Wednesday Vote Changes

Another 6,159 ballots were counted today, and an approximately 10,000 more ballots arrived in the Auditors office.  Many of these were from the ballot drop boxes which are not picked up until Wednesday morning. At 8 pm Tuesday evening when ballots must be received, they all have their insert slots blocked. In the 'old days' volunteers would drive the ballots to the courthouse but that is really unnecessary with the new methods of counting.  And with only one tally presented on election night, instead of 2 or 3 in the old days.  

The big change is the jail sales tax proposition has gone from a 50.75% approval to a 49.68% rejection. Will this be the trend? A simple majority aporoves or rejects this measue. Perhaps 15,000 more ballots will be counted before it is all over.  

Satpal Sidhu moved ahead from 49.98% to 50.75% over Kathy Kershner in the county council seat.  This contest could continue until counts next Monday.  

Todd Donovan and Bobby Briscoe are now both safely elected.  They have each increased their leads from 54.xx% to 55.xx%.  Today I talked to a couple other politicaly savvy persons and they think a 54% margin is sufficient to resist any reversal.  

Prop 1, district only voting, is losing its winning edge, dropping from 54.21% to 53.42% today.  Could it lose?  We will have big 6,000 vote counts on Thursday and Friday.  We shall see.  Anyone's guess now.  

Props 2 and 3, limiting the council power to iniatiate changes to the charter, have also dropped from 52.xx% to 51.xx% approval.  Yes, they could be rejected. 

Prop 9, creating 5 council districts, went from 54.07% to 54.39% - probably a solid win now.  

Prop 10, changing how the charter is amended, gained just a tad from 52.6% to 52.87%. If props 2, 3 and 10 all pass then we will have a legal and political conundrum to sort out in the courts and maybe at the ballot box over the next year.  I have written more on this situation yesterday and we will all write and read enough about it in the next few months to wish it would just go away.  Houston, we have a problem applies here.  

Ballot issues not mentioned have not changed from yesterday.  

On the issues that can tear our county apart even more - council districts, voting methods, and charter change procedures - we are very narrowly deciding how we will proceed.  This is not good for resolving a persistent issue.