NOW:53209:USA01012
http://widgets.journalinteractive.com/cache/JIResponseCacher.ashx?duration=5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdata.wp.myweather.net%2FeWxII%2F%3Fdata%3D*USA01012
18°
H 30° L 18°
Light Snow | 17MPH

Both WFB Referendums Pass

Elections, Referendum

( I would have posted this last night, but the NOW blog platform was not working.)

Here are the results:

YES on Question 1:
2719 - 1219 (69.2%)

YES on Question 2:
2054 - 1883 (52.2%)

I'm surprised at the turnout, nearly 4000 votes.  In April, only 3,069 folks voted for 4 different Trustee candidates, 5 different School Board Candidates, and a handful of judges.

Interesting that almost 1000 more people come out for a referendum, than to elect leaders.

I guess the "the referendum was scheduled for low voter turnout" argument didn't work out so well, since there was a heavy turnout. 

Welcome to our new commenting system.
  • You can register through your Facebook account, sign on with your Facebook password and use the same photo and screen name. If you don’t want your account tied to Facebook, you can keep your registration through our site.
  • You can now personalize your Journal Sentinel account with a photo even if the account is not tied to Facebook.
  • You can now reply to comments. Replies will be threaded to make conversations easier to follow.
  • You can continue to sort comments according to oldest first, newest first, and most thumbs up.
  • Your comments are archived on your own page.
  • Please notify us if you see personal insults or other irresponsible comments. We reserve the right to eliminate any comments and block any commenter who is not civil and respectful of others.

Discussion guidelines | Privacy policy | Terms of use

Limit of 2000 characters, 2000 characters remaining

Sort by
  1. Nine local candidates, twenty-nine local candidates...the number doesn't make a shred of difference if the voters can't easily find out information about the candidates, or, when there aren't clearly defined issues to energize the electorate.

    I'll admit, I'm a lazy voter to a certain extent...you won't find me at any "candidate forum" in the school gym. (In the good old days, there were "newspapers" who paid "reporters" to attend and cover these events. I'm sure you and I agree on the lack of good local news coverage these days...this blog is the only spot I can find decent WFB news.) Unlike many, I do vote in each and every election. Local candidates need to know that a cheap (or free) internet/ blog site is necessary these days for voters to find out about them, and to provide more information than we folks at home get from a two-sentence quote on WFBNow.com.
  2. That's a good point.

    I would say some of that is mitigated by the sheer volume of candidates and issues. Somewhere along the line, something for the DPI Superintendent race, several judge races, and 9 local candidates could have caught the eye of a voter. --

    The DPI race especially had two candidates who were very different.

    And the school race, where, while I wholly agree the platform is generally what's "best for schools" .. there was one candidate who certainly differentiated herself from others with her issues.

    But I agree, you are mostly right. The referendum is much more black/white.
  3. My $.02 on the discrepancy in voter turnout:

    It's (relatively) easy to form an opinion on how to vote on a bond referendum. Between the school district website and the Yes Yes folks' site, there was lots of information available to form a decision.

    In the spring election, if there was any meaningful, substantive difference between the candidates...it didn't come across in what little information was available to voters, like myself, scavenging for information in campaign websites, blogs, and online news sources. It didn't help that none of the school board folks put up a website...and only two trustee candidates had an online presence (you, with this blog, and Finnegan.)

    Taking the school board race as an example, when you've got a bunch of folks running on the same plain vanilla platform of "I want to do what's best for our schools," can you really blame the voters for not knowing whom to vote for, and just staying home?
Back to top

Page Tools

  • Share

advertisement

Latest Posts