Past presidential election turnouts: The Kitsap County Elections Department expects local voter turnout to exceed 80 percent. Kitsap’s voter turnout in past presidential elections: 82.10 percent in 2012; 87 percent in 2008; 85.97 percent in 2004; 79 percent in 2000.
Every vote counts: In an earlier story, we included past local elections that were settled by recounts and, in one case, by a coin toss. We overlooked one. Do you remember the 1999 election when Silverdale’s incorporation failed … by … five … votes? On Nov. 2 that year, 2,100 Silverdale residents voted against incorporation; 2,095 voted for it. Another election result that proves every vote counts.
Track your ballot: The Kitsap County Auditor Elections Office’s online Ballot Tracker is a handy way to verify your ballot was received.
Brisk turnout on Election Day: About 40 residents had voted between 7 and 8:30 a.m. at the polling station at Poulsbo Fire Department, Nov. 8. That’s according to Brian Stengle, who staffed a table with Tim Meeson. The polling station is one of two operated by Kitsap County Auditor Elections Division.
Outside,if you got out of your car to drop your ballot in the official drop box, you might find three or four cars behind you, waiting for their turn. Virginia Ball of Poulsbo said she cast her ballot on Election Day because she needed the time to decide how she’d vote on some issues and candidates. Ditto for Janet Arnold of Poulsbo, who added that she had decided earlier how she was going to vote on one key race: the presidency.
Fact check: Want to check the veracity of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s claims – about the issues and about each other? FactCheck.org, a project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center, and PolitiFact.com, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project of the Tampa Bay Times, have full-time staffs devoted to researching and checking the candidates’ claims.
Kennedy 80: This presidential election has apparently sparked nostalgia among some voters. A big seller at Found, a vintage store in downtown Poulsbo: “Kennedy 80” campaign buttons.
Those born in 1962 and earlier will remember Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy’s run for the presidency in 1980. He challenged President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party’s nomination; Carter received 10 million votes in the primaries, good enough for 2,123 delegates; to Kennedy’s 7.3 million votes and 1,151 delegates.
It was an important turning point in Kennedy’s career. “It wasn’t until after his challenge to Carter’s nomination in 1980 failed and after he realized that the presidency was not in the cards for him did he become a true giant of the Senate,” NPR’s Ken Rudin wrote in his Political Junkie column. “Kennedy spent most of his last years as an American icon, and deservedly so, far removed from the joke and the playboy and the dilettante he was portrayed as during much of his early time in the Senate. You can’t write honestly about Edward Moore Kennedy without both accounts.”
(Kennedy’s speech before the Democratic National Convention is rated one the top 100 American speeches by AmericanRhetoric.com.
All in the family: If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, she will be the first spouse of a former president elected commander in chief.
Here’s some interesting (in our view) trivia: Nearly one-fourth of all presidents have been close relatives. We’re not talking 10th cousins, either; we’re talking, “See you Saturday for dinner” close.
Second president John Adams and sixth president John Quincy Adams were father and son.
James Madison (4) and Zachary Taylor (12) were second cousins; Madison’s grandmother and Taylor’s grandfather were siblings.
William Henry Harrison (9) and Benjamin Harrison (23) were grandfather and grandson.
A lot has been made of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt (26) and Franklin Roosevelt (32) were distant cousins (their great-great-great-grandfathers were brothers). More significantly, they were uncle and nephew by marriage, FDR having married Theodore’s niece Eleanor.
George H.W. Bush (41) and George W. Bush (43) are father and son.
If Clinton wins, the end of her term would mean members of six families occupied the presidency for 64.5 years — 27.8 percent of the presidency’s 232 years.
(Also worthy of note: A grandson of Dwight D. Eisenhower, No. 34 married a daughter of Richard M. Nixon, No. 37).
Her election would also mean anybody born in the last 27 years would have known — with the exception of Obama — a Bush or Clinton as president.
What does all of this mean? We’ll leave that to you ponder.
Election night coverage: Turn to KitsapDailyNews.com – the regional news site powered by six newspapers in Sound Publishing’s Kitsap News Group – for comprehensive election night coverage of local candidates and ballot measures. You won’t get just the results, but comprehensive stories that explain what the results mean to you and Kitsap.
— Richard Walker is managing editor of Kitsap News Group. You can contact him at rwalker@soundpublishing.com.
