Two Small Elections

There are eight states that are going to the polls today for various issues. None are of any major significance but two are somewhat interesting.

The first is a special election in Arizona's eighth congressional district. This was Gabrielle Giffords old seat that became vacated when she opted to retire while dealing with her recovery. This area is strongly Democrat and should be a fairly easy victory for the Democratic nominee Ron Barber. The Republican is Jesse Kelly, a military veteran running for his first significant office.

The second is a ballot measure (issue 2) in North Dakota to eliminate the state property tax. The background of this is that North Dakota has been taking in large amounts of money through sales and corporate taxes because there has been a large oil business boom. The state has seen so much revenue coming in that members of the legislature decided to try and eliminate the property tax as an extra boon to their citizens. This measure was defeated in 2009. Independent groups then grabbed the idea and collected enough signatures to get the measure put on the ballot. Limited polling data has shown that the measure would be defeated with many citizens citing fear that if the boom economy collapsed, the state would be left completely bereft of revenue. I shall be curious to see what the final numbers are.

*UPDATE*

As expected, Ron Barber won AZ-8. The vote was a little closer than I expected (52-45), considering that Mr. Barber was Ms. Giffords former aide and had also been shot in the attack.

North Dakota's elimination of property tax (issue 2) also failed by a whopping 76.5 to 23.5.