There's been a lot of talk about the elections held Tuesday. As I write this, I'm listening to C-SPAN. Representative Chris Van Hollen says that the news channels have it all wrong, that there were only two elections that affected Obama's ability to get things done, the special elections for Congressmen, and the Democrats won both of them, that gubernatorial races don't affect Obama, and that what will affect the future of the Democratic party is the demographic mix of voters that show up in 2024. They then went to Trent Duffy, a GOP strategist, who came right out and said Van Hollen is pretty much correct.

That shocked me. I'm used to hearing kneejerk denials of whatever the guy from the other party said. I think they're both wrong, of course. I'm like that. I see support for Obama as being a mile deep and one person wide, and almost no support for the parties on a national level. On a local level, of course, all I can see is my own locality, and I'm not sure I'm seeing much more than my own neighborhood.

Back when I was newspapering, I found that data mining - I didn't call it that at the time - really paid off. You'd be amazed how much info you can learn from reading the legal notices. As a reader, I've seen politicians quoted as saying, "That hasn't been decided yet" on the front page of the newspaper, while a legal notice to potential bidders gives the specifications that the politician says don't yet exist. They can change the front page of a morning newspaper until about 2 AM, but legal notices generally need to be supplied 3 days ahead of time. It just proves the old adage: you can tell a politician by watching his lips. If they're moving....

Reading The Legals

And what surprised me, when I first started reading the legal notices religiously, was the number of times that someone changed their name from something obviously male to something obviously female (or vice-versa.) The daily I was reading at the time was from a community half the size of Lancaster, and there was about one notice a month for this. Not all of those would have been sex change operations, of course. Sometimes, it was someone with a name they hated. Obama's mother was named Stanley, for instance. That's not a very feminine name. But still, that suggests a lot more gender reassignment surgery than I would have imagined.

So anyhow, I wandered through the Election Totals at the Board of Elections this morning, and found some interesting numbers and results.

In 2000, there were a lot of people who didn't vote for president in Dade County. Some people blamed the butterfly ballot for being misleading. However, in Lancaster County, 48400 people voted for County Controller (a lopsided race), 46422 voted for Recorder of Deeds (which was uncontested) and 55474 voted for Jury Commissioner.

Does anyone really care about Jury Commissioner? In the first ward, 121 people voted for Jury Commissioner, 62 for Recorder of Deeds, 70 for Controller. Apparently, people do care about Jury Commissioner.

And nobody cast a write-in vote for any of those offices.

District Justice On Both Tickets

Cheryl Hartman was both the Republican and Democratic candidate for District Justice, District 2-1-1. That's the office on Union Street. I've been in her court a few times, and she has always seemed personable, reasonable, had some common sense, and she seems to be pretty good at detecting lies. She won 1847 to 4. The four write-in votes were Bruce Jones, Neil Schoetrump, Stan Caterbone, and NoneOfTheAbove. Hmmm. Sounds like someone lost their case before her. I thought that you had to declare your write-in candidacy, or the election board would ignore any write-in votes for you, but apparently not.

In the 4th ward, 1st precinct, she got 70 votes, versus 32 for both Controller candidates, combined, 29 for Bonnie Bowman, the only candidate for Recorder of Deeds, but the two candidates for Recorder of Deeds split 126 votes.

The 4th ward was voting for Constable, and nobody was running. There were 2 write-in votes in the 1st precinct - one for Charles Crystal, and one for "Grayyyyy". There's more than one "Gray" in town, and there aren't any "Grayyyyy"s, so I suppose Charles Crystal won. Has anyone told him? Does he have the option of turning down the job, or is it illegal to evade the draft? He may decide to accept the position. He was running for School Director for Lancaster, and came in third, although he had 4947 votes.

Much has been made of the fact that Gray won a close race over Smithgall for mayor. There were, however, 17 write-in votes. One was for Artie See. I think that's a pseudonym, rather than a real name; he posts on the Lancaster Online Feedback forum. I wonder, if he had won, would he have won, or would the votes not count since they aren't cast for his legal name? Someone in 6th ward, 7th precinct, voted for "me". If those votes had won, which "me" would become mayor? With a secret ballot, that poses a problem. Someone in 8th ward, 5th precinct, voted for "no one", and someone in 6th ward, 6th precinct voted for "Liberty N. Freedom". Gee, I thought he was running for Congress!

Alfred E Neuman got a write-in vote for City Council. Donald G Mitchell got two write-in votes; sounds like his marriage is sound. Or does he live in 6th ward, 8th precinct? Keith Bletz and Matthew Johnson each got 2 write-in votes from different precincts, which would be harder to accomplish.

A Greiner By Any Name

There was a whopping 41 write-in votes for city controller. Keith J. Greiner got 3 of them, Keith Greiner got 2, Greiner got 1, and Kieth Greiner got one. If you're going to run a write-in campaign for office, I suppose you need to have a name that's easy to spell. "Trevor the dog" got a vote, and "your mom" got a vote. Boy, that last candidate sounds like a real winner. How could anyone vote against "your mom"?

Glenn Beck also won a vote. I'd bet he is SO proud to have tied Trevor The Dog. He also tied Trevor The Dog, one to one, for City Treasurer. I hope Faux News signs Trevor. He sounds like a promising host.

Newspapers used to promote advertising sales by reminding national companies that "all sales are local." Someone needs to remind the news channels that all politics is local, too. Most of the judicial retemtion races had a quarter of the voters voting "no", and it's reasonable to assume that most voters don't know the judicial candidates very well. The Donegal school district turned down a levy to pay for a new high school, and it was a real squeaker, despite the fact that they really need a new building. I know, because my wife was working there last year, or was it the year before. A new building would pay for itself just on the energy savings. There were a lot of ballots where the voters refused to vote for either candidate, and very few races where there was a decisive victory.

So maybe most people felt as I did: dissatisfied with the status quo, and dissatisfied with any of the alternatives being offered. If only I'd known he was running, I'd have voted for Trevor the Dog for a lot of the races....

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Board of Elections - dissatisfied electorate - Glenn Beck - Lancaster, PA - local races - write-in votes