Monday, November 2, 2009

County, City and Judicial Picks


TUESDAY, November 3rd, 7am - 8pm
Posted by: Noel Jones

Since I've been getting emails asking as to my picks for County and Judicial seats, after putting my ear to the ground, here's who I will be voting for:

COUNTY COUNCIL: I can only vote for four, even though five seats are open, because of details I've heard about other candidates. So I will be voting for: Bill Wallace, Deb Hunter, John Cusick, and Peg Ferraro.

NORTHAMPTON COUNTY JUDGE: Mike Koury, Len Zito, Craig Dally

PA SUPREME COURT JUDGE: Jack Panella

CITY COUNCIL: For West Ward Rep on Council--Dennis Lieb. And in the College Hill/Downtown race that a lot of our WW residents will be voting for, due to redistricting, I am hoping that Peter Koehler wins, as his office is in the WW, and he is a landlord of many WW properties, that he maintains well, and therefore has personal reasons to care about revitalizing the West Ward.

Yours,
Noel Jones
Neighbors of Easton

7 comments:

noel jones said...

Just got back from working the polls from 7-9am--it was FREEZING. Literally. It was 32 degrees. I had to thaw out my fingers to type this!

There has been a slow trickle at the polls so far--hopefully the after-work rush will be busy! There was a Channel 69 van outside the St. Anthony's polling station this morning. We tried to sympathize with him about covering a slow turnout, but he said he was just happy not to be covering his usual stabbings and shootings! : - o

Most voters who came through were playing close-to-the vest and not giving away who they were voting for.

There was a very nice woman from the Democratic Committee working the polls for Fleck. I felt bad for her when she tried to hand someone a card and the voter replied, "I wouldn't vote for Fleck if my life depended on it!" After the voter went inside, the committee member and I tried to think of cartoons that could illustrate that dilemma...a burning house and Fleck with a firehose?...a river with a strong current and Fleck with a stick?...

I did see familiar faces coming out for Dennis, but most of the voters seemed to be keeping their leanings private, and I can't blame them, as I probably would too. At least they're all getting cards that explain how to do a write-in vote! : )

David and I will be switching on and off throughout the day, so I may post another comment later--whoever you're voting for, just be sure to get to the polls before 8pm!

Alan Raisman said...

I voted at the College Hill Presbyterian Church at 11:00 AM. The turnout had been slow there, but I expect a low turnout in the morning and afternoon due to school and work. Roger Ruggles and Barbara Hollenbach were outside of the College Hill Presbyterian Church.

Catch the latest polling results from the website below!! If you click on my name, it will link you to the website as well!!

http://www.wfmz.com/election/pre.php?county=northampton

noel jones said...

Taking another break--got back a while ago from working the polls with Allison Fleck--just like old times! (in May) Anyway, I hope that Mike takes her out to a nice dinner because she was going all out. I could see that part of the evil master plan again was the Fleck's secret weapon--the ultra-cute baby David--who kept spontaneously hugging my leg. I did my best to resist the kryptonite and focus on my job, but it wasn't easy.

If Michael Koury wins today, he owes little David big time. When he wasn't hugging my leg, he was picking up the Koury sign and walking around waving it in the air. Koury couldn't have paid better help at the polls!

Again, it was the trickle, but it was a steady trickle. We'll see what the evening slot holds...my David is up there now, not quite as cute as the Fleck's David, but pretty close.

I just hope that everyone who is voting for Dennis remembers to push "ENTER" BEFORE the red "Cast Vote" button, otherwise the vote is lost. Please pass it on!

Nikkita said...

I voted at the Temple at around 3:30pm. As others have said,there really weren't too many people out. Dennis was there holding down the fort. Luckily for him it was quite nice out, a lot warmer than 32 degrees.

I really hope I hit ENTER, I don't remember what I did, I do remember typing in the name. It's just all a blur!!

noel jones said...

We are still waiting for the final count as a machine malfunctioned at St. Anthony's...

It looks like Fleck won by a significant margin, but the machine malfunction is a strange issue and needs to be resolved--residents deserve to know the real vote count.

I will post when I know what it is.

The current count is far below the actual votes for Dennis, as there were several friends of Dennis's and fellow activists that came to St. Anthony's to vote for Dennis and they far outnumber the number of votes that the St. Anthony's poll gave credit for--they're saying he only got 11 votes so far.

I think a lot of people were thrown off by the process and probably hit the red "cast vote" button before hitting "enter" after Dennis's name. But the friends and fellow activists that voted at St. Anthony's today, were intent on writing him in properly and would not have made a mistake.

I'll post again when the official count comes out.

Alan Raisman said...

According to @2riv_easton on Twitter...

Dist. 1: Ruggles 63.13%, over Koehler 36.76% - 857 votes cast

Dist. 2: Fleck 79.96%, over "write-in" (most of which is probably Lieb) 20.04% - 454 votes cast

Dist. 3: Vulcano 63.29%, over Timmann 36.25% - 662 votes cast

noel jones said...

See my latest post on the election for further comments...the percentages do not reflect the extremely high number of "undervotes" which are a problem in any write-in election...