Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 13:10:42 -0400
From: J dreadpiratejeff
Subject: Voting in Chatham County
On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 7:19 AM, Chatham Chatlist wrote:
Mark,In reference to your conservative allies in the county bemoaning that
our Board of Commissioners is not listening to the majority of the county,
I say that you must not be the majority of the county or your candidates
would have won the election.
Let’s be a little more honest about “the majority” here.
In the last big election, 2014, when the board was changed, there were 46569 registered voters. Of those, only 27300 actually voted, or 58% roughly. Now, of the contested seats, the results were within about 1500 votes of each other, so in reality, the majority of the county did NOT pick the current board. For example, Diana Hales won with only 30% of the county. Crawford won by a similar percentage. Petty and Howard ran unopposed and even THEN still didn’t get 100% of the vote, each only got 15,458 and 17,802 votes respectively.
So where did they win specifically?
Diana Hales won the following districts: Bynum, Pittsboro, Manns Chapel (North of Pittsbor), North Williams (Chapel HIll) and West Williams (Fearrington Village). So of the 18 voting districts in Chatham, she only won in the 5 NW districts. That doesn’t seem like the majority of the county, but more like 30% of those in the NW.
Jim Crawford likewise ONLY won in Bynum, Pittsboro, Manns Chapel, North Williams and West Williams. Again, only 5 of the 18 total districts in Chatham, and again, only about 30% of the registered voters in Chatham.
People in the REST of Chatham County are NOT incorrect when they complain about the NW corner trying to turn the rest of our county into New Chapel Hill or West Cary.