Kenney Stayed Confident As Williams Floundered And Flailed In Philadelphia Mayoral Race

Jim Kenney started 2015 eager to run for mayor but uneasy about leaving the at-large City Council seat he held for six terms.

Then the city’s political landscape shifted swiftly and sharply in his favor.

Kenney, who handily won the Democratic primary election Tuesday night, became a candidate at the end of January, due largely to factors over which he had no control.

First, City Council President Darrell Clarke – the first choice for most of the city’s labor unions – ruled out a run on Jan. 12. That labor support soon migrated to Kenney’s campaign.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/mayor/20150519_Kenney_stayed_confident_as_Williams_floundered_and_flailed.html#v1dgYBCSl5w4bb2K.99

Voter Turnout Around 45 Percent, About Average For Governor’s Race, Officials Say

Although nice weather and busy poll stations may have given the impression of above-average voter turnout Tuesday, election officials in Chester, Berks and Montgomery counties indicated it was anything but.

“It was a little lower than it was four years ago,” said Deborah Olivieri, director of the Berks County Office of Voter Services.

“But it’s better than 17 percent,” she said, referring to the anemic voter-turnout in the spring Primary Election.

According to figures posted on their respective websites, voter turnout ranged between a high of 48.2 percent in Montgomery County, where 262,738 votes were cast, to a low of 41 percent in Berks County, where 100,731 votes were case.

Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/general-news/20141106/voter-turnout-around-45-percent-about-average-for-governors-race-officials-say

Tom Wolf, Candidate For Governor, Speaks At His Pottstown Alma Mater

POTTSTOWN, PA — Hill School alumnus and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf was on campus Saturday morning.

Wolf, a 1967 graduate, was invited to be a part of the school’s year-long speakers series focusing on integrity — the theme for 2013-2014 academic year.

Speaking to a packed house in the Center For The Arts building, Wolf used several abstract ideas to convey how integrity is important in life because, “the real world is the right world.”

He told students that “fairness, inclusion, trust and hope,” were all important in the real world and he came to that realization through his years in business, academia and volunteering with the Peace Corps.

Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/general-news/20140329/tom-wolf-candidate-for-governor-speaks-at-his-pottstown-alma-mater

Important Races On Your Ballot Tuesday

Election Day is Tuesday, and there will be a meaningful showdown on the ballot, no matter where you live.

The races that will appear on your ballot this week are very important, and the result will arguably have a greater impact on your life than the choosing of the governor, a senator or even a member of the House of Representatives.

Joyce McKinley, director of the Centre County Office of Elections, noted that just 12 percent of county voters cast ballots in the primary.

“We’d like to see a decent turnout,” she said. “We certainly expect to see better turnout than in the spring, but that was disastrous.”

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2013/11/02/3868613/our-view-important-races-on-your.html#storylink=cpy

Time To Top 20 Percent Turnout In Tuesday’s Election

Map of Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Something perplexing happens in municipal elections like the one coming up Tuesday.

The public officials being elected have the most direct impact on people’s lives.

Yet turnout of registered voters – usually less than 20 percent – is the lowest in the four-year election cycle.

These officials make sure roads are plowed in winter and grass in parks is mowed in summer. They hire contractors for road repairs. They oversee police. They pass zoning laws that dictate where housing developments should go and where businesses should be built, which can impact land values.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=518129

Chris Kelly: Scranton Voters Stick With What They Know Is Killing Them

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lackawanna County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The table was set for reform-hungry Scranton voters to nominate successors to three-term Mayor Chris Doherty, but they showed little appetite for change at City Hall in Tuesday’s primary election.

Just under 37 percent of city Democrats voted; about 19 percent of their Republican neighbors. The turnout was shockingly anemic, considering taxpayers’ endless braying about being bled dry by a parasitic government.

Turnout was similarly listless countywide (35.3 percent), but at least voters supported a government study commission that could lead to real change and voted to keep county row offices, rejecting a naked power grab by the incumbent county commissioners.  Jim Wansacz, Corey O’Brien and Pat “Cheese” O’Malley weren’t up for re-nomination, but voters let them know they were lucky not to be on the ballot.

City voters sent a different message:  Forget belt-tightening!  Bring on the bankruptcy buffet!

Read more:  http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/editorials-columns/christopher-j-kelly/chris-kelly-scranton-voters-stick-with-what-they-know-is-killing-them-1.1495526

Have We Lost All Desire To Vote?

Editor’s note:  Apparently yes!

While other row offices were eliminated, Luzerne County’s home rule charter kept the controller to independently scrutinize its $260 million in spending, 1,400-plus workers and more than 50 departments providing services from tax assessment to 911 dispatch.

The public — not county employees or officials — pick the person who fills this $64,999 elected post for the next four years to be the fiscal watchdog.

Although an estimated 256,800 residents are eligible to vote on this decision, the number who narrowed down the controller finalists from four to two in Tuesday’s primaries was 31,000 — only 12 percent of the over-18 population.

“When you break it down and see the percentage of the population making the decision, that’s pretty troublesome,” said Barry Kauffman, executive director of the nonprofit citizen advocate group Common Cause Pennsylvania.

Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news/539857/Have-we-lost-all-desire-to-vote