Worcester 'Supervoters' Play Big Role In Deciding Elections

WORCESTER, MA — The main rule of the U.S. political system is "one person one vote" — meaning that every person's vote should count equally. But in Worcester, that's probably not the case.

A new report released last week by the Worcester Research Bureau takes a deep dive into voting trends in Worcester municipal elections. The report found that "supervoters" — people who have participated in several elections in a row — may play an outsize role in selecting city leaders.

These supervoters tend to get the most attention from candidates, and they are concentrated in a few westside neighborhoods.

The report found that 63 percent of voters who participated in the 2019 election lived in single-family homes. But most of Worcester's residents — 56 percent — live in some type of multi-family housing. Almost 11,000 voters in the 2019 election lived in single-family homes. The next-highest category was people who lived in three-family homes at 1,475 voters.

Repeat voters in Worcester also tend to be older. People over age 55 have high registration rates, but also show up for elections more often. In the 2019 election, 62 percent of voters were over 55, but accounted for just 37 percent of total registered voters in the city, the report says.

The 2019 election was hugely consequential for the city. The mayor, at-large seats, and Districts 1 to 5 were all on the ballot, plus the School Committee.

"Voter turnout for municipal elections in Worcester is low enough to raise serious concerns about whether recent electorates are sufficiently representative of the community as a whole," the report concludes."A closer look at available data shows that low turnout does not impact all demographics or geographies equally, confirming the intuitive cause for alarm that candidates, government officials, and community members have been sounding for years."

Read the full report on voting from the Worcester Research Bureau.