Questions

Of course the big news of the last twenty four hours is the final count in the District One County Council race. (See more here.) I think that there will very likely be a recount, so I don’t think this is quite over yet.

I do have a few questions in my mind about this outcome.

1) Is there any way to show voter results broken down by gender? I would be interested to see that. Based purely on anecdotal evidence, it seems to me that Mr. Weinstein had more difficulty connecting with women in the electorate. I do not mean that I think that women voted for Ms. Walsh purely because of her gender, but rather than she was more successful in responding to/interacting with women during this campaign cycle. While we are on this train of thought, was the turnout for women higher than that for men?

I’m curious.

2) What would a County Council without any incumbents look like? What happens when you lose one hundred percent of your institutional knowledge? Will that have an impact on how much time is spent adjusting to issues of personality and in playing catch-up when basic knowledge is missing?

We may very well find out.

3) In the case of those who voted “against” Mr. Weinstein, how many were motivated by development/school overcrowding issues, and how many were responding to his vote on CB 9? I don’t think there is any way of finding that out definitively, but I’d love to know.

This isn’t my district and while I have thought a lot about the issues at play here I honestly didn’t ever come to a conclusion on who should be the winner. So feel free to disagree with me, but please don’t suggest I’m obviously on one side or the other. I’m not.

Whoever is found to be the winner has my best wishes for success in office as they represent the people of District One.