Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Local Election, Part the Second

The election results were put up on the county site last night, and the local school board results were circulated among folks I know this morning. There was a lot of discussion among some folks I know about that election, and it went the way my crowd was hoping.

This wasn't just a school board and county supervisor election, though. It was also used for the primaries. But I went for the local stuff because I was among those who were worried by some of the school board candidates. In fact, some folks in my crowd made a big effort to "get out the vote" because they worried that a lot of Republicans would turn out to vote for that primary and then also vote in the school board election for the "tea party" type candidates, and Democrats wouldn't turn out because we didn't have a primary to vote in and thus the less "tea party" candidates for school board wouldn't get elected.

So imagine my surprise when I realized that I could also vote on the primary. Not only that, but I could vote in the primary for any of the candidates, Republican or Democratic, or even write in a candidate. (I didn't vote in the previous primary because I was out of the country and didn't make arrangements in time, and before that, I don't remember if I did or not.)

This morning, I was interested to see how things came out, and a bit surprised. For example, in the primary races, Barack Obama got more votes than any other candidate. But added together, the Republican candidates got about twice as many votes as he did. I'd guess that means a fair number of Democrats turned out and voted in the Democratic primary, even though Obama was running unopposed. On the other hand, some Republicans coud have voted for Obama, and I know at least one Democrat who voted for one of the Republican candidates just to mix things up (or something).

For the school board races, the two non "tea party" candidates got more votes each than Barack Obama did. (You could vote for two candidates in the race, so the information to be gleaned from that is limited, but since each of those candidates got more votes, that means that it wasn't just a matter of the same people voting for those two candidates as voted for Obama, if that makes sense.)

That suggests that some people voted in the school board election who didn't vote in the primary, or voted for a Republican candidate in the national primary but for a non "tea party" candidate locally.

(The candidates I've characterized as "tea party" seem fairly extreme to me, and I could easily imagine someone who's a moderate Republican choosing one of the other candidates.)

My car repair guy got re-elected (in another county district).

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