How the Council Votes

Who voted the same way, on one line

Pair by pair

How this is measured

Which votes count

Only editor-verified roll calls on which at least one councilor voted Yea and at least one voted Nay: 172 so far (70 on items, 102 on amendments), out of 520 verified final votes and amendment roll calls through 2026-10-01. Unanimous votes are left out because they show no difference between councilors. A vote on an item itself is read from two official sources that must agree: the City's vote database and the item's own page. An amendment roll call is read from one, the Clerk's minutes on the item's page, because the City's vote database does not list amendment roll calls; where one is named on this site it is labeled “Single source: council minutes”. A roll call on a budget amendment is an amendment roll call too and is measured with them once the editor has verified it; it is read from one source as well, the vote sheet the City published, and is labeled “Budget amendment” and “Single source: budget vote sheet (City efiles)”. Only those two kinds, final votes and amendment roll calls, are measured here. A separately voted part of an amendment (a divided question) is an amendment roll call and is measured with them. Roll calls on procedural motions (to call the question, refer, table, recess and so on), separately voted parts of an item itself, and ballots in council officer elections are listed on the vote ledger but are left out of this page. What the Record holds in full: each final vote on an ordinance, resolution or report listed in the City's vote database, with items passed together on a consent agenda counted one by one; each amendment roll call that the Clerk's minutes record as a “Motion to amend” or “Vote to amend”, as a motion to add, remove, replace, strike, delete, change, insert, substitute or update text, or as a motion to make a technical amendment, including on an item that never reached a final vote; each roll call on a budget amendment printed on one of the vote sheets the City publishes as a PDF in its efiles records, where the whole sheet reads exactly (one motion, all twelve councilors each marked once, and printed totals and a printed result that equal the marks), counted with the amendments, and each roll call such a PDF shows only as a picture that was transcribed by hand and approved by the editor against the page; each separately voted part of a divided question (“Vote called on …”) where the minutes show a division directly above it, counted with the amendments when it was an amendment that was divided and on its own when it was a part of the item itself; and each roll call on a procedural motion that the minutes record as a motion to call the question, close or limit debate, suspend the rules, refer, table, postpone, reconsider, recess, adjourn or reorder the agenda, or as an appeal of the presiding officer's ruling. Not included: budget-amendment roll calls for which the City has published no vote sheet, or whose vote sheet records more than one vote on a page in text (a motion that was reconsidered, amended, divided or withdrawn), prints its result as a vote on a motion rather than on an amendment, or does not read exactly, which are withheld; roll calls the minutes record under any other wording (for example a tentative decision on a land-use appeal, a motion to approve or adopt part of a budget or report, or the confirmation of an appointment); committee votes; and roll calls whose tally cannot be read exactly from the City's minutes (for example, a printed count that differs from the names listed, or a tally that does not account for all twelve councilors), which are withheld.

Same way

Two councilors voted the same way when both voted Yea or both voted Nay. For each pair, the denominator is the split votes on which both recorded a Yea or a Nay; an absence, abstention, or recusal by either one leaves that vote out of the pair's count rather than counting as a difference. The mayor, who votes only to break a council tie, is not included.

The line

Each pair's share of different votes is treated as a distance, and classical multidimensional scaling finds the single line whose spacing comes closest to all of those distances at once. The direction is fixed by a rule, not a judgment: the councilor first in alphabetical order is always placed left of center. The line's two ends are labeled only with the verified split votes whose Yea and Nay votes most closely follow the order along it, in the vote's own title. Dot colors show each councilor's district and nothing else.

When it appears

The line and the table appear once there are at least 20 verified split votes and every pair of councilors shares at least 10 of them. Below that, this page says so instead of drawing a pattern.

What it does not say

Nothing here explains why anyone voted as they did, and nothing groups councilors beyond the counts shown. Distance on the line is relative to this council and these votes only.