Thursday, October 15, 2015

Indianapolis Municipal Election Drawing Little Interest From Voters

Give the voters no real choices and you can't be surprised that they are showing little interest in this year's municipal election in Indianapolis. Only 485 people took advantage of early walk-in voting during the first week the voting center at the Indianapolis City-County Building opened for business. A little more than 2,000 people requested absentee ballots.

I held my nose and cast a ballot for two candidates I don't particularly favor for mayor and city-county council last week, realizing that regardless of which candidates win in this year's election, there will be no demonstrable difference in policy. The same self-dealing corporate insiders will be calling all the shots and getting richer at the expense of the rest of us.

Things aren't looking good for Republicans in this year's election. Their ace in the whole is a rumor they're spreading that black voters are sitting out the election this year as a form of protest against the Democratic Party's leadership. The Democratic candidate for mayor traditionally takes about 90% of the black vote in Marion County, while a Republican requires close to 65% of the white vote to win county-wide.

15 comments:

Paul K. Ogden said...

Worst ace in the hole ever.

Anonymous said...

Admit it! Except for Christine Scales there are no real Republicans left in office in Indianapolis!

Eric Morris said...

Good, helps show that "consent of the governed" is a myth foisted upon us by pro-government indoctrination centers, er, schools.

Anonymous said...

For people who don't promote blacks within the local party, it's funny to hear them claim to know them well enough to know anything about their voting habits... Rumor indeed.

Anonymous said...

For whatever it is worth, I am one voter who will no longer hold his nose to cast ballots for any of these candidates; I am worn out fooling myself that a trek to the polls has any real meaning other to endow some political party sycophant with a little fiefdom and the opportunity to chow down at the public tax trough.

Recently asked at the BMV if I desired to update my voter registration, against all my prior belief and actions I politely replied, "No, thank you."

The politicians and the corrupt attorneys who run these politicians lie and pervert the law to their benefit. Both sides of the aisle. Right down to the marrow of their bones. The truth is neither major party is open to those of difference of any kind, skin color or sexual orientation, other than to exploit those "differences" and drive wedges between us to their benefit.

To paraphrase Alfred E. Neuman... "What? Me Vote?"

Unknown said...

Gee. Maybe one of the Libertarians will win a CC race. That would do more to get the Republicans and Democrats to work together than anything else.

Anonymous said...

MJ has a point. Libertarian Sam Goldstein (CC district 2) has a fiscally responsible platform free of transit subsidy & socialized notion.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Why did the Libertarian Party choose not to run a candidate for mayor this year? It's not like tweedle dee or tweedle dum support Libertarian views.

Flogger said...

Maybe it is a mistake. I received my absentee ballot. There is no Libertarian running for Mayor or in my Council District. I knew I was not going to vote for any of the Republicrat Candidates. None of the candidates I have to chose from are worth voting for. I guess I could trash the ballot or return it blank.

Anonymous said...

No, things are looking good for Republicans in at least the City County Council race. In the 2012 Republican reapportionment, based upon voting patterns, Republicans were to be favored in 15 of the 25 seats at stake for this year's election. Legislation passed by the state (not Marion County, of course) has eliminated the four at-large Democratic seats and new rules have led to three Democratic incumbents giving up their seats to keep their city jobs. Given that the Democratic Party has currently only a one vote majority on the CCC and that the Party has had a majority only twice since Unigov was enacted in 1970, it would seem that this election will be a cakewalk for the R's.

Sir Hailstone said...

"Given that the Democratic Party has currently only a one vote majority on the CCC and that the Party has had a majority only twice since Unigov was enacted in 1970, it would seem that this election will be a cakewalk for the R's."

It would take quite a "stay at home" effort by the Afro-American Dems to make this an R cakewalk. Straight tickets alone make it a 60-40 majority for Dems in Marion County. All of the countywide offices since Terry Curry's election as prosecutor have gone at least 55-45 to 60-40.

Anonymous said...

Evidently Slur Hailstone believes the winger myth that blacks control elections in Marion County. It may surprise him that Afro-Americans comprise only 27.8% of the population here and yes, Ballard is a Republican. But if things get too out of hand the State Legislature will step in and change the way we vote.

Sir Hailstone said...

"Winger myth"?? Wow. The moonbats are out thick tonight.

I know Mayor Ballard is a Republican, dumbass! I among others worked to get him elected back in 2007.

I personally seen how the elections work in Marion County. A-A population may only be ~30% but it's the only voting bloc that consistently votes one way when it comes out to vote and a significant portion is currently straight ticket. Consistently. I don't need to read the tape to know how a precinct votes, I just observe and count voters in the line. Caucasians don't have this consistency. Neither do hispanics. 2008 taught us when the A-A population comes out in huge numbers, the results are a landslide for the D's in MarCo - the only exception was Gov. Daniels eeking out a 50-50 as I recall against the biggest doofus of a candidate since Lindley Pearson.

I was there working in a precinct that goes usually 55-45 D that has a large A-A population living in low income apartments. Typical turnout in congressional and presidential years is about 20% in this precinct. 2008 had about 65% turnout (1200 votes out of about 1800 registered). I think the tally in 2008 was somewhere around 75-25 in favor of the Dems.
Back to your remark about the Mayor - his 2007 election in part proves my point. A-A's were largely absent from that election in many precincts, and the Mayor won by about 5 points.

Gary R. Welsh said...

In the 2008 election, Obama got 64% of the vote in Marion County, and Mitch Daniels got 56%. When you studied the precinct-by-precinct results, there were some really weird anomalies that seemed best explained by an algorithm written into the software that added votes to Daniels' and Obama's vote tallies. If you looked at the black precincts, Daniels was getting 50 to 55 more votes per black precinct than any of the other Republican candidates, who were getting 3 to 5 votes per precinct. Even when you went down to Perry Township, Obama and Daniels were both way ahead of other candidates of their respective parties. There are people who have ran election results from other places around the country and found strong evidence of an algorithm being used to alter vote counts. Chuck Hagel came out of nowhere and won both the Republican nomination and general election in Nebraska against better-known candidates who were expected to win. It wasn't until after he scored this remarkable upset that people learned he actually was the principal owner of the software company used by Nebraska officials to tally votes in each of the state's counties. The vote was literally rigged to put him in the Senate.

Anonymous said...

Now I know the dumbass who got the other dumbass elected. Thank you Sir for such wonderful foresight.