Stories indexed with the term ‘Democratic primary 2011’

In what’s become an election day ritual, The Chronicle will be spending much of the day visiting polling places throughout the city.

For this year’s city council Democratic primary, we’ll be visiting Wards 2, 3 and 5. Only those three of the city’s five wards are contested this year among Democrats. No wards have more than one Republican on the ballot.

Polls are open today from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m.

To find your polling place, type in an address on the My Property page of the city of Ann Arbor’s website, and click on the Voter tab.

If you’re still researching the candidates, check out Chronicle coverage of the Democratic city council primary campaigns.

And we’re off – check back throughout the day for updates.

7:20 a.m. Ward 5, Precinct 6 (Eberwhite Elementary School, 800 Soule Blvd.): Met Chronicle commenter DrData face-to-face leaving the polls. Even after chatting, allowing more time for additional voters, DrData remained only the second voter. Poll workers noted that only a couple dozen absentee ballots had been marked in their voter books. The absentee ballots will be counted separately in this election, instead of distributed to the precincts to be run through with the ballots marked at the polls. It’s already plenty stuffy in here in the gym. Poll workers brought fans. [Full Story]

Earlier this month, the local League of Women Voters hosted forums for candidates from each ward with a contested Democratic primary election for Ann Arbor city council. That included Ward 2, where incumbent Stephen Rapundalo and challenger Tim Hull are both seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination. The primary elections this year fall on Tuesday, Aug. 2.

Because no Republican challenger filed by the May deadline, the winner of the Ward 2 Democratic primary will likely be the Ward 2 representative to the city council. Some uncertainty surrounds that conclusion, however, because the filing deadline for non-partisan, independent candidates is not until Aug. 15. And Ward 2 has a recent election history that includes write-in candidate Ed Amonsen’s effort in the 2007 general election, which nearly won him a seat on the council. Amonsen’s write-in campaign earned him 790 votes (48.4%) to Rapundalo’s 843.

In their opening and closing statements, the candidates reprised the themes they’d introduced at a previous forum hosted by the Ann Arbor Democratic Party in June. Rapundalo stressed his experience and leadership as essential in trying economic times to find solutions in the area of cost containment and “revenue restructuring.” Rapundalo is president and CEO of MichBio, a biosciences industry trade association. First elected in 2005, Rapundalo is seeking a fourth two-year term on the city council.

For his part, Hull focused on budgeting that is based on community needs, not politics, and stressed that he would protect those things that make Ann Arbor unique. Hull is a programmer at the University of Michigan’s Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. He serves as a member of the city’s taxicab board.

The two candidates dealt with the full range of topics covered by LWV questions – from public safety cuts to their thoughts on the hiring of the new city administrator.

The LWV forum was filmed at the Community Television Network studios on South Industrial Highway. After the break, The Chronicle presents paraphrases of questions posed to the candidates and their responses to them, as well as some highlights from the candidates’ remarks broken down in a bit more detail. [Full Story]

On Monday, May 16, Ann Arbor city clerk Jackie Beaudry said that Marwan Issa will be a candidate in the Ward 3 city council Democratic primary on Aug. 2. As of last Tuesday, Issa had submitted only 94 valid signatures of the 100 that are needed to qualify on the ballot.

However, that total was based on a city clerk staff decision to disallow a sheet of 20 signatures submitted by Issa. Beaudry reversed that decision after discussing the issue with assistant city attorney Mary Fales and Issa himself.

The deadline for submitting nominating petitions was Tuesday, May 10, at 4 p.m. With that deadline minutes away, members of Issa’s family – standing at the window of the city clerk’s second floor … [Full Story]