A Friend of McHenry County Blog prepared this chart showing the impact of early and absentee voting versus election day in-person voting.
If you take the time to study it, please give your interpretation of the implications.
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I’m thinking that those who had signs out early, e.g., Andrew Gasser in District 1, or had good name identification like
- Jim Heisler in District 2 or
- Don Kopsell in District 3 or
- Paula Yensen in District 5 (being on the front page of the Northwest Herald numerous times),
benefited from early and absentee voting.
Also benefiting was Larry Smith in District 6. Smith has run twice for the office and didn’t put signs up until ten days before the election, but he does have what I would think is a good ballot name.
The campaign by GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner probably helped Republicans across the board. (Although the campaign had some glitches. For example, I got a call saying an absentee ballot application had been mailed me, but it never arrived.)
First: If you do not have a good candidate, it does not matter what you do.
When we talk signage, I believe we are talking about the ‘low info’ voter group which grows larger each year.
The low info voter tends to head to the polls for one or two candidates and fills in the oval for the other candidates based on name recognition.
Getting signs out early has a great influence on these voters because most people need to see a name at least three times to remember it.
Prim had his signs out early.
Harrison did not blitz the area until early voting started.
Prim also had an advantage because he blitzed the area with signs during the primary.
Signs are only one facet of a campaign.
Of all the County Board candidates, Gasser ran the most intensive one because he knew he had to convince independents and democrats that he was the best candidate.
He did this by knocking on a lot of doors.
Insofar as Smith, I believe he benefited greatly from the Sun City vote but we will not be able to confirm that until we get the canvas which shows results by precinct.
Smith knocked on a lot of doors in Sun City to get on the ballot the first time.
BTW planting signs outside the polling place loses as many votes as it gets.
I remember when you only could vote early if you had a true hardship or definitive reason that prevented you from voting on Election Day.
The amount of time allotted for early voting for no real reason cheapens the Election Day process in my opinion.
Very interesting how Donna Kurtz got many more votes than Jim Heisler where you could vote for both ….
Could Jim’s support of Harrison have been (part of) his problem?
Heisler is known as a Republican while Kurtz is known as a Democrat who runs as a Republican.
Kurtz gets votes from both while Heisler gets few Dem votes.
‘Con on’ is basically correc,t except Heisler is a damnable RINO ….a pseudo-Republican who is part of the old cabal of crooks who genuflected before the Johnsburg ex-Chicago 19th ward wardheeler.
He needs to be removed.