Election 2007, the results in Cabarrus County.

Will I have to sell My crystal ball with which I made my election predictions yesterday?
Let's look at todays election results.

From what I can tell now (10 pm), it looks like I was right on the ball in Kannapolis and Mt. Pleasant, I made 1 mistake in Midland and Concord and made a few mistakes in Harrisburg.

In Kannapolis I was correct in predicting all the incumbents would get re-elected easily. So we'll have Richard Anderson, Kenneth B. Geathers and Roger Haas on the City Council for another 4 years.

In Mt. Pleasant it seems that my predictions were right on the ball. I'm happy to report that Mike Metcalf, a Democrat, is the top vote getter there. He'll be on the town council with W. Del Eudy. Maura Eberhardt, a Republican incumbent, got sent home.
The Mayor, Troy Barnhardt, was running unopposed and is of course also re-elected.

In Concord I thought that everyone would get re-elected except Jim Ramseur, who I had predicted would get narrowly beaten by Alex Porter. Seems that the citizens of Concord don't like change much because all the incumbents got re-elected.
Even the Ramseur-Porter race wasn't close, Ramseur got 57% of the vote. If yard signs could vote Alex Porter would have won this one.

In Midland I correctly predicted that Mike Tallent would get elected, but I was wrong about the 2nd elected official. Don Fleener won over the incumbent Darrell Page by a mere 36 votes.

Finally, In Harrisburg I made most of my mistakes. I knew Rhonda Poppen and Bob Scaggs would get elected, but had predicted that Joe Hallatschek and Leigh Thomas Brown would also get elected. In fact it seems now that next to Scaggs and Poppen the citizens of Harrisburg will have Jeffrey Redfern and Bill Williams on their town council.

Final score: Out of 13 predictions I have 9 right and 4 wrong. Not too bad actually.

Turnout for this election was, as expected, unfortunately low at almost 12%.
You can read all of the results on our Board of Elections website.

I'll post more commentary on the election results soon. Good night.

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Go vote already!

Do you know there is an election tomorrow? This Tuesday we vote for our local Mayors and/our Councilmen.
Local politicians can have a big impact on your daily life, so it is very important to make your voice heard. Turn out for these elections is traditionally very low, so your one vote can make a huge difference!

Your local polling place will be open on November 6th from 6.30 am - 7.30 pm .
You can only vote if you live within the city/town limits of Concord, Kannapolis, Harrisburg, Mt Pleasant or Midland.
You can view sample ballots from your city/town on the Cabarrus County Board of Elections website.
If you don't know where you have to go vote, you can check your voter registration on the State Board of Elections website.

Know your municipal election candidates

No idea on who to vote for?
You can check out my "interactive Google map", which will tell you who all the candidates are in every town or city in Cabarrus County and it will also show you the candidates' party affiliation and his/her website if they have one.
Since all these elections are "non-partisan", you won't see any of these candidates' Party affiliation on your ballot on election day. So check out the Google map if you want to know who to vote for.

Use your right to express yourself!

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I'll be back Sunday.

I'm packing my bags right now to leave for the ConvergeSouth Conference in Greensboro.

ConvergeSouth is a free bloggers conference and it's a great opportunity to learn what's happening behind the scenes on the intertubes in North Carolina.
It's a great conference with lots of how-to info on all aspects of citizen journalism, new media, social networking and more.
If you want to attend, it's not too late! Just surf to the website and sign up.
I'll see you guys after the weekend, unless I have some time available to send some live comments from the conference floor.

By the way, early voting for the municipal elections starts tomorrow! For more information on the candidates, visit my Google map.

Have a nice weekend!

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Know your municipal election candidates

Tuesday November 6th this year you can go vote! Surprised? Then this post is for you.

This year we don't have a big shot election for a President or Congress, but you can vote on how you want to represented in your town or city council. Voting day will be the first Tuesday in November, but early voting will start October 18th.
These local elections might have an even bigger impact in your daily life then the "big" elections on even numbered years, yet the turnout for municipal elections is traditionally shamefully low.
I'd like to contribute a small step towards getting more people involved this year.
I made up an "interactive Google map" that shows you all the candidates in every single town and city in our County. The map will show you the name of every candidate, where they live, their political Party affiliation and provide a link to their website if they have one.
Since all these elections are "non-partisan", you won't see any of these candidates' Party affiliation on your ballot on election day.
I know a lot of people are interested to know what Party a candidate is affiliated with because it can guide them towards what candidate they want to vote for and who they don't want to support at all.

If the candidate is registered Unaffiliated, I did some research to track down what party this candidate "leans" towards. I looked into the person's voting past to see what Party primary elections they voted in and how their immediate family is registered. For example, if candidate X is registered Unaffiliated, but they have voted in several Republican primaries in the past and His wife is a registered Republican, I concluded that candidate X leans towards the Republican party. Before you think that I work for the Department of Homeland Security, all this information is public record and can be found by anyone who's willing to do a little research.

If any candidate doesn't agree with his or her "Party designation" please contact me and explain why. I will be more than happy to adjust the map accordingly. This map will be constantly updated as new information (e.g. candidate websites) arrives. Get involved, have fun and on to the map!


If you click on the link to the map you will see a column on the left that lists all the candidates. When you click on a name, the map will show you what area this candidate lives in and a little window will pop up that shows their Party affiliation and their website (if they have one).

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