As of about 8:30 this morning, which was the last time I checked, Larry McCavitt had pulled nomination papers for re-election as Ward 1 councillor and Steve Hutcheson, as he said he would, also pulled papers yesterday for re-election as an at-large councillor.
Again - as if you need reminding - there are 6 ward councillors and 5 at-large councillors. If there are more than 2 candidates for any ward councillor and/or mayor, there would need to be a primary election to winnow the candidates down to 2 for each position.
With the at-large councillors, there would have to be 11 candidates for the 5 seats on the council in order to trigger a primary (if there wasn't going to be one already).
The 5 at-large candidates with the most votes win. At-large councillors represent the interests of the whole city, not a specific ward.
In the last election, which is the only one I've covered so far, not that many people voted for at-large candidates - although Donna Holaday was the runaway top vote-getter.
Friday, June 5, 2009
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4 comments:
Gillian, concerning your paragraph: people tend to 'bullet' one candidate in the at-large race, or just a few. Long ago people figured out that if they placed five votes for at-large candidates, it might actually hurt the chances of the candidate(s) they favor the most. This makes it look like people didn't vote. However, they were just more economical with their votes.
Thanks, Tom! It just seemed to me that people really wanted Holaday but were pretty much indifferent to the others. I don't have the printed results anymore, but I seem to recall that Barry Connell was second and got something like half the votes that Holaday got.
Since it's possible we might have multiple candidates for mayor, how does that vote work? What does it take to trigger a primary? If there are still more than 2 in the final election, does the highest vote-getter win, even if that is not a majority?
Dick,
The primary would pare down the mayoral candidates (or ward councillors) to 2 and the at-large candidates to 10. So in the general election, there would be two candidates for each seat (there are 5 at-large seats). I think ...
And thanks, Ari.
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