Just for some perspective...

[turil.livejournal.com]

Joe Curtatone, while winning the election for mayor, was voted in by less than 8% of Somerville's human population.

Comments

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

The implication here is that some of the non-human population voted yesterday. Would that be animals, undead, or other?

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Hey, the undead are people too!

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Yes, we must Recognize the Rights of the Metabolically Challenged!

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Also target practice.

[turil.livejournal.com]

That's not the implication. Not mine anyway. Rather I'm implying that the number of votes he got (likely all of them falling generally within the homosapien species of animals, but who knows...) represented less than 8% of the human population. The human population being far, far less than 8% of the total population of Somerville, if you count all the Earthlings who live here, flora and fauna.

Lots of people forget about all the other individuals who live here, but I know many of them, and think they deserve a voice too, even if they aren't allowed to even register, let alone vote. :-)

This really puts things into perspective doesn't it? Very, very few of the individuals who live in Somerville actively support Joe Curtatone in being in charge of the city, even though he won the election.

[georgy.livejournal.com]

I believe everyone should take advantage of the right to vote, but not casting a vote does not directly translate to disapproval of Joe Curtatone. What your statement implies is that only 8% of the population of Somerville actively supports Joe Curtatone as mayor. Technically, the election is only one metric for that.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Wait, help me understand your point. You want flora and fauna to be able to vote? If so, how do you see that working?

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

It could be worse.

Next Door in Cambridge we don't get to Vote for our Mayor (who is a glorified Chairperson with expense account, voted from among the members of the elected City Council). We are at the whim, in the end, to the decisions of the City Manager who is an Appointed/Contracted person that we have no legal power over even when he commits legal offenses that cost the people that live here millions in court fees.

Add in an election system that Drastically favors incumbents and you'll find that Somerville's 'rule by apathy' is at least more Democratic.

[phoenixy.livejournal.com]

In a devastating indictment of local leadership, 100% of non-human residents of Somerville did not vote for Mayor Curtatone.

[turil.livejournal.com]

How can you be sure? Aliens are really good at passing for humans I hear. And you never know what those MIT geeks have been cooking up in their robot (http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/04/27/when-robots-attack-what-does-the-future-hold/) labs...

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

How did his opponent(s) fare?

[turil.livejournal.com]

No one was officially running against him this time.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

Which is why only 8% of our population voted for him. What percentage of eligable voters voted for him?

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Which is undoubtedly why, of those who voted, many people didn't vote for him OR a write-in candidate.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Do you know what percentage of registered voters voted for him?

[turil.livejournal.com]

Sorry. No. It didn't seem like a particularly interesting bit of information (since the mayor makes decisions that affect everyone, not just registered voters).

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

It seems particularly interesting to me, because if you're not allowed to vote in an election, the fact that you didn't vote for a particular candidate in that election is meaningless. The percentage of those who COULD have voted for him and did not is more interesting and meaningful as a statistic.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

A low turn-out in this kind of election could, to some, imply satisfaction with the standing government.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

And that's one way of looking at it, although, I would suggest it's more likely voter apathy.

After all, compare how many people are pissed about the parking changes vs how many are doing anything to get rid of the aldermen who allow the T&P thugs to rewrite law without legislative oversight.

[blunderblunder.livejournal.com]

I thought it had to do with how he was running unopposed.

There was an election?

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

That's why there were those people with signs all over the place. Oh well.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

I considered voting, but 1) Joe Curtatone was unopposed, and 2) I don't feel I understand the politics of the alderman positions and such well enough to be voting on them.

Plus, you have to use the marker

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

That everyone else has used. Not good these days.

The question is......

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

The question that will tell the tale is 'how many people who voted in the election on November 3rd voted for Joe Curtatone'. If people didn't vote you can't count them one way or another. But someone like me, who voted but marked off the Mayoral race as blank, can be counted as someone who didn't vote for or didn't support the Mayor.

So the children of Somerville "don't count"?

[turil.livejournal.com]

Is that really what you are saying? Because I think they count even more than the adults, as they are Somerville's future...