It looks like Denis wasn’t the only person who wanted to send Charlie Hales a message by writing in someone for the mayor’s race. As I noted this morning, 7.7 percent of voting Portlanders wrote in someone for mayor. That’s 14,660 people.
I was interested in how that compares to other recent Portland elections, so I looked up the history. This year’s write-in number is huge compared to 2008, when in the primary election 92 percent of Portlanders voted for either Sam Adams and Sho Dozono (remember him?) and only .34 percent of voters wrote in a candidate. In 2004, between Jim Francesconi and Tom Potter, only 2,584 people (.94 percent) of the electorate wrote in their choice.
The closest parallel is probably from 2000, when only 50.25 percent of people voted for Vera Katz in the primary. Then, 20,297 people expressed their distaste for the candidate during the November election by writing in an alternative. That’s a bigger write-in vote than when Katz was elected in 1996, when five percent of voters (11,030) wrote in an alternative during the November election.
Still 14,660 people who don’t want to mark their ballot for Charlie Hales or Jefferson. He may have won the election, but the results hardly give Hales a mandate.
Next on the agenda: Getting the list of who was written in from the election’s office… UPDATE: The Multnomah County Elections office doesn’t record the write-in candidates for races unless they get more votes than a candidate, because it would cost a lot of money. Sad news. But, Elections Spokesman Eric Sample looked through a small sample of ballots to see who was written in: “The name I saw that was the most common was Eileen Brady and then Scott Fernandez, who I believe was mounting a write-in campaign, and then typically Sam Adams or Carrie Brownstein, the Portlandia person.”
“He may have won the election, but the results hardly give Hales a mandate.”
Um… what?
Hales: 62%. Smith: 30%. Write-in: 8%.
That’s a clear mandate. Yes, his opponent was a joke, but still… if more than 60% of the voters pick you, that’s a mandate.
Would you have written that if it were Hales 62% and Smith 38%? The write-ins don’t really mean anything at all, and likely mainly came from (gasp!) conservatives who didn’t like either Smith or Hales.
My sober compatriot is correct. Some people wrote someone in. But Hales still had 127,000 Portlanders cast ballots for him, two-thirds that of his opponent. That’s a supportive vote of confidence.
There is no such thing as a “mandate” in this context. If you win an election, you deploy your political skills to get done what you can get done. No one ever says “we’re not going to work with you because a lot of people wrote in Carrie Brownstein.”
Smith’s campaign blew up and Hales practically won by default. It’s about as compelling as Bush’s 2004 “mandate.”
So who were the write-ins for east mult. co. SWCD #2, which had no candidates on the ballot?
Almost 50,000 wrote in “Roseanne Barr” in the presidential election, nationwide, according to Google.
She came in 5th place.
America!
Reymont: Those votes for Roseanne were not write-ins. Roseanne was on the ballot in California and Colorado and Florida. So far I’ve only seen results for her in those three states.
I didn’t know Nancy Hales was on the championship arm wrestling circuit.
i voted for sam adams. Charlie is a liar and he lives in washington, so i dont think he has any mandate, except to support overdevelopment and take bribes from the developers.
Thats just great, glad you are all so happy, enjoy
Hey Tony, anytime you want to pretend to care about Portland enough to get past lame talking points and join us in the real world, we’ll be here. Volunteering, discussing, etc.
Or, you know, you could just gin up some bullshit about the mayor-elect and be a useless prick.
To be clear, I voted for Sam Adams, too.
Today 11/14 according to Multnomah County Elections 277,502 people voted on the City of Portland Fire an Police Pension ballot measure.
That is 19,371 more vote than were cast for Hales, Smith and write-ins for Mayor.
In other words 38,867 voters did not vote for Hales or Smith! That is a pretty significant under vote -14%.
That means the Hales received votes from 57% of Portlanders who voted in the election. While 57% is a significant majority I do not know that it is a mandate.
Worth noting is that almost half as many chose “None of the Above” as chose Jefferson Smith.
What does it mean when 14% percent of the voters chose None of the Above for Portland’s Mayor?
Old Fogey