Monday, May 24, 2010
by Susie Pender
Who knew that some voters came to the polls last Tuesday and only voted for the library budget, and not the school budget? Or only voted for the school board candidates and not the school budget? Well, Theresa Markey, the district clerk for the Chappaqua Central School District, knew. Because it happens every year, she explained.
“Voters are not the same as number of votes,” Markey was kind enough to explain to NewCastleNOW.org. Calculating the number of voters “is not as simple as adding yes and no votes because we don’t know what people do inside the voting booth. We do know that several people came out and asked to do it again because they forgot to vote for the budget, or for the library, or for candidates, etc., so we know the vote totals are not accurate counts of voters. Of course, they can’t vote again.”
So the number of voters who voted on Tuesday, May 2010, was 1874, according to Markley’s tally, not the 1797 NewCastleNOW.org reported in last Friday’s edition using the total of votes cast yea and nay for the school budget. “We use machine totals and laptops to verify totals, plus the affidavit ballots, which, once verified, represent bodies as well,” Markley explained.
Of those 1874 voters, 1807 voted for the $109,391,348 school budget. That represents a 57.6% approval rate, down from last year’s approval rate of 81.4%.
The total number of voters last year was 1063, Markley reported, although only 1038 voted on the school budget. But congratulations are still in order. The increase in voter participation from last year to this year was 76%.
Friday’s article about the increase in voter participation ended with a question and an invitation: “What do you think contributed to the increase in voter participation this year? Please use our comment function to share your thoughts on this.”
There has been some interesting commentary in response, which still remains below so that readers can keep up the conversation.
Copyright 2012 NewCastleNOW.org