Sunday, May 13, 2012

One more general observation on the city election.

Ah, that was nice.  My wife and I spent the afternoon with our son and his wife, his mother-in-law, and his sister-in-law among others.  All are examples of why mothers are the center of our lives.

I ran out of time to make one more general observation.

  • The number of candidates had a big effect on at least two of the races.
    • In the mayor's race, Dan Corbin won with 47% of the vote.  If the 23% garnered by Nellis, Estrada and Butchard were in play, the contest would probably have been much closer.
    • The huge field vying for at-large seats on the council resulted in a very splintered vote.  Only 16% of ballots mentioned the front-runner, Elizabeth Blackstone.  14% mentioned Jonathan Okray and less that 11% Jared Foster.  Well over half of voters didn't vote for any of the successful candidates.
    • Everyone elected (with the exceptions of Gilmore and Segarra) got in with a minority of the vote.  This puts a lot of pressure on those elected to gain the approbation of the 4,200 or so people who care about city government.
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2 comments:

  1. walkman babaMay 14, 2012 at 4:41 PM

    One comment on at-large percentages. The data you mentioned is for all votes, not all voters. Blackstone was selected by 40.5% of voters, Okray 34.4%, and Foster 27.2%. While still not majorities, this is a lot more respectable, especially given the number of candidates.

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  2. Bob BlairMay 14, 2012 at 5:27 PM

    Thanks for pointing out my error, baba. The percentages reported by the city were
    (number of votes for a candidate)/(total number of votes for all candidates). Since we could pick up to three, your numbers are much closer than mine.

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