Heard through the grapvine...

[Immis]

Gaylord Bose Is Still The Winner !!:biggrin:

[notdescript]

Originally Posted by Immis

Gaylord Bose Is Still The Winner !!:biggrin:

Uncanvassed results after this morning's manual
recount.

Bose -- 1,306
Prather -- 1,303

Statement from Jude Prather

I want to congratulate Mr. Bose on his re-election. I
said when I started running that I want to be a bridge
between the university and the community, between the
east and west sides of town, between businesses and
neighborhoods. A state district court lawsuit
challenging the election results would further divide
the town and I won't do that.

At the same time, we must make sure now that every
registered voter is allowed to vote in future
elections. We will continue to collect affidavits from
citizens who were denied their right to vote for a
variety of questionable reasons and provide these to
the media within the next two weeks. It is important
to me that we demonstrate there were irregularities in
this election that must not happen again.

I hope Mr. Bose will show that he is willing to reach
out to those citizens, especially younger residents
and minorities, who feel disenfranchised from our
city's government. Next week, I will be proposing
that a polling location be set up on campus for the
entire duration of early voting in future city
elections as a step toward making sure every citizen
gets a vote and every vote counts.

[cf1]

Why would the city expand early voting at Texas State and not all the other locations? That would be bias.

I'm a student and I disagree with you. I don't need special privileges, I can go like every other citizen to the City Library to vote.

Are you try to say we are too lazy to go like everyone else in this city to the City Library to vote?

I think uniting this town is an excellent plan and doing this would be the opposite. It would cause more resentment from the town having bias election voting locations.

[A2]

With voter turnouts as low as they currently are, ANY way to bring more voters to the booths is ok by me.

[semi-native]

I can see both sides. Voting on campus is almost like having everyone else vote from home, or the office.

Still, rather than not have the push on campus, why not find a way to have just as hard a push off campus? I'm not involved in any of this, so I don't know what is practical or for that matter, being done already. Maybe there could be an increase in public transit to and from the polling places. Maybe there could be early voting in mobile units that go to Wal-Mart or HEB, etc, like they use for blood drives and such.

Yeah, if all we did was set up more early voting on campus, that would be skewed, but we could certainly get more creative all around town.

[semi-native]

Of course, if the on-campus polling place is not accessible to the rest of the residents of the city, that could present a very real problem, I think.

I don't think I can park anywhere on campus to vote there. Maybe I am mistaken. It has been a long time since I went on campus other than on foot or on bike.

[eljefe]

How about do what Austin does, and have them at multiple places for the entire early voting period? The library, campus, the grocery store.

[semi-native]

I think the difference between campus and the library is that the students are already on campus, whereas the non-students have to go to the library. It is a small difference, but it can mean a lot when it comes to voter turnout.

Rather than the library, I'd be interested to see HEB, Wal-Mart (in addition to campus) and other places that get a lot of traffic already. The polls could be at these locations for the duration of the early voting period, sure.

Stepped up public transportation would also be good, but most people probably already have the means to get to HEB and probably go regularly, so this would not mean an extra trip or any substantial change to their routines.

It might also be interesting to get the local schools to have some sort of "take your parents to vote" day. The kids would get to learn about the process and the parents would have a little extra push to go vote.

I sure hope someone out there is taking notes.

[notdescript]

Quick response. More later. I dont think Jude wants to limit expanded voting opportunities to just campus. That is a logical place to start since that seems to be where there is the highest concentrated cases of documentable problems. Expanding the days eliminates all excuses and mitigates what is probably honest error, not intentional disenfranchisement -- certainly not a conspiracy. I do not believe anyone intentionally was out to discourage voting but it happened and it's reasonable to keep it from happening again.

And it wasn't just students being turned away. Ask Betsy Robertson if any of her supporters encountered problems voting. Brad Rollins

[semi-native]

Sure, but it is obvious that we have a turnout problem across the board and a big part of it (IMO) is probably location. Campus is a good location for students, but no better than the library for the rest of us.

If we had 50% turnout from non-students and 5% from students, I'd say put it on campus in multiple locations. The reality is we have nobody voting anywhere. In fact, the student turnout may have been a higher percentage than the non-student turnout.

Whatever the ratios, it is clear that the numbers are too low in all areas. I like the idea of relocating the early voting to places where voters already are.