Election Results 2009!

UPDATE: Now with results!

Okay, gang, here's your space for discussing elections results as they roll in.

You can check on the County's unofficial returns here:

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/Orange/11018/18025/en/summary.html

Official results are usually certified a few days after the election.

Wednesday morning update: 

+ indicates winners


TOWN OF CARRBORO MAYOR (Vote For 1)


8 of 8 Precincts Reporting
    PercentVotes
Amanda Ashley
7.43%171
Mark H. Chilton +
72.06%1,658
Brian D. Voyce
19.56%450
Write-In
0.96%22
      2,301

TOWN OF CARRBORO ALDERMAN (Vote For 3)


8 of 8 Precincts Reporting
    PercentVotes
Sharon Cook
14.89%903
Jacquelyn M. Gist +
24.84%1,507
Randee Haven-O'Donnell +
23.92%1,451
Tim Peck
11.49%697
Sammy Slade +
24.09%1,461
Write-In
0.77%47
      6,066

TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL MAYOR (Vote For 1)


21 of 21 Precincts Reporting
    PercentVotes
Augustus Cho
2.68%217
Matt Czajkowski
46.53%3,766
Mark Kleinschmidt +
49.49%4,006
Kevin Wolff
1.16%94
Write-In
0.14%11
      8,094

TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL (Vote For 4)


21 of 21 Precincts Reporting
    PercentVotes
Jon Dehart
10.73%2,827
Laurin Easthom +
14.67%3,866
Ed Harrison +
14.70%3,874
Jim Merritt
12.20%3,214
Gene Pease +
13.48%3,553
Matt Pohlman
12.70%3,346
Will Raymond
5.55%1,462
Penny Rich +
15.57%4,102
Write-In
0.41%107
      26,351

TOWN OF HILLSBOROUGH MAYOR (Vote For 1)


4 of 4 Precincts Reporting
    PercentVotes
Tom Stevens +
94.99%341
Write-In
5.01%18
      359

TOWN OF HILLSBOROUGH TOWN COMMISSIONER (Vote For 2)


4 of 4 Precincts Reporting
    PercentVotes
Frances L. Dancy +
34.35%236
Mike Gering +
42.07%289
Bryant Kelly Warren, Jr.
23.14%159
Write-In
0.44%3
      687

CHAPEL HILL - CARRBORO BOARD OF EDUCATION (Vote For 3)


29 of 29 Precincts Reporting
    PercentVotes
Michelle (Shell) Brownstein +
27.35%6,861
Susana L. Dancy
11.32%2,841
J.M. (Joe) Green +
16.33%4,097
MaryAnne Gucciardi
14.87%3,731
Christine Lee
12.35%3,097
Gregory McElveen +
17.34%4,351
Write-In
0.43%109
      25,087

 

Issues: 

Comments

I will not able to do much managing while I'm on the radio tonight, so please try to behave! ;-)

While the cat's away, the mice will play!

We'll be here when you get back ... or maybe we'll e out drinking beer!

Sad

Way too much magenta and red in this graphic, and while residents of the orange areas perhaps should feel prouder compared to their neighbors, it's not much to crow about in a participatory democracy.http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/Orange/11018/18301/en/vt.html Overall, with 31 of 33 precincts reporting, voter turnout is 15.37%. 

For running a positive campaign and staying above the fray and winning the right way with VOE to boot?Either way, I am doing it.Congratulations Penny!!!

We should all be proud to live in a community where so many qualified individuals are willing to give of their time and intelligence to run for public office. Congratulations to all the winners; and thank you to all the candidates.

I am so excited about the election returns.  Mayor, council, school board....Chapel Hill continues to be a great place to live.

Including Durham:http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/10950/18773/en/summary.html TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL MAYOR (Vote For 1)2 of 2 Counties Reporting  PercentVotesAugustus Cho2.65%226 Matt Czajkowski47.46%4,053 Mark Kleinschmidt48.62%4,152 Kevin Wolff1.14%97 Write-In0.13%11   8,539 includes all precincts in both counties, but not including any provisional ballots which will be counted in a week. Provisionals tend to be Democratic voters, there are election day transfers, out of precint votes, etc

Interesting to click on "contest detail maps" for each of the elections - and notably the Council race.  It seems Gene Pease is going to beat Jim Merritt and Matt Pohlman there - assuming unofficial tabulation percentages hold through certification - and you can see where their respective strengths lay.  Over all, hard to resist arriving at some generalizations about demographics in many of the races based on those maps, although I do acknowledge that some other variables (e.g., "home" neighborhoods of candidates and density of population) come into play.  The most fun is to speculate in Carrboro about what a "tie" means for certain precincts, based on those maps.

WRAL says election is too close to call and says the winner must get full 50% to avoid a run-off.  As of now, NC Bd. of Elections website has Kleinschmidt at either 48.62% or 49.49%.  Don't know which sets of votes will be counted between now and official certification, but some interesting scenarios re: runoff - Wolff and Cho votes almost certainly would go to Czakowski, and at the moment, that would imply a lead of about 70 votes assuming exactly the same voters and votes - which wouldn't happen, but just saying . . .

Kleinschmidt has declared victory and WCHL has declared the race over, so perhaps WRAL got its information wrong? Maybe they were thinking about Wake County.

WRAL is very Wakecentric.  Raleigh and Cary require a majority. Chapel Hill and Carrboro just a plurality.

Thanks for clarification and, IMO, the good news.  (WRAL didn't sound right to me, but I didn't remember hearing anything specific either way on the point. Their website is good for weather radar, though.)

I guess the 'invention' of the 'pretty' newscaster assured the demise of anything resembling journalism on TV.  They can never seem to get all the facts straight and I guess they don't have enough background knowledge to question what the teleprompter is giving them to read.

Has Matt conceded officially?Henry Lister

DTH

From this morning's DTH:http://dailytarheel.com/content/label-him-winner

Czajkowski admitted defeat was disappointing, but said he was happy with his campaign achievements.“We wanted to feel as though we’ve done everything we possibly
could,” Czajkowski said. “And secondly, that we conducted it in the
most honorable manner possible, and we accomplished both of those goals
big time.”Czajkowski said he thinks Kleinschmidt understands the challenges the town faces.“And to a certain degree, I think he’s open to how we address them,”
he said. “I don’t believe we can ignore the half that voted for me.”

 

I vaguely recall the threshold to be 40%.

All the back & forth, the "down & dirty" but legal Cam Hill mailer (complete with accurate statements), the "but Matt Cz is really a progressive visionary" apologia, the go-for-broke borderline move by Aaron Nelson to use the Chamber's list to endorse the developer's slate (who can blame him for taking the chance - it looked like the best chance in years), the satisfying slate of winners in the Town Council race that revealed that Chapel Hill has not yet morphed into Cary, & Carrboro quietly electing another great group of reps... I'm proud to live here. We survived a close election with the wherewithal to continue our leadership in these times of fiscal-environmental-fairnesss challenges.

"We" survived? Well, this election did help identify those in favor of development-at-all-cost in Chapel Hill, so "we" at least know for certain who is on which side of the sidewalk.While Matt Cz lost a very close race, the voters were NOT uncertain about the issue that influenced their vote.  Voters (i.e., those whose opinion really counts) said that the current path of development needs to be re-examined. The new Council has an obligation now to bolster the voice of the community and place in the vacant seat another voice that will support responsible growth in Chapel Hill, that understands and will honor the legacy, and who reflects the values of the voter sentiment expressed in yesterday's election.The "rabid" develoment issue is still on the table. Taxation is still a hot-button issue. And community involvement will grow as contentious issue continue to come before our elected leaders.The next few years will be interesting - and telling.Henry Lister

It is wonderful that so many good people would toss their hats into the ring.  I thank and respect them all.     In the CH  council race, four of the last six top votegetters have been novices when they won the most votes:  Penny Rich, Laurin Easthom, Sally Greene, Jim Ward.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, however.I'm particularly happy that this has been an election where money did not talk very loudly.  The two VOE candidates won mayor and 1st place for council, while the biggest spender (by far) failed closely.  It will be interesting to see the cost figures when all the campaign reports are filed.No one is happy with the turnout, however we don't know what the turnout is with any great accuracy, since our voter roles are bloated due to the transient nature of CH.  Do anyone have any information on what fraction of currently-registered voters still live here?

Keep in mind that the two VOE candidates also had the advantage of incumbency.  (Mark K's opponent also had the incumbent of incumbency but had the lesser advantage of fewer years of it and also Mark K had the additional advanatage of belonging to the locally dominant political party). Longer term incumbency is equivalent to money as is belonging to the locally dominant political party.   If you factor in the time value of the money that Mark K spent getting into office years before Matt Cz and also factor in the money donated to political parties that then is converted into supported for candidates because they belong to that party, then (although it's hard to measure) I suspect money won again. As it almost always does.

Jose,Penny Rich has not held elected office in CH so she was not running as an incumbent using the VOE process.

JoseFollowing your train of thought....... Matt has spent more in two tries than Mark has spent in three and no matter how you value incumbency more $ money has been spent by Matt.and in what universe was Penny Rich an incumbent?Cam

Okay, I stand corrected on Penny Rich (which, it just now occurs to me, is an ironic name). As far as incumbency goes, the point is that the more incumbency and the more name recognition someone has, the more someone else has to spend to overcome that advantage.  In other words, incumbency and name recognition are euqivalent to money as far as getting votes goes.  Granted, it's subjective just how much money.

Mark is not the Mayor and Penny is not on the Town Council. Neither are incumbents.

My experience poll tending & volunteer coordinating had me interacting will several volunteers from our campaign and from several campaigns in several different races, and it was such a wonderful experience. I talked to some Matt supporters who were poll tending where I was, a husband an wife team who also went to NCSU like I do now, the husband was in fact in the same public administration program once upon a time as I am in now.  I talked to Shell supporters with whom we found plenty of common ground.  I talked to Mr. Deharts dad who was at Coker Hills while I was and we talked about Mt. Airy where I grew up, and specifically our common high school of North Surry High.And when we were all wrapping up shifts there around the end of the lunch rush, we talked about how great it was meeting each other, learning about where people work, who their families are, where their kids go to school, and how many connections we all have, and that in the end no matter who won all the candidates running to be public servants would be doing a noble thing and that we'd all still be one town of neigbhors working together tomorrow.In some more national elections I've seen poll tenders get nasty with each other... And I just have to say I am very proud of the truly Chapel Hill experience I had today which left me feeling good about the whole process before I knew any of the results...even if it happened while running off of about 4 hours of sleep. I also have to give a shout out to all of our volunteers.  As the volunteer coordinator I got to meet so many of them, and with an election this close you know that it couldn't have been pulled off without each and every one of them, they were amazing.  Now I'm off to bed.  I've been supporting Marks campaign since May, and I need at least one good nights sleep before diving back into grad school tomorrow.

Jake, I was passing out flyers for Matt C. at a school in Durham County.  Hustling people as they walk in to vote is not my idea of a fun afternoon, but I really enjoyed the conversation with the guy doing it for Mark K.  We both had a lot in common.  We both shared a great concern for Chapel Hill and desire to see it continue to improve, although in different ways.  We had similar views on the death penalty, a subject that he worked with everyday and had a very interesting perspective.  He was looking forward to an afternoon cigar, which I have had and liked.  Finnally, and the most pleasant surprise, we both held Cam Hill in about the same regard. 

 

Although I am very disapointed in the elction results, I know Mark K. will be a great mayor if for know other reason than he had great people working for him.

I worked a long poll tending shift at Dogwood Acres.  For a good part of the day I was joined by Matt C, who chose to stay at the location until at least 1PM.  I know Matt outside of politics as we were both in the same bike club.  I enjoyed my talks with Matt between voters passing, and learned more about what he wants for Chapel Hill.  For sure, I disagree with him on some of his points, such as East 54, but found him closer to me on other issues that I would have thought.  Matt is still pretty new to this, and if he sticks with it, and learns and listens as he goes, he could contribute a lot to the town.  I look forward to constructive work between Matt and Mark as they both continue serving Chapel Hill.I also spent some time talking with Penny Rich, who I backed, but had never actually met in person.  I liked her immediately.  Also impressive was Will Raymond, who really knows how to work a poll.  Will has a lot of ideas, and although he didn’t get the votes he needed, I hope he finds a way to continue working for the good of our town.Many school board candidates were there or had teams working for them.  It seemed they had more people working the polls than the council or mayoral candidates, but maybe part of that was because our location was a school. I had some fascinating conversations with David Marshall, who was there for MaryAnne Gucciardi.  I wish David the best of luck on his future plans and hope he too, will consider returning to politics and serving Chapel Hill in some way.  We would certainly benefit from it.Ultimately, what I observed was how passionate all of these people were about their candidates or what they wanted to do for Chapel Hill.  All of these people care for the town. And Jake, a big thanks to you for all of your coordinating efforts.  It was a pleasure working for you and Mark was fortunate to have your efforts contributing to his campaign.  I wish you luck in catching up on your school work.  If you apply the energy on school that I saw working for Mark, I’m sure you will be caught up in no time!John Rees

I also enjoyed speaking with other people working the election day polls at Sewell. The woman handing out campaign materials for Mark and I gave each other a hug before saying good-bye. I, too, hope that cooperation begun at the grassroots level will bode well for the future. Barbara Crockett (I forgot to sign in) 

I spent time with Ted at the Glenwood poll, he worked hard and was polite and friendly. I want to compliment both Matt C. and Mark K. on how they handled themselves as gentleman . Due to external forces, it could have gotten ugly. However, both handled themselves with dignity and respect for each other . I appreciate that and I believe both will work well together serving Chapel Hill.

Maybe it was your dirty little flyer. Was that the deal? You do the sneak attack flyer, Kevin & Mark give you the seat you could not win yourself? It almost worked. I am sure Mark will find something for you to do. 

Cam's postcard?  Sneak attack flyer?Somebody's a little grumpy this morning.

Can anyone explain the great disparity between the # of votes caste for Mayor (8K) vs. the number caste for council & school board (25k)?  Seems odd that many people would intentionally not vote for Mayor.

In the mayor's race you can only vote for one.  In the Council and School Board race you can vote for four.  The mayors received a total of 8,539 votes.  If each voter had exercised their right to vote for four in the Council and School Board races, that would be 34,156.  The total for all Council candidates = 27,785The total for all School Board candidates = 25,087Fewer vote for School Board in our elections and in both cases, all do not vote for four.  Also all who vote do not vote for mayor.  We will know more accurately about the numbers when both the Orange and Durham county's BOE's certify the results.

First I'd like to congratulate all of the candidates, all of the winners. Bravo!Second, I'd like make an observation about process. I see a couple of posts regarding the flyer, pointing out that the important thing was that it was completely "legal" and at the same time characterizing Aaron Nelson's endorsement as "over the line." For me, here is what it gets down to: transparency and integrity. You can argue until the cows come home about Aaron's email, but at least he told his board what he was going to do and he signed his name. Integrity is when your actions match your words. I actually don't want to argue about whether Cam's mailer was "legal" or not. For someone who bemoans the use of aliases on OP, he sent out a negative flyer to CH residents anonymously. It lacked honor and it certainly lacked transparency. For those who believe that the end justifies the means, this will seem like quibbling. This is why I started posting to OP in the first place: the manner of the Strom resignation appeared to me to play fast and loose with the rules and with the values that I believe define Chapel Hill. Strangely enough, I am optimistic about Chapel Hill's future because the man who was elected to be mayor Mark, is not defined by the actions of some of his supporters. He does his best to act honorably (as does Matt). I believe he will see the obvious, that it was a very close election, that there is an unprecedented and significant (very nearly half) portion of the electorate who feels unheard by town officials. I hope the way forward will be to include everyone in the conversation and decision making process. I have confidence that Mark will do his best. I believe he will act with integrity and honor.

There was an early election thread that speculated on how many candidates would get a "majority" of all the votes cast. If we assume that everyone that voted cast a vote for Mayor, that means 8,539 votes were cast. Due to the distribution of votes and the fact that not all voters cast their full four votes, only Penny Rich had support of a majority of all the voters:Jon Dehart        3054   35.77%Laurin Easthom 4035    47.25%Ed Harrison        4081    47.79%Jim Merritt      3333       39.03%Gene Pease      3794     44.43%Matt Pohlman   3593    42.08%Will Raymond     1509   17.67%Penny Rich       4278   50.10%Write-In            108       1.26%While 8,539 voters cast ballots, allowing a total of 34,156 potential votes, only 27,785 votes were cast, an average of 3.25 votes per voter. This may have reflected a lot of triple shots for the Pease/Pohlman/DeHart slate or other targeted voting. Interestingly, if Chapel Hill had used the majority/runoff system that Raleigh and Cary employ, while there would have been a potential runoff for Mayor, there would not have been one for council.  That's because in calculating a multi-seat race majority, omitted votes are NOT counted, the majority is calculated from the 27,785, not the 34,516, and under that system, five candidates had a majority, the four winners plus Pohlman. If more than four have a majority under the runoff system, only the top four win.

When you take the registered voters in the CH precincts, take out the non-CH voters in Patterson and add the Durham County CH voters, the number I get is 48,980.   Let's assume that 10% are no longer voters. That gives us 44,082 registered.  The mayor candidates received a total of 8,539 votes. That still doesn't get us to a 20% turnout.Very sad as I said on WCHL this morning and not a good statement about our sense of civic commitment or pride.  Winning by 99 votes is a win; loosing by 99 votes is a loss, but maybe the numbers tell us that we as a community really loose with a turnout like this.

There are also non-CH residents in Kings Mill and Dogwood Acres if that helps.

Remembering that Matt Czajkowski is only on Council by a 60 vote margin. Compared to that Mark's margin is giant over 30% larger!

 

And I recall Matt claimed that he had a mandate. Mark is already showing a great connection to reality than that.

I was at Ephesus Elementary, as was a very energetic older lady named Lynne Kane who was handing out her own list of endorsements (Matt Cz, Pohlman, DeHart, Pease). When I walked up with my Marcoplos Construction cap on she said, "Oh you must be Mark Marcoplos. I know of you - we're on different sides." Then she went on about the Sierra Club cabal (aided by Jenifer Strom at the Independent) that has been controlling Chapel Hill politics all these years. And she claimed to know that I was a member of this insidious conspiracy. So we bantered  and debated. It was amusing but sort of pointless because staying on point with her was like trying to nail jello to the wall. But I liked her spunk and I think she liked the fact that I wasn't as bad a person as she thought. At one point, my Blackberry vibrated and, hilariously, it was an e-mail from Bill Strom which I could not refrain from telling her. Having her world-view confirmed on election day may have been the highlight of her week. So as I left, I told her that I enjoyed hanging out with her and joked that at least she now knew that I didn't beat my pets. She responded, "Neither did Hitler."

She's got a letter in today's CH News re the OCDP and Kleinschmidt. Also, we made the Huffington Post. 

I'd love to read them.  Fail blog AND the Huffington Post?  Go Chapel Hill!  :)

One showed up on my door before the election, and at least I found it very confusing.  It had a stream of consciousness text that made it really hard to figure out who was behind it all, and a voter's guide on the bottom.  Ms. Kane's name was buried in the middle so you really had to read everything to figure out what she was trying to get across.And congratulations on the Hitler reference :-)  I hope she was joking... 

As for her Hitler reference - it was hard to tell. I expected something like "Nice talking to you, too." But I'll rememebr her actual response for far longer.She did have the Matt Cz over-simplified talking points down though. I'd approach a voter with a Penny Rich flyer in my hand and she'd bark, "Yeah, that's who's spending your tax money to campaign."

If you haven't had enough of Ms Kane you can catch her diatribe in today's Chapel Hill News, letter to the editor.

Any way to learn whose names were written in?  Curious, just curious.

Yes

but on the bright side, I tied Hunter Thompson.

some of the more interesting write ins from '07 George Cianallo (sp) - CH Town CouncilGeorge Harrison and Ringo Starr - CH Town CouncilCham Hill (sp) - CH Town CouncilJeff Danner - 2 votes - CH Town CouncilMarc Marcoplos (sp) - CH Town CouncilMatt Cz - Carrboro Mayor

Victory Night Celebration Video: Mark's Speech:http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=168771216866 http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=737642072329  Watching results as they were updated online:   

Pages

 

Community Guidelines

By using this site, you agree to our community guidelines. Inappropriate or disruptive behavior will result in moderation or eviction.

 

Content license

By contributing to OrangePolitics, you agree to license your contributions under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Creative Commons License

 
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by WeebPal.