Ann Arbor’s Ward 1: Cthulhu Council?
Editor’s note: Ann Arbor city councilmember Tony Derezinski has already stated publicly that he’ll be seeking re-election to his Ward 2 seat in 2012. It was Ward 2 that offered the closest race in the fall of 2011 – a contest won by Jane Lumm over Stephen Rapundalo. Neighboring Ward 1 offered the least chance of a surprising outcome in 2011, featuring just one choice on its ballot – incumbent Democrat Sabra Briere. Briere was also unopposed in the August Democratic primary.
This ballot likely reflects a sentiment against the Fuller Road Station, which would include a train station, bus terminal and – in its first phase – a large parking structure. At last report, the facility would be a joint city of Ann Arbor-University of Michigan project, located on city-owned land that's designated as part of the park system.
Out of curiosity, The Chronicle asked intern Hayley Byrnes to take a look at the names of people voters wrote by hand on their ballots.
Of the 1,206 Ward 1 voters who dragged themselves to their polling stations on a rainy Tuesday last November, 57 filled in the bubble next to the blank space for write-in candidates.
None of the people whose names were written on any of those 57 ballots could have won the election. Some were not the names of actual people who live in Ward 1, or even actual people at all.
But even among those actual Ward 1 residents whose names were put forward by voters, none of them had filed officially for a write-in candidacy. They were therefore not legal opponents in the election. Those 57 bubbles, however, reflected the votes of 57 Ward 1 voters.
Writing in the name of a person who has not registered as a write-in candidate – on a ballot that offers only one candidate – could reasonably be seen as an expression of dissatisfaction.
So The Chronicle wanted to discover: What form did voters’ dissatisfaction take? [Full Story]