Interesting Times

Here’s the good news: Tallies for the election on Tuesday show the 538 people who bothered to vote really studied the Charter Revision proposals.

Here’s the bad news: The fate of the 7,575 registered voters of Zephyrhills was decided by the 538 people who bothered to go vote.

Here’s the bottom line: Citizens get the government they deserve. If you didn’t vote then don’t think you have a right to complain when the city does things you don’t like.

Now for the painful stuff: I was wrong. I predicted to both Molly Moorhead of the St. Petersburg Times and Nicola White of the Tampa Tribune that due to the length and complexity of the Charter revision questions the electorate would simply vote NO on everything because that’s what people do when they don’t understand things.

You, the voters, surprised me. When I was in my polling place there were two men, both of an age, huddled over a voting machine to my left. One was voting, one was helping. The helper read the question then explained it. He explained it so well I felt ashamed of the cheat sheet I had prepared and which I consulted as I filled in the yeas and nays.

The numbers tallied speak to exactly that. On Question #1, dealing with the Preamble showed 346 yeas and 155 nays with 37 voters not voting on that question. It’s that last number that tells the tale. Only 37 folks were confused enough not to have an opinion. In election parlance those non-voting electors are called ‘undervotes,’ but we know what it means. If there were widespread confusion we’d expect the undervote numbers to be substantial. They weren’t. Thirty seven was the highest, 15 the lowest. Overall, all of the Charter revisions passed, thus making my predictions to the two reporters worth exactly what they paid for them – nothing.

Voters returned Celia Graham to Council in the only contested race. They did it by giving her exactly 100 more votes than they gave her the last time she ran – unsuccessfully against Dan Burgess.

It’s hard to say what the new Council lineup will do, but as the ancient Chinese curse reminds us, "may you live in interesting times."

Arjay