Last week, Portsmouth Mayor James Holley was recalled by an overwhelming 2-1 margin. And one fact seems to go uninterpreted by all the sockpuppets who report it.
In voter turnout of 26 percent, about 16,000 people cast ballots - about 6,000 more than what the May elections for City Council and School Board garnered.
Do the math. About 10,700 people showed up at the polls to vote no to Holley. Whereas in May, about 10,000 total people showed up to vote for Holley, for Holley's opponent, and to write in Spongebob Squarepants combined. Yet nobody seems to understand the significance of this statistic. I'm certain that even the voters who showed up to vote in this recall election, but did not make the same effort during the Mayoral election never took the time to really assess why. Do you see it?
Think carefully about what sets a recall election apart from a general election. This recall election did not require that anyone arriving at the poll actually cast a vote for James Holley or some equally poor choice. It isn't even like an uncontested election where the voter's choice would have been Holley or write in someone who doesn't even pretend to want the office, resulting in Holley returning to it.
Last week's vote was a vote for none of the above. A vote for nobody.
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