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DEF is a non-partisan, independent political blog based in the
City of St. Louis, Missouri. Our goal is to cast a critical eye
on lawmakers, their policies, and those that have influence upon
them, and to educate our readers about legislation and the political
processes that affect our daily lives.
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The Missouri Democratic Party today preliminarily awarded 36 delegates each to Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton following their thrilling performances in Tuesday’s Missouri Presidential Primary.
By virtue of his 10,479-vote victory statewide, Obama won Missouri’s statewide delegates by a 13-12 margin, while Clinton won Missouri’s congressional district delegates by a 24-23 margin.
According to the Missouri Democratic Party delegate selection plan, Missouri Democrats award 72 of their 88 delegates proportionally based on how the presidential candidates perform in the primary. Of those 72 delegates, 25 are awarded proportionally based on statewide performance, while 47 of the delegates are awarded proportionally based on performance in Missouri’s nine congressional districts. Congressional districts with higher past Democratic performance receive a greater share of the 47 delegates. Candidates must meet a 15 percent threshold to qualify for delegates. Therefore, the percentages in the following chart do not include votes cast for candidates that did not meet the threshold. The delegate breakdown is as follows:
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(* The statewide vote totals are slightly more than the sum of the congressional district totals because some local election authorities have not assigned absentee votes to their appropriate precincts yet. This should not affect the delegate totals for either candidate.)
The remaining 16 of Missouri’s 88 Democratic delegates are unpledged superdelegates, who are members of Missouri’s Democratic Congressional delegation, Missouri members of the Democratic National Committee, and distinguished party leaders. These superdelegates will cast their vote at the August Democratic National Convention in Denver for their favorite candidate, regardless of Tuesday’s primary results.
Congressmen Lacy Clay and Russ Carnahan, both St. Louis Democrats and both early endorsers of Barack Obama, celebrated Super Tuesday election results with other Obama supporters and volunteers at The Moolah Theater in Midtown last night.
With over 95% of the Missouri vote in and Obama close to victory, Clay and Carnahan addressed the crowd...
The City of St. Louis will balance its budget with a tax increase. Sounds like everything Republicans say about our Democratic city is not all untrue.
While many different elected officials and editorials spoke out against the sales tax increase, there were no mailings, robo-calls or poll workers to spread that message to voters.
The half-cent sale tax, supported by Mayor Francis Slay and Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, passed yesterday 55%-45%.
Barack Obama will very likely win Lacy Clay's 1st Congressional District, but a good predictor of how well Obama will do in the all-important delegate count in Missouri will be how well he does in Russ Carnahan's 3rd Congressional District.
The 1st District, located in north St. Louis City, midtown, and north and central St. Louis County) has a very large African-American population.
The 3rd District is mostly white and contains parts of the City of St. Louis basically south of Interstate 44 and parts of south St. Louis County.
Katherine Wessling and David Lee Jackson, Jr. easily won seats on the St. Louis Board of Education tonight with 37 and 30 percent of the vote respectively.
Proposition P also passed easily with 70 percent of the vote.
UPDATE: Only 6.85% of the city's registered voters came out to cast ballots Tuesday, a record low, according to election officials.
On Election Day, Aldermanic President candidate Lewis Reed, License Collector Mike McMillan, State Rep. Rodney Hubbard, and Alderman-elect Marlene Davis made their way around the city on an old-fashion trolley, shaking hands from barbershops to gas stations and picking up last-minute votes.
Last week, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) introduced legislation that targets shady Election Day tactics that seek to intimidate voters and prevent them from exercising their right to vote.
"The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2006", would make it illegal for anyone to knowingly attempt to prevent others from exercising his or her right to vote by providing deceptive information and would require the Attorney General to fully investigate these allegations.
Penalties include up to $100,000 in fines and/or one year imprisonment.
"Too often, we hear reports of mysterious phone calls and mailers arriving just days before an election that seek to mislead and threaten voters to keep them from the polls," said Obama. "And those who engage in these deceptive and underhanded campaign tactics usually target voters living in minority or low-income neighborhoods. This legislation would ensure that for the first time, these incidents are fully investigated and that those found guilty are punished."
Obama said that in last week’s election, mailers distributed in predominantly African-American counties in Maryland wrongly implied that African-American Democrats had endorsed Republican candidates. The fliers were paid for and authorized by GOP Senate candidate Michael Steele and Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich.
In House races across the country, reports surfaced of Democrats receiving dozens of harassing robocalls designed to imply that they came from Democratic candidates. In fact, the calls were paid for by Republicans and were intended to suppress turnout among Democrats. Read more about these calls at www.TalkingPointsMemo.com.
The legislation would also require the Attorney General to work with the Federal Communications Commission and the Election Assistance Commission to determine the feasibility of using the public broadcasting system as a means of providing voters with full and accurate Election Day information.
Proposition P, a sales tax increase to fund two new recreation facilities in the City, passed (60/40).
Click here to see PUB DEF's video of Mayor Francis Slay explaining this plan.
Proposition R again confirmed that the vast majority (65%) of City residents want cops and other police department employees to live in the city limits. However, the state-controlled police board already voted to lift the requirement just weeks before voters went to the polls yesterday.
Click here to see PUB DEF's video of the police board's controversial vote.
Proposition 1, to raise the maximum allowed fine in the city, failed again (46/54).
Propositions 2, 3 and 4, all making changes to the civil service system, passed.
With 71% of the vote in, Sen. Jim Talent is leading challenger Claire McCaskill 50% to 47%.
The Democrats have already won control of the House of Representatives. With the balance of power in the U.S. Senate at stake, the eyes of the country are on Missouri...
The chairwoman of the St. Louis City Board of Elections says Election Day is going pretty smoothly so far.
Kim Mathis told PUB DEF that aside from some minor problems with a few optical scan machines, the election is proceeding without any major controversies so far.
We asked her about reports of confusion at some polling places -- either with faulty equipment or misinformed elderly judges -- that resulted in some voters being given provisional ballots. Mathis said she had not heard of any of those incidents, but she said even though an optical scan ballot might have been marked "provisional" it wasn't actually a provisional vote if it was scanned and counted on the spot.
Mathis also said she had not heard of any touch screen machines not working today. But when this reporter arrived to vote at Yeatman School this morning, only one of the three touch screen machines was operational. Twenty minutes later, by the time I got to the front of the line, all three were functioning.
Mathis would not predict what time tonight the election board would have the final unofficial vote total. "We'll try to get them out as soon as we can," she said. "But I don't anticipate you're going to see anything longer here than you would find anywhere else."
Watch our entire 5-minute interview with Mathis...
Turnout has been high so far at many St. Louis City voting places. Long waits have been reported at some northside sites, some due to problems with the touch screen voting machines and others just resulting from voters taking a while to get through the long ballot.
Voting has begun... Polls are open until 7:00 p.m.
If you have any questions about voting, provisional ballots, your rights as a voter, or election offenses, contact the City of St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners at 622-4336 or the Missouri Secretary of State at 1-800-669-8683.
The Associated Press is reporting that Secretary of State (and St. Louis City resident) Robin Carnahan was asked three times for a photo ID when she tried to vote absentee last week -- even though the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the state's photo ID requirement.
"To have that experience personally was very troubling," Carnahan told the AP.
Click here to read reporter David A. Lieb's exclusive story.
Volunteers and supporters of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures will gather to watch election returns starting tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. on the campus of Washington University at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center.
According to former 1st Ward Ald. Irene J. Smith, defeated State Senate candidate Yaphett El-Amin filed a lawsuit yesterday against the campaigns of her opponent Amber Boykins, and Joe Palm and Karla May, both opponents of her husband, seeking to have those campaigns' sample ballots from being distributed in several wards.
According to Smith, who was speaking on Lizz Brown's "Wake-Up Call" radio show this morning, a temporary restraining order was issued around 3:00 yesterday to collect the "misleading" (El-Amin's word, not Smith's) sample ballots. According to Brown, some ballots were taken by election officials and Sheriff deputies.
With 23 of 24 Precincts Reporting, State Rep. Maria Chappelle-Nadal has again defeated Councilwoman Sandi Colquitt. The count so far: 2,100 (62%) for Nadal, 1,277 (38%) for Colquitt.
Congrats to Maria and all the other winners tonight. I think the lesson here is that I should keep to predicting City politics and leave County races to County folks.
The St. Louis City Board of Elections has set up a pretty nice "media room" with a wireless Internet connection, veggie snacks, and "live" election results projected on the wall from a laptop.
The board should have some election results posted here on www.stlelections.com.
After months of campaigning, hundreds of thousands of dollars raised and spent, countless candidate debates, and dozens of mailers and robo calls, it comes down to this.
We sit numb and wait...
Stay with PUB DEF for results from today's elections...
E-DAY UPDATE... Election Board officials tell PUB DEF that only about 10% of St. Louis' registered voters have gone to the polls so far. Look for a final turnout around 23%.
E-DAY UPDATE... Polls close in less than seven hours. No reports of any craziness yet, but several people have told PUB DEF about some confusion involving the optical scan ballots. Some election judges are failing to remind voters that there are ballot issues on the second page. As a result many folks are undervoting.
As always, if you've got a tip call (314) 518-2364.
People are near polling places this morning gathering signatures on a petition that would require a public vote before any public park land (such as Forest Park) could be sold to a private interest.
State Rep Candidate Talibdin El-Amin got hit this morning by a full on assault from the disgruntled mother of his two oldest children.
Antonnia Washington, her mother and her sister all called into Lizz Brown's "Wake Up Call" radio show this morning to slam El-Amin. For more than an hour, Brown has carried on the attacks on Talibdin and his wife, state senate candidate Yaphett El-Amin.
Predictions are always dangerous. More often than not, you usually wish you just kept your mouth shut and looked smarter than you actually were. Oh well.
Before we get started, let's remember one thing: these are predictions about who I think will win tomorrow's elections, not endorsements or statements about who I want to win these races.
Okay, let's get into it.
In the 57th State Rep District: Joe Palm -- 35% (29.53%) Talibdin El-Amin -- 42% (43.79%) Karla May -- 23% (26.68%) The winner will be Talibdin El-Amin (Correct)
In the 58th State Rep District: Rodney Hubbard -- 60% (73.3%) Bill Haas -- 40% (26.7%) The winner will be Rodney Hubbard (Correct)
In the 59th State Rep District: Jeanette Mott Oxford -- 75% (81.03%) Mark Rice -- 25% (18.97%) The winner will be Jeanette Mott Oxford (Correct)
In the 60th State Rep District: Bob Bartlett -- 5% (5.75%) Shaun Simms -- 20% (12.53%) Jamilah Nasheed -- 40% (43.92%) Sharon Tyus -- 35% (37.8%) The winner will be Jamilah Nasheed (Correct)
In the 72nd State Rep District: Maria Chappelle Nadal -- 49% (64%) Sandi Colquitt -- 51% (36%) The winner will be Sandi Colquitt (Wrong)
In the 4th State Senate District: Yaphett El-Amin -- 27% (24.89%) Derio Gambaro -- 21% (22.97%) Amber Boykins -- 18% (12.72%) Jeff Smith -- 31% (36.41%) Kenny Jones -- 3% (3.01%) The winner will be Jeff Smith(Correct)
So there it is. And now we wait....
I would be remiss if I didn't direct you politicos to my consulting firm's website. Find A D French & Associates LLC at www.adfrench.com.
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