Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Following the Recall Results

The best online place to be is Akron News Now which has a live feed from the newsroom. It's kind of cool -- you can see anchor Lindsay McCoy gathering info from online and from the BoE and relaying it to on-air talent. A bit of behind-the-scenes.

One thing we learn from Lindsay is that the online BoE updates are more current than what the reporters at the BoE can get from staff there (having done voter protection duty at BoE, it's not surprising. At this time of night, the main BoE office is essentially vacant as everyone is in back processing the ballots.) As such, you can keep an eye on the BoE page by loading it and refreshing it every couple of minutes.

As of now (around 8:30) the Board shows 48% reporting, the results are 76.85 against the recall to 23.15 for. The trend line has been slightly toward narrowing that enormous gap. At around 8 the first 12 percent of precints showed an 80/20 split.

UPDATE 8:36 56% in, still 3-1 advantage for Plusquellic. ANN is calling it against the recall. Fascinating to see how manifestly unscientific the "call" decision is. Also, ANN is Twittering the results under hashtag #akronrecall

UPDATE 10:20 It's official -- Change Akron Now got boatraced. 74%-26%. Akron News Now signed off their live feed, but the recall page now features an interview with Mendenhall in which he confirms that his group will try to field candidates in all the city council races and that his wife Kelly is running for council at large. He also whines that he didn't have any money to run the campaign. Of course if people agreed with the recall they would give money, but . . .

Some recall results fun facts:

The received wisdom was that pro-recall voters would certainly vote and that the election would be close if turnout was low. Well turnout was low -- 21% -- and the recall still got crushed. That means either the pro-recall folks weren't significantly more motivated than anyone else (possible) or that there just aren't that many of them (more likely.)

At a total vote of 7325, Team Mulligan didn't even double up the 3800 some-odd valid petition signatures. That is, if everyone who signed the petition voted and brought a friend to vote, they would have exceeded the total actually garnered by 275 votes.

At 20895 the anti-recall vote is 30% higher than the 15895 he got in the uncontested general election in 2007.

9 comments:

fargo said...

Pretty serious ass whoopin for Mendenhall.

Mendenhall on ANN being interviewed...Yadda yadda yadda...we raised important issues...yadda yadda yadda ...everyone worked hard....yadda yadda yadda forward non partisan issues to advance the city....his wife is running for council at large...WTF....

Jason Haas said...

One of the most famous lines typed on these Pages was "speak truth to douchebaggery". I do believe Akron's voters have done exactly that today. Serious crushing.

Irony alert: the word verification is mucks. Make of it what you will.

Anonymous said...

74%.
Warner, where is the egg timer when you need one? Wait, your wife is running for council, so we just wasted $200,000 on a publicity stunt for that nutjob? Isnt she the one who opposed the speed cameras?

fargo said...

Anon....I am afraid that is exactly what this was... a taxpayer funded PR stunt to launch his wifes' political career.

Eric said...

@Anon and fargo: Agreed. They scammed taxpayer money for a campaign stunt. I would love it if they just left the state.

Jason Haas said...

Check the canvass: the recall failed in all 10 wards. More hilariously, the recall failed in all 153 precincts.

But important messages were sent. To Warner. And he apparently can't understand them.

fargo said...

@redhorse...in looking at the numbers I hadn't noticed the individual Ward and Precinct numbers....thanks for calling attention to that...an overwhelming rout at every level. I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome.

School of Athens said...

Great coverage PHO. I wonder if Team Muligan can be compared to some new and interesting political reactionism we have seen since the Presidential Election.

I have noticed more and more people who were Ds or Rs but rooted in very traditional planks of each platform insist that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. They blame the economic melt-down, the failed policies in Iraq, and the general social problems on the Obama election. they feel isolated and cannot connect to our current reality. I wonder If the Mendenhall/Finley think tank has some similar connection. Ousted from being players in Akron, unable to develop true leadership, they rallied and brought along with them others equally frustrated.

Anonymous said...

Time spent on the recall for me? About a half an hour. I had to get up 30 minutes earlier to vote. I hope it was worth it Warner and Kelly. I will depsise you forever now that you cost me sleep.