Thursday, November 09, 2006

Voting stuff.

I guess the Green Party absentee voters were apathetic about this last election in Humboldt County. Only 48.3% of the those ballots issued were returned. The Republicans led the way with returns at 72.2% while the Democrats were close behind at 68.9%. My wife and I vote absentee. We lost our polling station out on the Peninsula in 1995 when Humboldt County Elections Official Lindsey McWilliams made the decision that the Samoa/Finntown/Fairhaven communities did not have enough registered voters (We were under 250) to warrant a polling station.

16 comments:

Hank Sims said...

Finntown? I've never heard of Finntown.

samoasoftball said...

It is between Samoa and Fairhaven. It has a boat repair station. Maybe 20-30 people? Just turn left by DG Energy plant and follow alll the way to the bay.

Hank Sims said...

Neat!

What's that little neighborhood just to the Samoa Bridge called? Vance Road/Pedro Lane. That's got to have a name.

You know the story about why Fairhaven used to be called "Rolph," don't you?

Hank Sims said...

North! Just to the north of the bridge!

samoasoftball said...

Named after past California Gov. Rolph. The elementary school was also named after him until 1961. You must have read Little Grains of Sand? Just North of the Bridge? Portuguese Flat I think is what it was once called.

samoasoftball said...

Rolph lived on the peninsula.

Hank Sims said...

"Little Grains of Sand"? No, I've never heard of it.

Did "Sunny Jim" Rolph live on the peninsula? I thought he just owned the shipworks there, as a sort of minor absentee robber-baron.

Portugese Flat and Finntown, huh? Things were more interesting back then.

Anonymous said...

Pedro is a card game for four players that was popular in parts of Humboldt County during the 1950's.

Hank Sims said...

This Pedro?

Anonymous said...

Richard,

How could you know voter turnout by party yet without a detailed voter roster of who voted and who didn't?

It is much easier in a partisan primary to determine this. The only way I know is a data sort by party and a second sort on whether they voted or not.

btw, I thought Meserve would come in second as well.

Mike Harvey

J. Alora said...

Richard, my wife and I will be moving to Samoa next month. We'll have to go hit some balls with my Uncle Greg this spring.

samoasoftball said...

Mike: It was in yesterdays ER, and I can not find the link. It is not up yet. It had raw data of how many absentees were out and how many came in. I just used my trusty calculator to figure percentages.

Anonymous said...

This is some of your best posting so far Richard-have you thought about wwriting a book yet? The information about Samoa is interesting-as interesting as anything Chad Hoopes ever had printed.

samoasoftball said...

11:16-I have been working on a couple of novels. One is the history of the Dart workers successful union organizing campaign I directed a few years back. I did a journal of the campaign from start to finish that was studied by labor organizations. I have been offered the help of the Learning and Education Research Center (LERC) at the University of Oregon. (I attended a LERC workshop a few years ago at the university) I just need to shore up some loose ends and submit. Maybe this spring?

samoasoftball said...

Mr. Alora! Come on out to the peninsula and lets play some ball!

Anonymous said...

Got the paper in the mail today and saw the chart. Clear enough for me now. Thanks...

Mike Harvey