Asheville News

Asheville City Council primary election results

Jason Sandford October 10, 2007

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

Here are the unofficial results of Tuesday’s primary election, which saw a dismal 12 percent voter turnout:

Jan Davis (i) 3,622 votes, or 17 percent
Brownie Newman (i) 3,404 votes, or 16 percent
Bryan Freeborn (i) 2,697 votes, 12 percent
Elaine Lite 2,523 votes, 12 percent
Bill Russell 2,396 votes, 11 percent
Dwight Butner 2,098 votes, 10 percent

What does this mean? Well, the three incumbents finished in the top three spots, which isn’t a surprise. Davis ran a bit stronger than we thought, as did Russell. Lite was strong, but not quite strong enough to crack the top three, and as we’ve said before, the top three finishers in the primary historically go on to win in the November election.

Freeborn is in a dog fight with Lite with only 174 votes separating them for that third spot. Freeborn benefitted from a little campaign help from Newman. Russell remains a mystery to us. And we heard Butner say he knows he’s got to work harder on the campaign trail.

How did Ashvegas do in our predictions? We were a little off. Bill Russell finished one spot higher than we predicted, and Bryan Freeborn finished one spot higher. At least we picked the top six, which really wasn’t all that hard.

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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3 Comments

Twain October 10, 2007

Hey arratik…..I’ve been a ‘maroon’ for decades.

Ash: The most distressing number is the 12% turnout. I know it is an ‘off-off year election’…(most people think of the 1st Tuesday in November as ‘ELECTION DAY’)…..and, I suppose, much could be said for the power of incumbency…and name recognition.

If ever the old political saw…."IF YOU DON’T VOTE…DON’T GRIPE"….fit…it is here and now…in Ashvegas.

A politically astute lifelong friend of mine used to speak in favor of a "FRENOCRACY"….<rule by the intelligent>…..let us hope the election reflects such a philosophy. (We certainly could use a little ‘Frenocratic’ input at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)

Thanx for the chance to ‘BLOG-ON’…via the WWW.

-Twain
O.T.R. in ‘Guitar’….aka…. Music City USA. 🙂

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arratik October 10, 2007

Okay. My data was inaccurate (more recent SBOE data shows that there were roughly 1,000 more voters), and my antihistamine- and decongestant-addled brain forgot to divide the total turnout by three. Bleah. I’m a maroon.

Congrats to the top six.

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arratik October 10, 2007

Hmm. I calculated a 38.87% turnout based on a figure of 56,211 registered voters. I may have bad or incomplete data, as I don’t think that number includes any outlying communities that still vote in the council elections.

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