Friday, October 23, 2015

Early Voting Down 50% In Marion County, Democratic Leaders Begin To Worry

Voting trends in recent elections have been moving decidedly in favor of the Democratic Party in Marion County, but a low voter turnout election could spell disaster for the party's mayoral candidate Joe Hogsett and the party's chances in a handful of council races that will decide control of the Indianapolis City-County Council for the next four years. If early voting is any indication, turnout for this year's municipal election could hit a record low.

Official numbers through the first two weeks of early voting show a 50% decline from the same period four years ago, 1,026 compared  to 2,073 four years ago. Although official numbers for early voting this week have not been released, Deputy Elections Director Russell Hollis tells Advance Indiana the numbers this week have continued running 50% below early voting numbers from four years ago,  although the clerk's office saw an uptick in the number of walk-in voters yesterday. There were 182 persons who took advantage of early voting in the clerk's office yesterday, the highest number of walk-in voters to date this election cycle.

Mayor Greg Ballard won a close re-election race in 2011 against Democrat Melina Kennedy in a contest that saw just under 30% of the county's registered voters cast a ballot. Ballard's 51% re-election number was nearly identical to the percentage of the vote he captured in 2007 when he upset incumbent Mayor Bart Peterson. A little more than 26% of the county's registered voters participated in the 2007 municipal election,

13 comments:

Eric Morris said...

Sweet, people are seeing the pointlessness of it. These people are all on the same team, team-plunder you and enrich their cronies.

Anonymous said...

Wow.... thanks for serving up this info to us, Gary! Gee... think of it... the mayoral 2011 election was Democrat Melina Kennedy's to lose and she did that quite well when she and her Democrat Party had everything "on their side" when it came to the corrupt Ballard and his MCRCC guy Walker. Far as this voter for Kennedy (2011) is concerned, Melina and the Democrats gave away a win they easily could and should have had.

Now with this information we see that the local Democrat Party and the Hogster may repeat the Melina mistake of the past. Wow, just wow... if the Democrats lose this time all I can say is it has to be a special kind of political stupid.

I won't vote for the wealthy Joe Hogsett but I absolutely refuse to pull a lever for Chuck Brewer. Or for any Republican Councilor candidate. Absolutely refuse.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Eric, yes. It took the gawd-awful dirty deals of Vision Fleet and ultimately of Blue Indy and the do-nothing-at-all-about-either City Councilors to ram your truthful message into my skull.

Not one of them worth a penny and not a dimes worth of difference among them. Crooks and incompetents and dimwits all.

Anonymous said...

i agree with anon 11:36

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:10: Yeppers.-- When even Scales proved during the Blue Indy fiasco that she too drank the Kool Aid... no amount of working the social media about alleged fidelity to fire fighters, love of police bravery, and pretending to be a political machine outsider is going to change what all of Indy voters now know. Right on bro!

Anonymous said...

Like Anon 12:57, I was once a Scales supporter. She paid a price for readmission to the GOP Caucus: Conservative Support.

Anonymous said...

Does it make even the slightest difference which one of these tools wins?

Melyssa Hubbard said...

A lot of people fed up with the choice this year are going to write in MELYSSA (all caps, no last name needed)

On election day, I'll be at Hinkle Field House from 7 am to 9:30 am passing out complimentary signed copies of my book Spanking City Hall to anyone who votes. I don't care who you vote for, because it doesn't matter.

Culture is what matters.

Anonymous said...

If I have to hear Scales claim one more time that her "service" on the Council is her way of doing God's work I am going to retch. It's like suspending belief in order to accept that Democrat Zach Adamson is actually tolerant of the opinions and ideas held by others or that RINO Republican Jeff Miller has only one position on any given crony deal before the Council.

Anonymous said...

...won't the "Julia Carson bus" be bringing in voters without ID each handed a slip of paper of who to tell the election staff they are?

Anonymous said...

I wonder why the Libertarians didn't run a mayoral candidate? Probably because the Indiana Libertarian Party is a lot more like a cult now than an actual collection of libertarians!

Melyssa Hubbard said...

The libertarians tried to run Rev. Harrison. Tried really hard. But as you can see, even though there was lots of support, he wouldn't run.

I only thought about running myself a few weeks ago or I would have asked them to put me on the ballot and would have run a campaign.

I have a plan in my head in four years to get a Libertarian elected mayor by harnessing culture.

The country is moving more libertarian. We do culture better than elections. Now we need to use that culture we've harnessed to win a big race. I think I know how to drive it. Gotta find the right candidate.

MELYSSA

Anonymous said...

Paul Ogden or Gary Welsh for Mayor the only true Libertarians/Republicans in Marion County!