Election results!
In case you didn't know, Grand Forks County does a great job reporting election results on its Web site. Click here after 8 p.m. That's when ballot counting starts. Results include races in outlying communities in the county.
Update 9:57 p.m., 6/13/06: Magic eight-ball was right! Mike McNamara won in Ward 2 with 49.1 percent of the vote. The nearest competitor was Jon Dorner with 19.3 percent of the vote. In Ward 6, Art Bakken won with 53.7 percent of the vote.
The City Beat also predicted a Mac victory, but failed to predict Dorner's strong showing. I thought Mac would get the most votes, then Tom Kenville, then Dorner, then Peder Rice, then Cameron Stewart. But it was Mac, Dorner, Kenville, Stewart then Rice.
Update 2:31 p.m., 6/14/06: Sorry gang, I was really wiped out last night. Here's the vote tally, in case you haven't checked the county Web site:
Ward 2 City Council
Camerson Stewart Sr. 82 votes/11.8%
Mike McNamara 341 votes/49.06%
Jon Dorner 134 votes/19.28%
Tom Kenville 108 votes/15.54%
Peder Rice 29 votes/4.17%
Write-in 1/0.14%
Ward 4 City Council
Hal Gershman 528 votes/97.96%
Write-in 11/2.04%
Ward 6 City Council
Art Bakken 237 votes/53.74%
Tom Potter 203 votes/46.03%
Write-in 1/0.23%
Update 9:57 p.m., 6/13/06: Magic eight-ball was right! Mike McNamara won in Ward 2 with 49.1 percent of the vote. The nearest competitor was Jon Dorner with 19.3 percent of the vote. In Ward 6, Art Bakken won with 53.7 percent of the vote.
The City Beat also predicted a Mac victory, but failed to predict Dorner's strong showing. I thought Mac would get the most votes, then Tom Kenville, then Dorner, then Peder Rice, then Cameron Stewart. But it was Mac, Dorner, Kenville, Stewart then Rice.
Update 2:31 p.m., 6/14/06: Sorry gang, I was really wiped out last night. Here's the vote tally, in case you haven't checked the county Web site:
Ward 2 City Council
Camerson Stewart Sr. 82 votes/11.8%
Mike McNamara 341 votes/49.06%
Jon Dorner 134 votes/19.28%
Tom Kenville 108 votes/15.54%
Peder Rice 29 votes/4.17%
Write-in 1/0.14%
Ward 4 City Council
Hal Gershman 528 votes/97.96%
Write-in 11/2.04%
Ward 6 City Council
Art Bakken 237 votes/53.74%
Tom Potter 203 votes/46.03%
Write-in 1/0.23%
posted by Tu-Uyen at 3:53 PM
12 Comments:
I've looked everywhere; where is the story on voter turnout? I don't mean to be a conspiracy theorist but, I sense Grand Forks voter turnout in these elections is very low. It's my opinion that citizens have become very apathetic towards city government. I've always believed that bad decision-making breeds apathy.
So what was the turnout? 10%? Less that 20?
I haven't seen percentages but adding up totals in Ward 2 shows that about 700 people voted. There have got to be at least a couple thousand people in ward 2 of voting age. I thought it was interesting how few votes Peder Rice got. I was especially interested in how many votes Cameron Stewart got. I think this may have something to do with position on the ballot. Rice was listed last, Cameron Stewart was listed first, so the people who dont know any of them just vote for one of the first two. Any comments on the Herald screw? I think that might have had just a little bit of effect on the McNamara win, don't you?
I don't think the screw-up would influence that many voters. It make the paper look bad more than anything...
Of course, it looks even worse after today's headling ("Ooh-rah!") on the front page! Who green-lighted that after the embarassment of putting the picture on the top of the page Monday!?!?!?
I realize "Ooh-rah" is a Marine rally cry, but it was pretty stupid to print given the outrage over the Monday mistake that made it look like they were endorsing Mac. Forum may need to step in more quickly than we realized.
Maybe Mac got a little boost from the Herald panel photo but I think his overwhelming victory showed that he didn't need our "help."
As for turnout, well, what did we expect? The Census says there are 38,800 people older than 18 in the city as of 2000. Voter turnout in Grand Forks was 3,732. So that comes out to a little less than 10 percent.
Poor Peder Rice. The polling place at UND's Wilkerson Hall had a grand total of five votes. Ouch.
Hopefully the Forum will take over the herald ASAP. The constant cheerleading for McNamara (one article called him the most "famous" person in the race)? I still don't know what the hell that meant. He's famous? Does it matter? Before each election do you decide who is the most famous? And then the very embarrassing photo on Monday's Masthead. What a joke. Never thought I'd root for a Fargo business to take over a GF business, but in this case, please hurry.
Great story in the paper today, Tu-Uyen
I too was more than a little uncomfortable when I saw the "Ooh-rah!" headline this morning. I'm hoping you didn't come up with that one Tu-Uyen?
Mac got some help from the Herald on the editorial (top of the story, most of the space)and the free full color advertisement on the front page the day before election. Kenville was branded more as a landlord than a business owner after the zoning and landlord controversy which hurt his candidacy. The low voter turnout overall combined with the higher voter turnout of Democrats in the county (3000 Dems vs 1900 Reps) make an intersting combo of voters. The military service also helped Mac, and who is not impressed getting calls from Iraq? Will be interesting to see how Mac handles the inherent conflict of interest of being in the media and talking about the news on his show. Hope the opposition get equal time or this is just more conflict of interest on the city council along with Doug Christensen feeding his law practice while doing city business
That was a little weird, I always thought it was "Hoo-Rah."
OH! And congrats on getting your story on the freakin' DRUDGE REPORT! Holy crap, you are famous.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Poor Peder Rice. The polling place at UND's Wilkerson Hall had a grand total of five votes. Ouch.
Considering the fact that there was absolutely no advertising or information distributed around campus to notify people of the vote, this should be no real surprise. If Peder were truly concerned with getting UND votes, he should have been working the campus, something that I saw no evidence of happening.
Going around town yesterday, there were the small "Vote Here" signs posted outside various voting locations. I never saw a sign like that in front of Wilkerson or in front of the School for the Blind (this is where UND students/residents of Ward 2 vote, by the way. Wilkerson is for Ward 1 students/residents.). Perhaps there was an attempt to actually remove the UND vote? Who knows.
I happen to know peder very well and he worked as hard as he could to educate students who were in town where the voting was at. Peder went to every dorm that was in the ward and tried to pass out absentee ballots. Don't chalk it up to Peder not working hard, chalk it up to student apathy. Don't talk if you don't know.
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