Election Day is upon us

USEFUL ELECTION LINKS
• Lee County Election Results (will begin posting around 8 p.m.)
• Election Results by other counties
• North Carolina’s Obama/Clinton results and other statewide races

Election Day Blog:

12:15 p.m.: Front page is done. Reporters are gone. Another election come and gone. Only got one more this year.
Here’s Wednesday’s front page. Good night everybody.

10 p.m.: Well, now’s the time we really get to work on the newspaper … but here are a few of my thoughts …
• I’m really surprised the sales tax failed, only because I thought it was a good campaign to get it passed. Turns out, people don’t like taxes, and it was an uphill battle all the way. Interested to see what the school board and county commissioners’ next move is.
• Cameron Sharpe was the only “challenger” to get on the school board, but Kim Lilley lost out to Bill Tatum by just a few votes. I’m not sure if the voters were trying to say something about Bill … but that was probably too close for his comfort. I’m wondering how the write-in campaigns affected this race.
• Chairman Bob Brown will not make it to the November election, which may also be a wake-up call to current Democrats on the Lee County Board of Commissioners.
My next post will come in the next hour. I’ve gotta get to work on the paper.

9:58 p.m.: COMPLETE RESULTS IN FOR LEE COUNTY. Here they are below:
LEE COUNTY
(9 of 9 precincts reporting)

‘For’ or ‘against’ a .25-cent increase in the Lee County Sales Tax
For —— 44.7% (5.728 votes)
*Against —— 55.32% (7,092 votes)

Candidates for Lee County Board of Commissioners at large nomination (vote for three):
*Jerry Lemmond —— 22.29%
*Richard Hayes —— 22.15%
*“Ed” Paschal —— 20.23%
Bob Brown —— 19.06%
Wade Childress —— 16.27%

Lee County Board of Education (vote for four):
*Lynn Smith —— 19.55%
*Shawn Williams —— 17.15%
*Cameron Sharpe —— 16.13%
*W.P. “Bill” Tatum —— 14.76% (5,715 votes)
Kimberly Lilley —— 14.42% (5,583 votes)
Mark Akinosho —— 12.06%
Write-ins —— 5.93%

9:31 p.m.: Five of nine precincts reporting … go to the Herald’s blog site to see the results.
My thoughts so far:
• It still looks bad for the sales tax, but not insurmountable.
• It looks better for Bill Tatum, who’s currently in fourth for the school board (4 get in). Kim Lilley and Mark Akinosho (as well as the write-in candidates) trail.
• Lee County Chairman Bob Brown doesn’t look like he’ll move on to the election this year. That’s gotta be disappointing for him. I would have blamed his teetering on the school tax issue, but seeing the tax fail right now, I’m just not sure anymore.
• Side note, Hillary Clinton’s winning Lee County by a good margin. Looks like Bill’s visit worked … at least here.

9:25 p.m.: Just learned that nothing will be posted to the state election Web site until all nine precincts report. To me, this is crap. But oh well.
Thankfull, we have R.V. Hight on the scene … and this is what he’s given me so far:
On the sales tax, with 2 precincts and the early voting,
For: 2,721
Against: 3,250
Not looking good for the tax, but it’s likely the portion of Sanford where students go to Lee County High School hasn’t reported yet (I know one of the reporting precincts sends students to Southern Lee). So we shall see.

9:14 p.m.: Barack Obama’s making his victory speech in North Carolina. He just congratulated Clinton for a win in Indiana … but today can’t be good for Clinton. She did a ton of campaigning here, and it looks like Obama completely stomped her here.
Sorry Bill.

9:08 p.m.: No results are posted, but this is what I’m getting from RV Hight.
From early voting and the Southern Lee County district:
• Looks like the sales tax referendum is ‘getting beaten pretty good.’
• Bill Tatum is finishing well behind in early voting and in the one precinct that has reported. The leaders so far are Shawn Williams, Lynn Smith, Cameron Sharpe and Kim Lilley. Again, this is just early voting and one district.
• He said these are just ‘early looks,’ but on the commissioner race, Chairman Bob Brown was in fourth place in early voting (top 3 get in), and he was fifth in the Southern Lee County precinct.

9 p.m.: It’s 9 p.m. and no results yet … though now I’m hearing after early voting, the sales tax is trailing, Cameron Sharpe is leading on school board and Richard Hayes is leading for the commissioner. Just what I’m hearing. Nothing official.

8:10 p.m.: The calm before the storm. Food has been ordered though. So that’s exciting.
No results in from Lee County yet … but a little birdy has told me the sales tax is expected to pass.

7:31 p.m.: One minute after the polls closed, Barack Obama declared winner in North Carolina. Luckily, I saw this coming … though it does look like Hillary will win Indiana.

6:10 p.m.: Just saw FoxNews talking about Clinton’s “small town visits” in North Carolina. The reporter said: “Stopping in towns with few, if any, stoplights.”
I know Sanford falls under the “small town” category, but last I checked, we have too many stoplights.
Don’t you love it when the ‘city folk’ come a callin’ in our backyards, ma?

6:03 p.m.: In one hour, one of the most important parts of election night will be upon us … the delivery call.
Last year’s Chinese food experiment was so popular, we’re throwing that in with the free pizza coupons we got.
So tonight, it’s Pizza and Chinese. Is it any wonder journalists rarely make it out of the 50s?

5:40 p.m.: Well, it’s been about two hours since my last post, and it’s been a lightning fast two hours filled with “mapping” today’s paper. Yes, at 5:30, the entire Election section of today’s paper is practically laid out. It’s all about filling in the blanks now. That’s called PLANNING, fellas.
On a side note, my dad and my stepmom visited me last night and today, and we had a great time together, although it was short (he’s on his way to visit my grandparents in Ohio). He got a new car — a Saturn Sky — and I got to test drive it yesterday with the top down.
I want a convertible now.

3:40 p.m.: Election Day has always been a hectic day for us … but it’s also kind of like a “finish line” for newsroom employees. You see, we do a lot of work making sure coverage is fair (even though nobody thinks it is) and all of our bases are covered … and by the time today comes, we’re exhausted.
Some of you, however, may be wondering why I haven’t blogged much about the election — save a few obama/clinton posts and a lot about Bill Clinton’s visit. The reason is this: I love politics, but I can’t stand arguing with some of the knuckleheads on both sides.
As a newspaper editor, I get a lot of flack from people who criticize us for not reporting on alleged election sign malfeasance (happens EVERY year). Every time a sign appears in a yard it wasn’t supposed to be in, we’re expected to do a front page story. Well, guess what, it’s not news. If the sign actually got up on its own and went to that yard, then MAYBE it’s a story.
And this year, I’ve been inundated with e-mails from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s camps. I get about 40 e-mails a day combined from the two, and that doesn’t count what I’m getting from the senate and governor candidates. I don’t read most of them unless the subject line grabs me. They rarely grab me.
What is funny to me, however, is the way our newspaper (and newspapers in general) is perceived by the aforementioned knuckleheads. Last November, we were the cigar-smoking staunch conservative newspaper that only supported tax-hating white male Republicans. This year, we’re the tree-hugging, tax-loving, Bill Clinton-adoring Democrats, according to the people who were “on our side” in November.
It’s all about perception, I suppose, but it all goes to show that this newspaper (I’m not speaking for all of them) makes its decisions based on reporting the news, researching the news and lots and lots and lots of discussion. We’re not the robots many would wish we were. We’re also not the evil machine many think we are.
Luckily, I’m thick-skinned and there’s little that can be said that will raise the hair on my back.
But now you know why I don’t talk politics much on here. I don’t like arguing with people who aren’t willing to listen.

3 p.m.: Well, I’ve voted today (at Deep River Elementary, which was my first visit to the school … very nice). I won’t tell you who I voted for (or which primary I voted in), but I will say it’s always refreshing to vote for races that I know a lot about. I can’t always say that’s been the case in the past. There were a few races I didn’t know much about, but even those, I heard of the candidates or saw their TV ads.