%. In 2021, there was a small downturn in voter turnout which can be attributed to the lack of an open mayoral race, and one council incumbent running unopposed, according to staff data.

Districts 2 and 5 are the opposite of District 1. Each District makes up approximately 20% of the population, but they only make up a small portion of the registered voters, about 12% and 13%, respectively. Their voter turnout is even less with 9% from District 2 and 8% from District 5 for all ballots cast city-wide, according to staff data.

Like District 1, neither of these appears to be influenced by having their district seats on the ballots. District 3 makes up 20% of the registered voters, but accounts for 17% of ballots cast. It also appears to be influenced by the district seat appearing on the ballot. There was an increase in voter turnout when the district seat was on the ballot and a six-point decrease when it was not on the ballot between 2019 and 2021.

District 4 has increased its percentage of registered voters year after year, and currently stands at 26.48% of all registered voters in Provo — the highest of any district. Its share of the voter turnout has increased every year except 2021 and has averaged around 29%.

“District 4 is highly influenced by the district seat being on the ballot. In 2019 they had 31% of voter turnout for city and a voter turnout for their district of 45.55% yet in 2021 when the seat was not on the ballot their city percentage of voter turnout decreased to 28.87% — more telling is that their district turnout fell nine points to 36.18%,” Strachan noted.

Councilmember George Handley lives in a student-dominated district and says it is “unfortunately small because of the student population.”

If there was a way for the student population to be distributed more evenly it would be beneficial. However, Handley added, “District 2 will always be different because of voting motive.”

It was suggested that education and encouraging voter turnout might help even things out.

The council did not have time to discuss an education initiative, or the pros and cons of changing the number of districts or boundaries during the meeting, and anticipate readdressing those issues in the next meeting.

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