After serving on Worthington Council for 12 years, I get to take a break from my official duties but will continue to stay involved and help educate residents about issues facing Worthington.
November’s election was interesting. We had the highest voter turnout in off-year election history largely due to the statewide ballot issues. The endorsed Democratic slate swept the win. And what could’ve been a proxy vote for resident opinions on high-density vs. low-density turned into an unclear outcome of what will happen to targeted developments in Worthington in upcoming years.
Though I finished last, I received 463 more votes than I did in my 2019 successful re-election.
Voter turnout and statistics always interested me, so I researched all the local elections since 1990 and found I was in the top 10 of highest vote-getters – out of 100 named candidates.
I ran some data point from 2001 to 2023 and found the following results.
The first graph is the total number of votes for each local election. Remember these are total number of votes, not total voters. And each election alternates between three and four votes per voter. For example, in 2023, voters could vote for three candidates but could vote for four candidates in 2021.
Because the voting ratio is different for each election, I filtered the candidates by percentage of total votes.
The next graph shows candidates who received more than 20 percent of the total vote. I was the eighth highest.
Since each voter gets to vote for multiple candidates, this percentage reflects the total number of votes cast and not the total number of individual voters.
I will continue to share updates about ongoing community issues via this email blast, and invite residents to have thoughtful dialogue on my new Facebook page: The Worthington Report.
It has been a privilege to serve Worthington residents as a Council Member. Thank you.