May 7, 2008

Mechling secures spot on fall ticket; Democrats outnumber Republicans by 2-1 in Wells primary

HARD TO TELL WHO WON — The Republican Party candidates who contested the race for the County Treasurer nomination give each other a congratulatory hug after the results had been announced. Shar Mechling (left) secured the nomination with a 1,104-952 victory over Patty Randall (right) on Tuesday. Both candidates impressed with competitive but cleanly run campaigns, and party officials were keen to commend both women for their efforts. (Photo by Frank Shanly)

Shar Mechling will be on the November ballot as the Republican candidate for Wells County treasurer.

Mechling earned the spot by taking a 152-vote win over Patty Randall in Tuesday’s primary election.

Mechling won 16 of the 22 precincts in running up a total of 1,104 votes compared to 952 from Randall, who was testing the political waters for the first time.

Mechling, two years ago was a candidate for the assessor’s post on the GOP ballot only to lose out in the primary to Jill Ellenberger by just one vote.

The Mechling/Randall match was the only contest on the Republican ballot and there were no local contests on the Democratic primary ballot.

But voters came out in droves to vote in the presidential contest as 4,520 people voted in the Democrat presidential contest, or more than double the number of voters asking for Republican ballots.

The total number of votes tallied was 6,790, or 32.67 percent of the 20,781 registered voters in the county. Absentee ballots totaled 717 while 6,073 ballots were cast on Tuesday. It was the largest turnout for a Democratic primary contest in recent years.

In reality, the voter turnout in Wells County perhaps was more in the range of 45 to 50 percent, because of the 20,781 registered voters, 5,567 have been regarded as “inactive” over the past two general elections which reduces the number of actual qualified voters to around 15,000.

A purge of the Wells voter list has not been conducted in more than 15 years.

Tuesday’s turnout was in contrast to just a 20.5 percent voter turnout two years ago in the primary election and a 18.1 percent turnout in 2004.

In the Southern Wells Schools precincts, the voter turnout was at 40 percent, with two board contests there attracting voter attention.

The overall turnout was nowhere close, however, to the primary election in Wells County 40 years ago in 1968 when 6,526 voters cast ballots in a turnout of 53.2 percent of registered voters. Four years earlier, in 1964 and another presidential election, there was a 48.5 percent voter turnout here.

Interest in the presidential race on the Democratic ticket, as well as the Long Thompson-Schellinger contest led to the surprising total.

Poll workers at many of the precincts indicated there were several instances of voters crossing over to vote in the Democrat contest.

Hillary Clinton swept to victory over Barak Obama in Wells County, winning all but one precinct and finishing with 57 percent of the vote, totaling 2,613 to Obama’s 1,907.

Clinton swept past Obama in every Wells County precinct except Lancaster West, where Obama won by one vote, 107-106.

As expected, John McCain was the clear choice in the Republican presidential primary, taking 70 percent of the vote in Wells County, followed by Mike Huckabee with 13.47 percent, Ron Paul with 11 percent and Mitt Romney with five percent.

In the Democrat contest for governor, Jill Long Thompson crushed Jim Schellinger, taking 67 percent of the vote and outdistancing him by 2,960 votes to 1,445. Long Thompson, well known in Wells Democratic circles, won every precinct in the county.

Republican chairman Dorothy Stinson praised both the candidates in the treasurer’s contest, noting that the party was in a win/win situation regardless of who won because both were strong, qualified candidates.

Bluffton 5 was the first precinct to check in at the courthouse Tuesday night, arriving at 6:07 p.m. The last precinct was Liberty Township, which arrived just a few minutes before 7 p.m.

Counting of the ballots in the Micro-vote system went off without a hitch and the final tallies were in by 6:51 p.m. In the contest for treasurer, Randall had taken an early lead when Bluffton 5 came in and gave her a 37-25 bulge.

But three of the next four precincts were won by Mechling by narrow margins and when Bluffton Lancaster III went to Randall by 20 votes to Mechling’s nine, there was just a 3-vote difference with 16 precincts yet to come in.

Mechling then started pulling away, winning eight of the next nine precincts, pushing her advantage to 77 votes with six precincts still out.

But when Mechling won Nottingham by 77 votes to Randall’s 42, her advantage went to 128 votes with just five precincts left.

Mechling’s win gives the Republicans a full ticket for the general election in November, while the Democrats have just one candidate on the local ballot at this time, that being Mike Miller who is seeking the post of coroner and will challenge Republican Kent Gilbert.

In Tuesday’s balloting, Miller had a total of 3,451 votes, the most by any candidate on the ballot, while Gilbert had 1,805 votes.

Democrat Party Chairman Chuck King confirmed that party officials are continuing to work towards filling the ticket for the November election.

Under Indiana Code, the parties have until June 30 to fill any vacancies on their slates.

Republican candidates currently unopposed and their vote totals Tuesday are:

Everett E. Goshorn (Superior Court Judge) 1,830

Rina E. Stuck (Recorder) 1,767

Jarrod Hahn (Surveyor) 1,805

Paul Bonham (Commissioner District 2) 1,816

Kevin Woodward (Commissioner District 3) 1,772

Pete Cole (Council at-large) 1,531

Leroy Kramer (Council at-large) 1,559

James E. Van Winkle (Council at-large) 1,655

Vote totals for others unopposed on the Wells ballot included:

Mitch Daniels (Governor) 1,742

Mike Pence (Republican U.S. Rep. District 6) 1,917

Barry A. Welsh (Democrat U.S. Rep. District 79) 3,167

Matthew S. Lehman (Republican, State Rep. District 79) 180

Jeff Espich (Republican State Rep. District 82) 1,672

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