Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Local democrats and voting patterns...

Democrat hatred of Republicans appears to be palpable... documentable... and verifiable.

The races that prove this? County commissioner and 18th District.

There were two races in Clark County where the "top two" system did its magic and two Republicans were running against each other: or, at least, two races where claims of Republican allegiance were made so that the voter believed there were two Republicans running.

The first, most obvious case is the county commissioner race.  The indicator is the ubiquitous "under vote," or a race where no vote was recorded.

In the Mielke-Tanner race, here's the numbers (as of Nov 8):

Mielke:  86,768

Tanner:  80,831

Write ins: 157

Under votes: 16,093

But in the Madore-Boldt race:

Madore:  74,218

Boldt:  63,304

Write ins:  2,714

Under votes:  39,655

That means that the Mielke-Tanner race garnered 23,300 more actual votes than the Madore-Boldt Race.

And THAT meant that 23,300 in addition to the 16,000 plus of the Mielke-Tanner race couldn't bring themselves to vote for ether candidate.

That, of course, is in a county wide race.

Let's look at a district of about 30% of the county's population, more or less: the 18th, not entirely in the borders of Clark County for the first time.

The Rivers-Schmidt race:

Rivers:  40,943

Schmidt:  19,200

Write ins:  75

Under votes:  6,107

This is followed by Pike-Shehorn:

Pike:  36,393

Shehorn:  23,724

Write ins:  83

Under votes: 6,112

And now, the 2 Republicans running against each other in the general race: Vick-Cortes.

Brandon Vick: 31,742

Adrian Cortes:  21,712

Write ins:  1,104

Under votes: 13,852

This means that roughly 8,000 votes were cast in the traditional races in the 18th... that were not cast in the races with 2 Republicans in the general... closely following the race where 2 Republicans were facing each other for county commission... and those casting them simply could not vote in a race where their choices were limited to 2 Republicans.

This is evident in both races, and in a relative scale for the number of votes.

Voters so partisan that they couldn't make a choice so they made no choice at all.

It's likely, however, that the GOP voter would act the same way.  But we're really not going to know any time real soon.  Meanwhile, democrat hatred?

Palpable... and effective on a nationwide scale.

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