Count it up
One of the things I hear is how few people voted to put the four new Wake County school board members into office. The complaint is that the diversity policy is being changed because of a small number of voters.
The four new board members received 18,266 votes (not including the 3,418 votes in the Tedesco runoff). Ron Margiotta had 3,951 from the prior election. That is a total of 22,217 votes for the new school board majority.
The four seats in the minority received 14,329 votes. But all those votes weren’t for current members. Keith Sutton and Carolyn Morrison were appointed. Technically, they received 0 votes. Kevin Hill did receive 46 percent of the votes in his race. That’s enough to avoid a runoff, but not a majority.
That means only Anne McLaurin holds a seat by doing what all five of the majority have done. She stood for election and had over 50 percent of the voters in her district put her into office.
Even the losers in 2009 received more votes than the winners in 2005.
Even with a small percentage of votes, any way you look at it, a larger majority has spoken in favor of the current school board majority.
Amanda Mixon
Morrisville
