67 replies to this topic

[Robert Giacometti]

People have a variety of reasons for voting how they do. Robert, your assumptions about those reasons may be way off and no one is obligated to come to this forum to defend themselves to you. Your posts smack of insult when people do not agree with you.

Can you show me exactly where I said people have to come on this forum to defend their vote to me or is that an assumption you are making? If you are then you are wrong.

[cw68]

If I could see a way to give a "+1" to Deb's post from my BB, I would. Robert, you may have not said those exact words but it is most definitely the attitude that comes across.

[Deb aka Resume Lady]

Can you show me exactly where I said people have to come on this forum to defend their vote to me or is that an assumption you are making? If you are then you are wrong.

You do it all the time (in a variety of ways and words) and I'm not going to waste my time researching all of your local political posts to prove it to you.

[Robert Giacometti]

If I could see a way to give a "+1" to Deb's post from my BB, I would. Robert, you may have not said those exact words but it is most definitely the attitude that comes across.

So its OK to make assumptions and prejudge without knowing all the facts? If someone has a question about something just ask me. I think I try to answer most questions.

Given all the phone calls, emails and personal visits I get, I don't think everyone is agreeing with what you wrote above. However you are entitled to your opinion.

[Robert Giacometti]

Hey all,
Just wanted to say that I am happy with my campaign, I did not "win", however, it was a great experience and I did learn a lot. I can't complain about the outcome, I am happy with the amount that I spent, and I am happy to stand up for what I believe in.
I noticed some of the posts saying that people don't think the council would allow Mike or anyone that ran against them could get appointed to any committee to strengthen their resume; however do believe they would be open allowing anyone that wanted to serve on a commission or committee to do so, even with differences. I may have a difference of opinion compared to the incumbents that got re-elected, but we are all interested in the best for Folsom. I plan on seeing how I can get involved and plan to continue to learn more. Best of luck to the re-elected over the next four years, and good luck to any challengers that may run again in the future.

Thanks again for running! I think you have good instincts and if I can help you in anyway let me know. I hope the council does appoint you to a commission.

[Rich_T]

After reading these comments, I'll stand by my earlier opinion: With no particular interest in any of the 7 candidates, most Folsom voters just did what came naturally, which is to reflect the signage they saw, and to stick with incumbents, when in doubt. You simply cannot equate a high-profile statewide election with a relatively harmless city council election, in terms of voter enthusiasm. I think it has less to do with the notion that "people are happy with the current council members" than inertia taking its course.

Using the number of votes posted above, here's a percentage breakout, which I believe is typical of past elections as well:

Miklos 22.15%
Howell 20.11%
Morin 19.40%
Kozlowski 15.64%
Munoz 8.33%
Woodward 8.13%
Badiga 6.24%

So Miklos, the "winner", received 2/9 of the votes. This doesn't mean that only 2/9 people voted for him, however, since everyone could vote for up to three candidates. I would estimate that close to 3/5 of voters had him as one of their three choices. But 2/5 did not. Each of the challengers, meanwhile, probably was only chosen by 1/5 (Kozlowski 2/5) of voters. I think that's the right way to interpret the voting.

The incumbents received a total of 61.67% of the votes, or just under 5/8. The other 3/8 went to challengers. So imagine if only one challenger had run. That 3/8 would likely have translated into an incumbent being unseated. That was my earlier point: either the challenger has to have some notoriety, or else the votes get diluted across all the challengers.

Absent a "Bell" type of situation, it makes it really hard to unseat candidates, especially when the developers only support the incumbents.

I don't want to make a big deal of this, however. In all honesty, I don't spend my time thinking about the city council, I spend my time living in Folsom on my own terms. It's just that, come election time, one reflects on these things.

[tessieca]

The simplest way to see if one got 50% of the votes from voters who voted is to take the number of voters who voted in the election and divide by 2. The number of seats has nothing to do with getting 50% of all the voters to vote for you.

Same thing that I said, although you have to be clear that the number of votes + undervotes doesn't equate to the number of voters. That's why you divide by 3. If one person undervotes by 1, then 1 is added to UV's. If they vote for nobody in the race then 3 is added to UV's. Steve's still close to the 50% marker.

If I could see a way to give a "+1" to Deb's post from my BB, I would. Robert, you may have not said those exact words but it is most definitely the attitude that comes across.

I added it for you (and took away Deb's mistaken one) .

[camay2327]

After reading these comments, I'll stand by my earlier opinion: With no particular interest in any of the 7 candidates, most Folsom voters just did what came naturally, which is to reflect the signage they saw, and to stick with incumbents, when in doubt. You simply cannot equate a high-profile statewide election with a relatively harmless city council election, in terms of voter enthusiasm. I think it has less to do with the notion that "people are happy with the current council members" than inertia taking its course.

Using the number of votes posted above, here's a percentage breakout, which I believe is typical of past elections as well:

Miklos 22.15%
Howell 20.11%
Morin 19.40%
Kozlowski 15.64%
Munoz 8.33%
Woodward 8.13%
Badiga 6.24%

So Miklos, the "winner", received 2/9 of the votes. This doesn't mean that only 2/9 people voted for him, however, since everyone could vote for up to three candidates. I would estimate that close to 3/5 of voters had him as one of their three choices. But 2/5 did not. Each of the challengers, meanwhile, probably was only chosen by 1/5 (Kozlowski 2/5) of voters. I think that's the right way to interpret the voting.

The incumbents received a total of 61.67% of the votes, or just under 5/8. The other 3/8 went to challengers. So imagine if only one challenger had run. That 3/8 would likely have translated into an incumbent being unseated. That was my earlier point: either the challenger has to have some notoriety, or else the votes get diluted across all the challengers.

Absent a "Bell" type of situation, it makes it really hard to unseat candidates, especially when the developers only support the incumbents.

I don't want to make a big deal of this, however. In all honesty, I don't spend my time thinking about the city council, I spend my time living in Folsom on my own terms. It's just that, come election time, one reflects on these things.

You have to remember that some people, including my wife and I, only voted once for one person and did not cast the other two votes...

[Bill Z]

CORRECTION, the incumbants got the MOST votes NOT a majority! I wondered how long it would be until you came on here trying to spin things. Stick to facts!

What do you mean they didn't get a majority?
Remember, every one was allowed to vote for 3, so if you assume (and I think it is a fair assumption) that most if not all voted for 3, then the total number of votes actually adds up to 300%. So if you take the total number of votes for all candidates, then divide by 3, you should get the number of people that voted. The take the number the incumbents got and divide by the number of voters, and you see that the incumbents were all over 50%.

so total votes cast = 37331/3 = 12444 voters

lowest incumbent got 7244 divided by 12444 voters = 58%

How is that not a majority?

Yes, some people may have not placed 3 votes, but I bet most did, so even though Kerri may have had less than 58%, I bet she still had >50%

[rlsliger]

You have to remember that some people, including my wife and I, only voted once for one person and did not cast the other two votes...

Sorry if you've said it before but what's the logic behind just casting 1 vote?

[DrKoz23]

Sorry if you've said it before but what's the logic behind just casting 1 vote?

Infatuation with Kerri Howell. Period.

[camay2327]

Sorry if you've said it before but what's the logic behind just casting 1 vote?

It is 2 votes that one person gets, and two others get none. That gives my person an edge. My way of thinking.

[camay2327]

Infatuation with Kerri Howell. Period.

No such a thing. If I wanted to give one vote to Andy and none to anyone else, he would have a one vote edge.
Get enough people to that and a new person could get voted in.

Say that 1,000 people vote only for a new person running and the same 1,000 people give no votes to the two incumbents,
the new person is 1,000 votes ahead.

[mac_convert]

Yippy for Zak. No comment on the other two.

There is one new Board member ~ Zak Ford.
Richard Shaw and Ed Short were re-elected.

[giacomo]

There are still many uncounted ballots to be added to the final totals, so these numbers above will go up.

Below are the final numbers for the 2006 election.

Miklos 12,348
Morin 11,429
Howell 9,773

I'm assuming there are more voters here in 2010, than 2006. I'll be curious to see what everyones final numbers are and that will be a key indication to me on how the Community really feels about the job the incumbants are doing.

The totals were strictly from precincts only, Sac County still has to count all the absentee ballots. Believe they had more absentee in this election than ever before. Over 120k in Sac County alone. How many from Folsom, we'll see but I bet it's quite high.