All the absentee ballots have been opened, and the deadline for late military ballots has passed, so I think we can trust these will be the final result:
| Candidate | Votes |
|---|---|
| Jason Leifer (D) | 1388 |
| Steve Stelick (R) | 1316 |
| Simon St.Laurent (D) | 1225 |
| Deb Shigley (R) | 1149 |
Looking through the details, the district-by-district patterns shifted slightly. Republicans did better in District 1 (West Dryden) than I would have expected - it's a fast-growing district with more registered Democrats than Republicans these days. Turnout there was the weakest in town, though, at 18.38%. For once, District 3 (McLean), wasn't in last place for turnout.
Republicans did best in the east and north of the town, while Democrats prevailed in the southwest. Steve Stelick whomped me 37-10 in his home district 3, while I had 131 votes in District 4 to his 48, and 229 to his 53 in district 9.
Jason Leifer, I think, had the most balanced results across the town. He kept things much closer on the east side than I did in particular, while still storming the west side.
The biggest oddity in the results is the large number of blank votes, especially in the districts where the Republican candidates won. In District 3 in particular, nearly a quarter of votes were blank, and one was a write-in. On the west side, Etna had only one blank vote, while the Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove districts had 5.86% and 2.84%. West Dryden had 8% and Varna had 9%, but the east side districts Republicans won were all over 10% - 15%, 10%, 11%, 10%, and 18%. I'm not sure if that was bullet voting, voters unfamiliar with candidates, or voters who came out only for the County Legislative race on that side. (Though District 3 was in a different legislative district.)
The lack of a contested legislative race certainly seems to have hurt west side turnout, which was around 25.5%, compared to the Mike Lane-Jim Crawford race, which had 38.4% turnout.
Posted by simon at November 17, 2009 8:50 AM in politics (local)