September 9th Primary Repost

The September 9th primary will play a critical role in City politics. The primary will reduce the Council contenders from 5 to 4 and more dramatically the field of 5 Commissioner candidates to 2. Turnout will be the name of the game so I thought I would pass on a few stats:

Minnesota had a 78% turnout in the last presidential election year in 2004. This is a great rate which we will most likely beat this year. Primaries however are a bit more lackluster. When only a U.S. Senate race is in contention and no governors race on the primary ballot the turnout is just 17%.

In 2004 Commissioner Pagel received 1206 out of 1594 total votes cast in Isanti and 1487 out of 1904 in Bradford in an uncontested race.

The area has grown considerably in the past 4 years and the City of Isanti total vote share has increased. But if we simply extrapolate the 2004 numbers and take 17% of the total votes cast we end up with only 595 votes deciding the primary. Each voter will be asked to vote for 1 candidate in the Commissioner race and 2 in the Council race in the primary. Each candidate will have to work hard to get their voters to the polls. I hope this energizes the district into greater voter turnout as our Citizens takes a look at each candidate and what they have to offer.

Our participatory democracy only works if we participate by knowing the issues, candidate history, candidate positions and then go vote.