By Fritz Klug
Western Herald
The Western Herald will be providing you election results as they come in as well as a recap of all the Election Day news. Leave us your thoughts on the results and your experiences this election day. Write on our Facebook wall or give us a Tweet.
Final Results:
Percentage of registered voters: 19.86 %
Number of precincts reporting: 19 of 19
Ballot Proposals
Kalamazoo Transit Authority Proposal:
Yes: 9316 No: 3010
Ordinance No. 1856
Yes: 7671 No: 4731
City Commission
David Anderson: 6166
Jimmy Dean Ayers: 718
Birleta Bean-Hardeman: 771
Nicholas Boyd: 1851
Kyle Boyer: 768
Don Cooney: 7329
Aaron Davis: 2234
Bobby Hopewell: 8850
Mike Kilbourne: 3134
Terry L. Kuseske: 3744
Hannah J. McKinney: 7387
Barbara Hamilton Miller: 5748
Stephanie Moore: 3840
Kai Phillips: 2111
Anna Schmitt: 1919
Louis Cloise Stocking: 714
Karen Wellman: 1641
11/04/09 1:52 a.m.: Check out this video of campus reactions to the ballot
10:57 p.m.: Final results just in
10:37 p.m.: Waiting for the last precinct.
10:08 p.m.: Waiting for the final results.
9:42 p.m.: WMU polling place supports 1856 with 412 for and 61 against; and the Transit millage 384 for and 58 against.
9:07 p.m.: By means of bullhorn, posters, and one-on-one conversations, volunteers from One Kalamazoo flooded WMU’s campus to try and get the 1,500 voters pledged to vote “yes” on Ordinance 1856 to get to the polls.
Brian Nance, a junior at WMU, had been on campus since 8 a.m encouraging people to vote.
At 3:30 p.m., One Kalamazoo volunteers were in a hectic push to get the rest of the vote out.
“Most people are for [the ordinance],” Nace said. “They just aren’t getting out to vote.’
40 to 50 people came to WMU to volunteer for One Kalamazoo, EJ Dean, campus coordinator, said at 8:15 p.m..
Across town at Oakwood Elementary School, voters were also greeted by people from One Kalamazoo with information on the ordinance.
“They aren’t used to that,” Barb Squire, a Kalamazoo county resident said.
“It’s been fairly uneventful,” Denise Miller added.
Neither Squire, Miller, and Mandy Cox could not vote today; they all reside outside the city.
“That’s why it’s really important for us to get out here and help,” Cox said.
“This is what we could do,” Squier said.
At last night’s City Commission meeting, concerned citizens came to express their disapproval of the ordinance.
Pastor Joseph Anderson told the commission he opposed the ordinance because of his religion. “I have no hate for anyone,” he said. “In a spiritual sense, my church says [homosexuality] is a sin.”
Today, Virginia Vander Roest, deputy city clerk, said that voters complained about the One Kalamazoo volunteers, but that authorities reported that they were within their legal right of being 100 feet in front of a polling place.
“They’re not used to seeing campaigners near the pools,” Vander Roest said.
8:56: Prescient 11 is the first to report!
8:00: 55,759 registered voters had the opportunity today to select seven city commissioners from a pool of 17 candidates, six of which are incumbents. There were also two proposals on the ballot.
The first was a referendum on Ordinance 1856 which would make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
The second a proposal to levy a 0.6 millage to fund Kalamazoo Metro Transit.
The polls are now closed and the precincts are shutting down which could take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half, Virginia Vander Roest, Deputy City Clerk at 7:15.
Vander Roest said that today’s election has gone well so far, with an estimated 22 percent voter turnout. “I wouldn’t be surprised if once we start counting and the final [percentage] is higher,” she said.
Results should start coming in within the next one to two hours.
If you have any comments as the results are coming in, leave them bellow, write on our Facebook wall or give us a Tweet.
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