Tues, Feb 21. Ottawa County Patriot members participated in a non binding straw vote for candidates vying for the US Senate seat currently held by Debbie Stabenow.
Results of that staw vote are as follows
1st – Randy Hekman – 29% of vote
2nd – Gary Glenn – 28% of vote
3rd – Pete Hoekstra – 19% of vote
4th Clark Durant – 12% of vote
5th Pete Konetchy – 11% of vote
6th Sotty Bowman <1% of vote
Members were asked to indicate 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices by a common means of counting ballots by “weighting”. Weights awarded 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd and 1 point for third. This initially caused confusion but common sense prevailed, yielding the above results. Percentages of points do not add up to 100 because two members did not indicate beyond a first choice.
Seems odd that it would be possible for the person that could have been desired for second or third place in the type of election we had could be represented as first choice at the convention and the person who was desired to be the first place by the most people would not. The person who recieved the most votes for first place should be the candidate. If the people wanted the second or third place to be first they would have voted for them to be first. I would like to Know who got the most votes for first, second, and third. If the person who recieved the most votes for first can’t be represented we should not support a candidate at convention.
You’ve made a good, legitimate point, Herk! I agree.
While it’s mathematically possible for what Herk said to be true, looking at the raw votes for 1st place does not change the outcome. Hekman got one more 1st vote than Glen and a couple more 2nds.
Obviously, by the percentages, Glenn was very close. Reflecting on the comments expressed by members at our Pro/Con discussion on Feb 7, last night’s results surprised me a bit. However, the outcome did seem consistent with comments made during our discussion on presidential candidates. There were significant comments reflecting, faith, morality and good/vs evil relative to Rick Santorum and much the same kind of comments bad been attributed to Hekman. Note, that we didn’t do a presidential straw poll but my perception based on the comments is that Santorum would have been the winner.
By the way my name just says, “Jim”, but for those who don’t know, I’m Jim Chiodo. I gotta figure out how to change the display name.
Of the 17 local TEA Party groups we know of that have already voted to instruct their delegates to the Michigan 4 Conservative Senate conference this weekend, Gary Glenn has won 14.
Randy Hekman, Clark Durant, and Pete Hoekstra have won one each.
Gary congratulates Randy on his win among Ottawa County Patriots and is humbled to have come close. We’re obviously encouraged by the results, so far, statewide.