Friday, November 12, 2010

Results update: Medical Marijuana now ahead!

The latest numbers are up, and while no changes in any of the races look likely, the numbers for Prop 203, the medical marijuana question, have flipped and it is now passing by over 4400 votes.

Others of note:

Prop 112, the measure sent to the ballot by the legislature that would make it more difficult for citizen-initiated to qualify for the ballot by moving back the deadline for submitting petitions by two months is passing by all of 43 votes statewide.

In the race for LD26 State Representative, Democratic incumbent Nancy Young-Wright is within 745 votes of Republican Vic Williams.

In the LD20 State Rep. race, incumbent D Rae Waters is within 1039 votes of R Bob Robson.

All unofficial results for state elections can be found here.


In Maricopa County races, while the margins have changed, there don't look to be any changes in the outcomes -

The two closest significant county-level races, the Justice of the Peace contests in the University Lakes and Kyrene Justice Precincts, ended Election Day with the Democratic candidates (Meg Burton-Cahill and Elizabeth Rogers, respectively) ahead of their Republican opponents.  Their margins have grown to 1460 and 1405, respectively.  If the leads hold up, Rogers will hold the distinction of being the only Democrat to win a race in the R-leaning Ahwatukee area this cycle.

While some of the ballot questions downballot are closer in terms of the raw number of votes, those mostly cover school district questions.  Some of those questions had fewer votes cast in their entire districts than were cast in my home precinct.

However, even some of those are still interesting -

Tolleson ESD budget question - failing, but only by 16 votes (972 - 990)

Kyrene ESD budget question - failing by 70 votes (23812 - 23882)

Laveen ESD budget question - failing by 26 votes (3213 - 3239)

Other races of note -

In the race for the District 2 seat on the Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District, Dana Saar of Fountain Hills has opened up a lead of almost 14K votes over incumbent (and district-wide embarrassment) Jerry Walker of Mesa.

Finally, in the race for the Peoria Unified school governing board, Jane Schutte is comfortably ensconced in 2nd place (in a "vote for two" race) by nearly 3200 votes.  This wouldn't actually be significant, but Schutte withdrew from the race in early October, meaning the board will have a vacancy on it as of the first of the year.

Not saying there is a cause and effect relationship here, but according to this Arizona Republic story on the matter, Schutte is Secretary of the LD4 Republicans, and never participated in campaign events before she withdrew (like a candidate forum in September), nor has she issued any statements since the withdrawal or the "election."

While I couldn't find direct evidence that she is an officer of the LD4 Republicans (they don't have their officers listed on their website), according the AZ SOS' website, she is a regular contributor to the LD4 Rs, as well as candidates like Ron Gould (LD3), Jack Harper (LD4) and Brenda Burns (Corporation Commission).  In addition, according to this Peoria Times piece, she was running as part of a team with John Rosado, who was also running for the Central Arizona Project board of directors as a tea party/anti-government candidate. 

Between the lack of a real campaign, those contributions and her tea party connections, Schutte seems to have run solely to wreak havoc with the school board.

Given that whoever will be appointed to fill the seat is going to miss school board training sessions and will be behind the other members in gaining effectiveness in doing the job, she has succeeded.

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