Filing for candidacy of the two Boulder City Council seats closed last night at 5pm and so here’s a complete list (in order of their filing dates) of who you’ll have to choose from when April 4th, 2017’s Primary Election date rolls around:
- Cam Walker
- Fritz McDonald
- Warren Harhay
- Kiernan McManus
- John Milburn
- James Stuckey
- Eric Lundgaard
- Richard Loudin
Jordan Anthony Mathisen(Updated 2/7/17: No longer a candidate)
If you’d like to find out more information about these candidates, like photos and bios of those that submitted them to the City Clerk, you can do that by visiting the Candidate Information page on the City’s website — just CLICK HERE to do that.
Also note that the early voting dates for the 2017 Primary Election are March 22 – 25 … we’ll post more about polling locations later because there will be some changes this year.
How Two Candidates Can Earn A Majority of Votes … What?
I also learned something interesting from the City Clerk’s office yesterday — it would technically be possible for two candidates to receive “votes equal to a majority of voters casting ballots” in the Primary Election on April 4th and then there would be no General Election on June 13th (unless one was held for a ballot question).
Interesting! So how do TWO people receive a majority (which seems to defy the very definition of ‘majority’, right)? Here’s the example the City Clerk gave me to help me understand:
- Let’s say that 4,000 people head to the polls. That would mean that the magic ‘majority number of votes’ to get is 2,001. Check.
- BUT — there are TWO seats open, so each voter will be able to cast 2 votes and THAT means that there is a total of 8,000 votes out there to be divided up. Check.
- And just because there are more votes (2 for every voter), that rule up there in #1 doesn’t change — a candidate still only needs to get more than half of the votes of the number of voters who came out to the polls … that’s still 2,001 in our scenario.
- So, in this scenario – if two candidates EACH get 2,001 votes (from #1 above) of the 8,000 votes cast (from #2 above) — they will both be considered elected in the Primary.
And there you have it! Be sure to write down the election dates so you can cast your ballot … and we’ll see on April 4th if we have two seats filled or if we head toward a June 13th General Election!
