Many concerned citizens and poll watchers are baffled by the high percentage of ‘under’ votes in the past city election and the strange differences in many of the races. An under vote is basically a NON-vote for a specific candidate or measure. What is glaring is the unusually high number of under votes in some of the races, and virtually non-existance under votes in other races.
SEE ALL THE ELECTION STATS HERE
Mayoral race: 1.2% of voters voted for neither candidate.
School board race: 24.8% of voters voted for neither candidate.
At-Large ‘A’ race: 18.7% of voters voted for neither candidate.
At-Large ‘B’ race: 21.3% of voters voted for neither candidate.
Central District race: 15.9% of voters voted for neither candidate.
SE District race: 18.7% of voters voted for neither candidate.
Snow gates measure: 2.5% of voters voted for neither.
Spellerberg Pool measure: 1.5% of voters voted for neither.
Shape Places Referendum: 10.9% of voters voted for neither.
Walmart Zoning Referendum: 2.9% of voters voted for neither.
One could argue that the high number of under votes is attributed to voters not knowing the issue or the candidate. If this is true, it is disheartening that that many voters were uneducated on the issues and candidates. I think the Argus Leader and other media sources did a decent job of educating the public on at least ‘who’ or ‘what’ was running. I can’t imagine that many voters were that uneducated or even that disenfranchised.
There is another case that could be made. Just look at the high percentages in the district races. One could make the argument that many voters in those districts were given the wrong ballot, and knew it, so they didn’t vote for the respective candidate.
There also could be discrepancies in the way the ballots were tabulated. Remember, the auditor’s office had issues with the 17†ballots (the tabulation machines are used to counting a 14†ballot). It was proven in the Spellerberg hearing, from the testimony of Jason Gant, SOS, that there was no need for a 17†ballot because the city was not required by law to have as much legal language as they did. Which brings us to another quandry, why didn’t these long explanations help voters that were undecided to make a decision?
The under votes tell us a story here that something isn’t right about the high percentage of under votes.
It would be interesting for a statiticion to crunch the numbers and the probabilities of these high percentages.
How is it that 98.8% of the voters were sure about the mayoral race but only 75.2% of voters were sure about the school board candidates (with an incumbent running)?
I have no idea how these anonomolies occurred. I am hoping a college poli-sci class and professor study these numbers, but more importantly an investigation is done by the Attorney General and SOS state offices. Also internal and external investigations are done by the city and county.
It just doesn’t add up and the worst part is no one at city hall or in the auditor’s office is concerned about it.
Gee, I wonder why?