Something Local

So, last Thursday, the 15th was our local election for mayor. There's no need to go into the nitty-gritty about they whys and hows and all of that. It was a million dollars spent on a special election and something is bothering me about this.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining because my candidate didn't win, I have met Mayor Wharton on numerous occasions and he has always been very nice to me and has never given me any reason to think otherwise about him. Quite frankly, he's a nice guy.

So, my question is this... just how did he win? Some polls suggested that Myron Lowrey had the best shot. He was after all, the interim mayor and had a running start at cleaning up the mess left behind by Herenton. And yes, he was doing a fine job with that. The Dalai Lama debacle aside, he would have been a shoo-in as the existing incumbant. But he couldn't get anywhere close in votes.

How about Jerry Lawler? Several polls had him as a legitimate candidate or a spoiler at the very least. Yet, he barely managed four thousand votes. This after all the poeple I have heard said they were going to vote for him. If they did in fact vote for Lawler, he may very well would have won the election.

And then there is Carol Chumney, lovely lady and smart to boot. She ran a rather quiet campaign and spent very little money in the race. Polls and surveys had her not doing so well, but she managed a sizable percentage of the voters. Where did she get those votes?

Obviously there is a problem with surveys and polls. Or is there a problem on a more sinister level?

The only numbers left are the vote tallies themselves. Here's what I deduced:

There are about 400,000 registered voters in the city.

100,000 people voted.

That means some 300,000 people didn't vote and that is truly sad.

A serious investigation by a third party could figure this out. Even if it was determined that everything was on the up and up. That would be acceptable. But, I'm telling you, and this is strictly MY opinion, something stinks.

Unless there is some monkey business going on at the election commission and that wouldn't surprise me in the least. Given this city's notorious history of dead people voting and the high likelyhood someone could tinker with the ballots, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to think that maybe... just maybe... this election could have been fixed in a broken sort of way.

Perhaps someone ought to look into this.

Maybe we should ask Herenton himself, he was seen at Houston's the night of the election having a nice dinner and then heading over to the Wharton party to celebrate. Maybe I'm wrong about this prediction but given the circumstances beware the following scenario:

Herenton loses the congressional election to Cohen and runs for Memphis mayor in two years and serves eight more as mayor. What do you think?

Then again, why bother? Nobody in this city seems to care.

Stay Tuned...