County Commissioner candidate Tom Cronin has raised over $30,000 (here and here) in his bid to unseat incumbent Rick Curry. You’d recognize many of the names on the donations list. What motivates them? A desire to really change the county? Or is the humongous fund raising due to an intense dislike of Mr. Curry?
May 21, 2008
Cronin Rakes in the Funds
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Speaking of next weeks Primary Election, I’m curious what kind of Election Day turnout people who read this forum think we will have. I’m usually the one being asked that question but I freely admit my crystal ball is imperfect at best. While we are setting records for our absentee voting I don’t know if that means the overall turnout will be quite large or if it just means that a larger proportion of the votes that do come in will be by early voting.
I do know that for various reasons, voters seem to be increasingly attracted to early voting, particularly by mail. We are at almost 5,000 absentee votes so far and the last two primaries have only had a total of 2,200-2,300 absentees. Today is also the last day you can request an absentee ballot by mail but you can vote absentee in person through next Monday at each Counties election office.
A typical primary election is in the 20-30% range with anything over about 28% actually being pretty good. A “big” turnout for a primary in Kootenai County is in the 30’s. While that’s nothing to brag about it has come to be the high water mark around here.
It’s an interesting principal in elections that the smaller the district the higher the turnout tends to be for elections. That is to say that smaller counties around Idaho have a much better turnout than us “big guys” for some reason. Maybe it’s more likely that people know or are even related to the candidates so that might make the emotions run higher. Who knows?
Anyway, for the politically savvy who check in here, where do you think our turnout will end up next Tuesday? Give me even a guess by ranges, 20-25%, 25-30% or ? Will there be any last minute “bombshells” or other events that might affect the turnout?
Inquiring Clerks want to know.
Comment by Dan English — May 21, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
Hi Dan English, thanks for the good question. My guess is that this primary will get a bigger turnout, maybe 25%, because a couple of the races are very visible and people seem interested in the county commissioner seats. By the way, Dan, the school levy election saw about 6500 voters. I know you have no connection with that election, but do you know if that’s a strong turnout comparatively?
Comment by mary — May 21, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
I just read in the Press that the Political Action Committee called Citizens to Inform Voters is headed up by former County Commissioner Katie Brodie. This PAC has just given over $8000. to Tom Cronin’s record breaking war chest.
Comment by mary — May 21, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Dan – My guess is that it will be an average turnout. I just think more and more people like the convenience of voting early or by mail. I don’t think that implies larger numbers on election day, but rather the same numbers, just more people choosing the alternative method.
Comment by Dan — May 21, 2008 @ 6:46 pm
I’m hearing from other county clerks that there doesn’t seem to be much “fire in bellies” of the electorate for the primary. I think without question the general election will be huge and the primaries in other states have been quite large. Of course it has been a unique year for the Democrat race but we D’s in Idaho already made our choice via the caucus system back on Super Tuesday.
I think there was something to be said for a Super Tuesday primary or even some kind of a regional primary date. But bottom line I’m also thinking we might be lucky to break into the 30% range and even that might be a little optimistic. I’m hoping the voters prove me wrong on that one.
Comment by Dan English — May 21, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
Dan, I wonder if the long weekend might have an effect on the voter turnout.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — May 21, 2008 @ 10:09 pm
What is it you can do as County Clerk to improve the voter turnout? Or is that really just a variable in the process?
Comment by Dan — May 21, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
I don’t know that we can directly affect turnout. Ultimately that is the job of the parties and candidates. The main job of election officials, in my view anyway, is to try and run the mechanics of the election the best we can. However, one important element of the “nuts and bolts” of elections is to make it as easy and convenient for the voters as possible and to give them as many options for voting as we can.
It used to be that there could only be one early voting site per county but we got it changed several years ago so that the code now allows for multiple early voting sites. In KC we call them our satellite voting sites and they include about 6 city halls spread out throughout the county. They are open anywhere from 1-3 weeks before a general election so that if people are going into a city hall to pay their utility bill or whatever they can also get their voting done early if they choose. We aren’t able to do that in the primary because of all the different ballots that have precinct committee positions on them. We also offer at least one Saturday where we are open for absentee voting at our elections office before each primary and general election.
This year we also did advertising about the election including a clip out coupon to request an absentee ballot in the Press, Nickels Worth, and Rathdrum Star. We had over 1,100 of those coupon requests come in which we think was a great response. Notices for every election are also required in the legal section of the paper but of course many people don’t look at that.
The other issue I’ve tried to beat the drum on is having mandatory voter guides for each election. I know this has been a topic of concern for Mary as well. My personal belief is that out of all the things government spends money on, having informed and hopefully active voters would certainly seem to be a reasonable priority for a small part of that funding. There are some options for private or candidate funding as well but I think it would also work best if there is an “official” set of rules to provide for whatever the funding is as well as format, etc. To me that means it would need to be in State Code.
And to Susie, I think the day after a holiday weekend certainly can affect it. It know it makes it very tough on our election workers since the day before an election is extremely busy and we have to be open for the last day of absentee voting but it is Memorial Day. I don’t know who came up with that idea but the primay often falls on the day right after Memorial Day. If election consolidation ever comes through hopefully that date could be changed.
Comment by Dan English — May 21, 2008 @ 10:51 pm