Saturday, May 02, 2009

Halfway Through FBISD Trustee Early Vote

With one week down and one to go, we are now halfway through the early vote part of the May 9th Joint Election where voters will choose between 3 rookies for one trustee seat, and between a rookie and the current FBISD board president.

And it looks like people are coming out to vote in this thing.

A few anyway.

Early vote totals for the first week stands at 1226 as of the end of the voting day on May Day. Most of the voting seems to be taking place in Sugar Land where most of the 10 early voting polling sites are located.

When I showed up to early vote at my usual place, I joked with the election workers when they asked me if I was there to vote. I said “Yes, me and three other guys.”

In this, as it turns out, I was not wrong.

In addition to the early vote, a total of 389 absentee ballots have been received of a total of 1296 that have been requested. Of these we don’t really know which of them were cast from voters who live within Fort Bend ISD boundaries, so what the heck, let’s assume all of them are.

So right now, as it stands, according to my calculations a total of 1615 ballots have been cast in the election, or about 1.061% of the total electorate within FBISD boundaries.

That’s low.

Well, we had that bad rainstorm on Monday evening and all of the school voting locations were closed on Tuesday because Fort Bend ISD decided to close all of their schools for some reason.

And then there’s the H1N1 problem that’s on a lot of peoples’ minds right now, and maybe the last thing they want to do is go to a public school campus and vote.

In 2008 the school board election attracted 14,848 voters or just over 9.76%, which is, in school board elections a huge crowd. With so many teabaggers out there who are angry about how their bond dollars are being spent, or are not being spend, or are angry over what they perceive as the superintendent’s pet project to build a Global Science Center, you would think the early vote numbers would be a little higher right now.

So I wonder what’s going on.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Well, we had that bad rainstorm on Monday evening and all of the school voting locations were closed on Tuesday because Fort Bend ISD decided to close all of their schools for some reason."

Sounds like a Jenney thingy.

Anonymous said...

I just wonder why the director of the Houston Museum of Science was originally scheduled to speak at last Mondays board session and then cancelled. Was it because she would have exposed the duplicate project in Telfair to the public that was also shilled by Wallace?

sink_em said...

I don't find these number unusual for an off season vote. You must remember what was going on in primaries this time last year and interest levels. This should be compared with a similar set of norms and not 2008. Besides, it is very hard to predict low turnout races and who is getting their base out, not to mention the day they closed several of the polls and the schools along with the problem you mentioned of the publics misunderstanding of the H1N1 virus.

corrections said...

"bond dollars are being spent, or are not being spend"

You might want to fix this spent and spend problem in the last paragraph.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure if the local chamber of commerce board decides that the epidemic is hurting the economy, they will declare "no epidemic".

Anonymous said...

I had some very nice people knock on our door today and left some cards in it for two of the candidates in the local race. I didn't answer the door, but did visit the websites. I will try and get out to the polling station Monday.

crooked_politicians? said...

Those number keep climbing for the returned absentee ballots. I wonder if this targeted mailout process is the new method for special interest ballot box stuffing or a not so old one revisited. The county elections administrator said he didn't expect that many......ya right!

Anonymous said...

Old Sugar Land precincts are showing the highest return rate on the abs. ballots. An almost 40-50% return rate with that many requested doesn't pass the smell test.

Hal said...

So what are you suggesting, Anon? Are you suggesting voter fraud through the absentee ballot?

There will be only a little over 1200 of these, Anon, and they can be easily checked.

My guess, though, is that a clear winner will be found in either FBISD Trustee race, rendering an absentee vote verification process unnecessary.

Man, that one really takes the cake.

Anonymous said...

No, actually halfempty it could be any number of ways of "stuffing the ballot box". Such as targeted mail to retirement centers or specific groups. You see the over 65 bunch doesn't have to worry about their taxes going up no matter how much taxing entities spend. Apply whatever label you wish to it HE.