David Rodeback's Blog

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

I Was Wrong, Wrong, Wrong . . .

In my predictions about election results, that is.

Here's a quick survey of American Fork's election results.

Be advised that 615 early votes have already been counted, with about 20 provisional ballots from early voting yet to be adjudicated. Of 699 absentee ballots requested, 404 were returned in time to be counted this evening. Any of the others which were postmarked in time and arrive in the next several days, before the final results are certified, will be counted, as will any provision ballots from today which are judged to be valid. (City Recorder Dick Colborn rattled off these numbers to me from memory tonight, and I wouldn't be surprised if he got them exactly right. But we'll cut him some slack, if he's off a little.) It is extremely unlikely that any still-uncounted ballots will change any result.

Turnout was about 27 percent, more than three times as high as 2011 (8.7%, just a city council election) and slightly higher than 2009 (25.7%, with mayoral and council elections). The conventional wisdom that good turnout is bad for bond issues is validated once again.

According to the county's preliminary report, with all precincts counted, the results are as follows:

• Mayor James H. Hadfield defeated Bill Thresher about 54% to 46% (far closer than I predicted)
• Challengers Carlton Bowen (36%) and Jeffrey Shorter (33%) won the two city council seats, leaving one-year incumbent Craig Nielsen (30%) the odd man out. (I predicted Nielsen and Bowen.)
• The road bond issue, which I predicted would win by a decent margin, lost by about the same margin, about 71% to 29%.

See why they confiscated my crystal ball years ago?

Congratulations to the winners; thanks to all who stepped forward to run. It's not easy.

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