Lessons Learned From the Tax Election

A final note on tax issues in East Baton Rouge Parish – by looking at a sample of parishwide tax votes since 2002, some patterns clearly emerge that any politician would be wise to note (the descriptions of the regions of East Baton Rouge Parish can be found here):
  1. Central is anti-tax. Period. But Central in itself can’t determine the outcome of the parishwide vote;
  2. Any anti-tax campaign needs  a strong vote out of Central and the southeastern precincts;
  3. The inner city and Garden District precincts, conversely, are consistently pro-tax. Anyone seeking to pass a tax needs to start by getting strong turnouts from these areas (in fact, despite the lopsided defeat of the 2009 bond issue, there was only a minor erosion of support for the tax in these areas);
  4. The absentee vote has a more anti-tax slant than the parishwide vote as a whole;
  5. The “swing areas” tend to be Baker, Choctaw, and/or the Highland/Perkins precincts. Since Highland/Perkins contains the most votes of all three of these areas, this is where pro and/or anti tax campaigns need to spend their time.
Below is a graphical representation of the tax vote by precinct for this tax election