Let's start looking at some numbers: part I

The Westchester BOE still hasn't listed the final breakdown for Greenburgh's 81 districts, but we do have some numbers we can examine to put the recent primary (and Greenburgh's democratic vibrancy) into context.   According to the BOE website [enrollment books: http://citizenparticipation.westchestergov.com/images/stories/pdfs/2013enrollActive.pdf], Greenburgh has 30,882 active registered Democrats (herein "ARD"), and 58,427 active registered voters overall (herein "ARV").  Turn out among ARD in the primary was 19.4%.  The BOE added some more votes to unofficial results yesterday, now giving:

NAME         VOTES      % votes cast                       % ARD                    % ARV
Feiner           3847           64.2%                         12.5%                        6.6%
Bernstein:     2142           35.8%                           6.9%                        3.7%
TOTAL          5989                                             19.4%                      10.3%

For all of Feiner's presumed popularity (e.g., see Phil Reiman), it is surprising (to me at least) that only 1 in 8 Greenburgh ARDs took advantage of the opportunity to vote for him for the first time in six years.  Of course, Bernstein's popularity, or lack thereof, is even more dismal as only 1 in 14 ARD's filled in his circle at the polls.  OK, I admit that the last column isn't fair to the candidates: we'll never know how a general election would have turned out.  But it is rather interesting to see the exact percentage of Greenburgh's active registered voters actually determine our town officials: 6.6 % is not exactly the example of a vibrant democracy - or a political mandate.

Bob Bernstein offered the breakdown for Edgemont's six election districts on his FB page last week.  Edgemont, btw, has 2413 ARDs as of 2013 (7.8% of Greenburgh's total) and 4765 ARVs overall (8.2% of Greenburgh's total).  So let's try to put those numbers into perspective:

NAME        EDG votes  % in EDG   % non-EDG    % EDG ARD   %EDG ARV
Feiner          185                  21.6%          71.4%                       7.7%            3.9%
Bernstein     673                78.4%          28.6%                     27.9%           14.1%
TOTAL        858

First off, Edgemont's turnout of ARD turnout 35.6% was impressive, nearly double the turn-out of 18% among non-Edge ARDs.  But, and here comes the crucial weakness of an Edgemont-centric candidacy, Bernstein's bastion holds less than 8% of ARD in Greenburgh.  Even a highly motivated Edgemont still only turned out 14.3% of the total vote in this past primary (858 out of 5989).   (A political cynic might suggest that Paul Feiner should encourage Edgemont-based candidates to challenge him in perpetuity.)
If it matters to Paul Feiner, he'll see that his popularity in Edgemont is feeble: Bernstein actually did better outside Edgemont than Feiner did among our Southern neighbors.  But should this really trouble Feiner?  I suppose it might because of the implied threat of incorporation (sorry about calling it secession perviously, but hey, I'm a Civil War buff).  Conversely, if Bernstein's candidacy was also intended to serve as a referendum on Edgemont's desire to love Greenburgh or leave it, the stat that he received only 28% of the votes of Edgemont ARDs hardly suggests that incorporation has a mandate.  In fact, these results don't even suggest that Bernstein would automatically win an election for Emir of Edgemont, were that vote to be held tomorrow.   Consequently, Feiner may have no serious, immediate worries on the incorporation front either.  As further numbers and financial disclosures roll in, we'll continue this post-election analysis.

*These Edgemont numbers maybe slightly off depending on how many of the 67 votes recently added to the total by the BOE come from Edgemont.