I’ve tried to find a telephone number for Ms. Mort to call her and offer my congratulations.  I was not able to do so.

To her and tonight’s other winners, I congratulate them.  May they govern wisely and lead Middletown to better days.

To the 772 people who voted for me:

I sincerely thank you for your vote.  I am honored by your expression of support.  I apologize for letting you down with what proved to be an inadequate campaign.

I will make no excuses, and accept all responsibility for failing to sway a majority of the voting public.

Wannaknow,

You can find all of the election results here: http://results.butlercountyelections.org/ - (click on “View Live Results”; it will scroll through all Butler County results alphabetically, with council-type races first, followed by school board races, and "issues" at the end) or here: http://local.cincinnati.com/Elections/Default/Search?County=Butler -

Thank you for the kind words, and for your support.  I actually did stop by and remove the yard sign, but didn’t want to disturb you at that late hour.  I appreciate all of your efforts.  With more supporters like you, perhaps I could have carried the day.

As a side note, as of 3:00 a.m. this morning (Wednesday 11/9/11), all of my yard signs have been removed and collected, except for four.  Two appear to have been removed by the property owners.  The remaining two are on the other side of town, and I plan to retrieve them tomorrow.

If any of the other candidates need assistance removing their signs, I would be pleased to arrange same for a reasonable fee. 

VietVet wrote: ... I'm predicting this woman will do little to nothing while sitting on council other than what she is told like the rest of them do. We shall see. ...

Well, Vet, She did state quite clearly a couple of times that, if elected, she would “play nice” so no one can say that they weren’t warned.  The people were offered a clear choice and they seem to have made a clear decision.

I am aware of only one small irregularity, not nearly enough to make a difference, so the die is cast.

Wannaknow,

Of course you can have one of these extremely rare artifacts!!!  I am charging only $100 each ($150 if personally autographed)!!!     

(Just kidding!!)  I’ll be happy to drop one off…if not this evening, sometime in the next few days.

A few short post-mortem notes on the election (for the few of you who might be interested—others, please ignore.):

I won only one of the First Ward’s nine Butler County precincts.  (For some reason, Warren County cannot seem to tell me the results of the Ward 1 vote in that county, even though they report 100% of the vote has been counted since Wednesday morning.  This is of little consequence, since even in the highly unlikely event that I had swept 100% of the Warren County Ward 1 vote, it would have brought me nowhere close to being into contention.

That one precinct that I won was Midd1Wd1, with over 52% of the votes cast. Generally speaking, this is much of the area of “Lakeside” including nearly all of the area close to the hydraulic canal.  I have friends in this area that helped to deliver the vote.  I feel especially bad for this area, since with my defeat they can kiss good-bye any hope of relief from the canal blight.  Too bad for them.  They deserve better.

I am disappointed that I failed to carry my own precinct, Midd2Wd1, carrying less than 43% of the vote.  I was so well-received when canvassing for petition signatures, perhaps I just took these good neighbors for granted.

In Midd6, the area of Lakeside east of Germantown Road, I carried just over 40%, actually more than I had hoped.  I had a couple of very strong supporters there that nearly helped me win the day, but the area is noted for low turnouts, and many of those who do vote favor the more liberal candidates such as my opponent.

I took my worst drubbing in precincts 3 and 4.  These two precincts encompass most of the area from Breiel east to the Warren County line, and from Manchester Road north to the river.  I guess this was to be expected as this area includes my opponent’s neighborhood (Precinct 3) as well as that of the City Manager.  Yet I felt that I would have pockets of support in this highly conservative area.  I was only able to garner 22% and 26% respectively in these two precincts, and the voter turnout there was high.

Midd5Wd1 was another precinct where I did very poorly (30%).  This area, formerly referred to as “Countryside” was another disappointment as it is a very conservative area where one would think my message would have resonated.  Go figure.

Miscellaneous facts:

Of the 7,249 registered voters in Middletown’s First Ward (Butler County only), and 2,603 (35.91%) cast a ballot in this past election.  Of the 2,603 who cast a ballot, 372 (14.29%) did not vote for EITHER candidate for Ward One unexpired term for City Council.

Excluding the First Ward, there are 21,709 registered voters in Middletown (Butler County only), and 7,303 (33.06%) cast a ballot in this past election.

(I have further analysis on the Ward 1 race.  If anyone is interested, make sure that you have room in your MiddletownUSA message box--there is a 100 message limit-- and I will be happy to send it.  There is nothing to be gained by boring the others.)

Has anyone seen the Middletown election results reported with the Warren County voting results included?  There are at least a couple of thousand registered voters living within the City of Middletown but in Warren, not Butler, County.  It seems unusual that the results have not been reported with these numbers included.