A look inside the vote totals

Statistics are always interesting in elections, particularly why people vote for one race on the ballot while ignoring others down ballot. In Tuesday’s May 24 primary and nonpartisan elections there were three races everyone in the county could vote for, but each race has slightly different totals.

The mayor’s race was the top vote-getter in Bibb County. Robert Reichert won 83.8 percent of the vote with 18,906 ballots cast for him. However, he wasn’t the only candidate on the ballot. The Rev. Lonzy Edwards, who first suspended his campaign and then died 10 days later, received 3,668 votes, and there were 319 write-in votes, some probably for David Cousino and others for Daffy Duck or Mickey Mouse. In any case there were a total of 22,560 votes.

The second highest vote total was in the race for tax commissioner with 22,307 votes. Certainly, there were voters who had never cast a Democratic ballot in their lives who cast one Tuesday. Both the tax commissioner and sheriff races were only on the Democratic Primary ballot. Here’s where the numbers get interesting.

The totals for tax commissioner were 253 votes lower than the totals for mayor and the votes for sheriff 960 votes lower. The differential could be explained by voters who decided on a Republican or nonpartisan ballot, but it would seem the gap would have been similar rather than 653 votes between the sheriff and tax commissioner races.

One statistic that is clear. There are 78,006 registered voters and only 31.63 percent of them decided to show up.

This story was originally published May 25, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "A look inside the vote totals."