Unofficial Results -- Now Up!
April 4 2006 Municipal Election Unofficial Results - Board of Election Commissioners for the City of St. Louis.
School Board -- well, you know what happened.
Prop EJ -- would have passed solidly in the City alone. But in the County, it failed badly:
City:
13,454 (57%) YES
9,928 (42%) NO
County:
45,821 (45%) YES
55,395 (54%) NO
Franklin County (small area in and around Pacific):
977 (33%) YES
1,925 (66%) NO
Jefferson County (small area near Pacific):
176 (52%) YES
160 (47%) NO
On Prop EJ, the Post-Dispatch is for some bizarre reason only reporting the County figures. The results posted by Channel 5 are actually a little easier-to-read, and seem to be totals across all four jurisdictions, indicating totals of:
60,428 (47%) YES
67,408 (52%) NO
Clearly, a 3,500 vote winning margin in the City isn't enough to overtake a 10,000 vote losing margin in the County. You'd have to get a majority in the entire Junior College District in order to pass the measure.
The campaign literature mailed out in support of Prop EJ was pretty mediocre, and had a Kansas City address on it. I didn't like that. Anyway, the press release issued today seems to suggest that further tuition increases are on the horizon. After all, if state funding is continously cut, and taxes can't be increased, who gets stuck with the bill?
Sure, $78 per credit hour (up from $42 in 2001) is still a pretty good deal. Compare that with Harris-Stowe ($145 per credit hour for summer 2006), or the University of Missouri (just increased to $227 per credit hour beginning with summer 2006).
Still, it's not necessarily that affordable when most folks' incomes are not keeping pace with inflation by any means, and when other expenses are rising quickly as well. Loans, grants and scholarships can help, but by no means is a college education affordable to all.
There are no easy solutions, but I am dismayed at the huge disparity between City and County in the results on Prop EJ.
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1 comment:
"Ultimately, most people just don't have enough time to vote. "
I think this excuse is a cop-out. The polling places are open from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm - a total of 13 hours. Let's say, worst case scenario, someone has an hour commute and works a 10 hour day. That still leaves an hour to vote at the polling place. If it simply won't work to vote in person, an absentee ballot can be requested by mail. I think if the polling places were open for 24 hours, we STILL wouldn't get a significant increase.
The reasons people don't vote are more systemic. People don't feel like their vote matters, they aren't informed about the major issues, elections are not contested, and people don't feel connected to their neighborhoods to name a few.
Barring unforseen medical or personal emergencies, not voting is inexcuseable in my book. Ironic thing is that the City actually COUNTS on low turnout. If even 50% of the registered voters turned out for a municipal election, the system would be overwhelmed. My polling place had only two voting machines in the last election.
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