Some 25,000 people cast ballots in the last three days of early voting for Saturday’s municipal election, which ended yesterday. That put the final total at 57,320, which compares to 37,237 in the 2007 Trinity election, 58,669 in the 2005 strong mayor referendum, and 48,276 in the mayoral election in 2007.
In other words, people have started paying attention. If past trends hold, where early turnout is about one-third of the total turnout, we’ll see a decent number of people vote for a municipal election.
So what does this mean? A few thoughts after the jump:
• Perhaps the biggest surprise was in Lake Highlands, where more than 4,200 people voted early at the Audelia library — the most of any of the 49 locations. Another 2,100 votes were cast at the Harry Stone rec center. One caveat: The figure probably includes people who voted in non-Lake Highlands races since the county elections office doesn’t break the totals down by individual race. Still, it looks like voters were drawn first by the city council race between incumbent Jerry Allen and challenger Don Sanders, and second by the hotel vote. If the patten holds, we could see more people than voted in 2005, the last contested race in Lake Highlands. I’d imagine Allen’s people are worried.
• More than one-quarter of the early votes were cast in four locations – the Audelia library, two spots in Preston Hollow, and the Fretz Park rec center in Far North Dallas. That’s where it looks like the hotel election will be decided. It’s more difficult to predict what that means for the bitterly-contested council race in Preston Hollow.
• Turnout in the top four locations south of the Trinity, where Mayor Park Cities and his allies are hoping to do well in the hotel vote, was just 5,100. By comparison, almost 4,000 people voted early in the Oak Cliff sub-courthouse in 2005, when they turned out to defeat the strong mayor referendum.
My guess, for what it’s worth? Preston Hollow and Far North Dallas split on the hotel vote and the mayor won’t get enough votes south of the Trinity to make up the difference if Lake Highlands goes against the hotel.
