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Currier elected to fourth term
Stewart wins in a
rout
Ragsdale tabbed as Dundee mayor
Three tabbed to fill spots on Dundee council
Dundee will keep its gas tax
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Voters turn
out in droves |
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Figures released by the Yamhill County Clerk's
Office Friday indicate a nearly 98 percent turnout for the general
election |
By Gary Allen,
Newberg Graphic news editor
E-mail Gary at gallen@eaglenewspapers.com
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For whatever reason Yamhill
County voters were more diligent in casting their ballots than ever
before, according to preliminary results from Tuesday’s election
accumulated by clerk Jan Coleman.
As of Friday morning 41,628 voters were counted as registered in
Yamhill County and 40,794 had cast ballots in Tuesday’s election. If
the almost 98 percent turnout rate remains constant, Coleman said,
it will represent a record for the county.
The previous record was set in the 1980s and stood at 86 percent,
at that time a state record, as well. Coleman said a plaque that
once adorned the office of the late clerk Charles Stern attested to
the importance Yamhill County residents place on voting.
“We always have good turnout, but there were a lot more registered
voters this election than in the past,” she said.
Coleman attributed the large turnout to two phenomena: a
presidential election year and efforts to get out the young vote.
“A lot of people who never voted will vote during a presidential
(election) ... ,” she said, adding that several organizations had
been working for the past several years to encourage young people to
cast ballots in the 2004 general election.
The traditionally conservative Republican Yamhill County electorate
also bucked history in casting a more-than-average number of ballots
for Democratic candidates. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry earned
16,111 votes in Yamhill County to 21,061 votes cast for George W.
Bush.
“We knew it would be close, but it was closer than I thought,”
Coleman said.
Congressman David Wu won Yamhill County for the first time in his
four elections to the 1st Congressional District, outdistancing
Republican challenger Goli Ameri 17,888 to 16,783 votes here. Wu
garnered 57.6 percent of the vote in the 1st Congressional District
as a whole, compared to 38.1 percent (126,775) for Ameri.
On Thursday Coleman said her office continued to work on assembling
and counting all the viable ballots, which included checking that
voters registered in two counties only voted in one. Election
workers are also examining ballots that counting machines refused,
oftentimes because they are being scanned as overvotes (more than
one candidate marked for a particular election).
“It takes some examining of the ballots,” she said.
Yamhill County voters pretty much fell in line with the rest of the
state when it came to the eight measures on Tuesday’s ballot.
Measure 31, the initiative that allows an election to be postponed
if a nominee dies, passed easily across the state and in Yamhill
County, as did Measure 32, which removed the motor vehicle tax on
mobile homes.
Yamhill County voters followed their counterparts in the rest of
the state in denouncing Measure 33, which would have allowed
creation of marijuana dispensaries. Voters also gave short shrift to
Measure 34’s requirement that timber production be balanced with
resource development in the Tillamook Forest.
However, whereas the state’s voters rejected Measure 35’s cap on
the noneconomic damages a jury could award a patient suing a
physician, Yamhill County voters approved of the measure 20,594 yes
votes to 16,304 no votes.
As expected the conservative-minded Yamhill County fell into line
with the rest of the state when it came to Measure 36, the
constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and
one woman. Yamhill County voters approved the measure by a nearly
2-to-1 ratio — 24,694 to 12,886 votes.
Yamhill County voters’ wishes also paralleled those of the rest of
the state’s electorate on Measure 37, the law requiring the
government to pay landowners when regulations reduce their property
value. Both the state as a whole and the county’s voters approved
the measure overwhelmingly.
Finally, SAIF remained safe from abolishment thanks to both the
state and Yamhill County’s voters after Measure 38 failed.
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From Nov.
6,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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