San Francisco ranks 53 of 59 counties in voter turnout

[meegbear]

San Francisco, considered by many to be the "gay capital" of the United States (perhaps the world), ranked close to the bottom of California counties in terms of turnout for Tuesday's general election, PageOneQ has learned. The balloting included Proposition 8, an effort to repeal marriage equality in the state. The proposition passed, making California the first state to affirm, then revoke, equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.

With all of the state's fifty-nine counties reporting 100% of their results, Siskiyou County had 87.5% voter turnout. Siskiyou is located less than twenty miles from the Oregon border. Sierra County, about an hour's drive from Reno, NV, reported an 86.6% turnout, and Amador County reported 82.6%. Amador is a suburb of San Diego.

Just six places from the bottom of the list, 53rd of 59 counties, ranks San Francisco. The city's participation rate is sandwiched between those of Tulare and Imperial Counties, located in the center of the state and approximately 20 miles north of the Mexican border, respectively.

San Francisco, with its scenic views and well-known progressive politics, has been listed by American Community Survey as having the highest percentage of gays and lesbians of the country's 50 biggest cities. San Francisco, said the report, has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any county in the country.

http://pageoneq.com/news/2008/sfvote040708.html

:banghead:

[villager]

1. Amador County's a suburb of San Diego? Well, sure, if "suburbs" can be 300 miles away...

n/t

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. When did California add a county?

:shrug:

[cboy4]

3. Yea, that's really troubling...and, as someone else

pointed out, we have 58 counties.

Which makes it worse.

[AntiFascist]

4. So much for No on 8's GOTV efforts, this is depressing n/t

[JackBeck]

5. Why assume that LGBT voters would turn out and vote against Prop 8?

I'm quite literally convinced the only thing that would motivate most of the gay community to come out and vote is if Prop 8 were about making it illegal for gays and lesbians to shop at Pottery Barn and/or Home Depot.

The LGBT civil rights movement has become sedated, segregated, unmotivated and listless. Seeing the protests over the past few days was inspiring, but we've become reactionary instead of pro-active.

We raised a lot of money far too late in the game for there to be any impact on motivating people to vote no on 8. There is absolutely no infrastructure to our civil rights movement. HRC may have some political capital in Washington, but where was the funding from them to put feet on the group in the 3 states we lost marriage equality, and the one state we lost adoption rights?

In order to build a movement you need to reach out and talk to those that may disagree with you.
The amount of screaming between those for AND against Prop 8 during rallies was embarrassing. Where was the dialog? Where were the community leaders mediating? And then there was the vandalism, again perpetrated by both sides. This was a PR nightmare.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

8. You May Well Be Right About LGBTs....

only being concerned if an initiative to curtail their right to shop at certain retailers was on the ballot.

I think this may be that younger LGBT Americans have not experienced the "bad old days" of bar raids, arrests for crossdressing (you had to be wearing at least 3 items of clothing appropriate to your perceived gender... I came out on the tail end of that older era and believe me if something like this were on the ballot in Indiana, I would make damned good and sure that I let my opinion be known. Homophobes would love nothing better than to take us back to those "bad old days". 53 out 58 is a disgrace. C'mon people...we all need to be together on this! Screw whatever you have scheduled on Election Day...the FIRST priority should be to vote!!!!!

[HamdenRice]

10. The LGBT movement suffers from EXACTLY what the African American movement went through in the 70s

That is, with the over-reliance on litigation, a movement tends to lose its activist grass roots edge.

The civil rights movement started out as a both a popular and litigation movement gaining momentum in the 1950s with Brown and the 1960s with sit ins and demonstrations.

Because of the victory in the Supreme Court and federal courts over desegregation, way too much effort was put into litigating increasingly esoteric civil rights and busing cases, while the African American community largely disengaged and left the remaining desegregation efforts to "the experts."

Then Nixon began making appointments to SCOTUS and all that effort went down the drain, with no popular movement to fall back on.

The LGBT movement has gone through almost exactly the same process, focusing on winning court cases, and lo and behold, court cases can be overturned by whipping up a popular frenzy of opposition.

[Jamastiene]

21. You have a very good point. Apathy mixed with complacency

could have played a huge role for the turnout to be THAT low.

[Duncan Grant]

6. I wish I could explain it.

All I can tell you is I voted, gave substantial amounts of money to Prop 8 and joined GOTV efforts. My friends and co-workers voted. I believe gays voted in large numbers.

I'd like to sit down and review the precinct info -- with that I might be able to offer a tiny bit of insight.

More to come...

[dickthegrouch]

14. Where is the precinct info?

I haven't been able to find any sites that are giving anything more than county info.

[Duncan Grant]

18. So far, I've only been able to read "neighborhood" stats, not precincts.

Thankfully, my neighborhood is in the 70% and above range.

25% of all San Franciscans voted "Yes on 8".

http://www.sfgov.org/site/elections_index.asp?id=90323

[ronnykmarshall]

7. What the fuck is that about?

[closeupready]

9. I'm reminded of that Joan Jett song, "You don't what you've got 'til it's gone."

Even worse than the fact that they have temporarily lost some of the civil rights which they had only recently come to know, how close would it have been had more San Franciscans gotten off their butts and gone to vote? Stuff like this just makes me angry, like why the freak should I care about legislation that only marginally impacts me if those who will be most impacted don't care enough to go vote on it?

[ourbluenation]

11. WAIT JUST A GOSH DARN MINUTE! That sight has been updated - absentee

ballots weren't included in those totals and MOST of the SF voters were absentee.


UPDATE: Many ballots outstanding in San Francisco

by PageOneQ

UPDATE: Due to the extremely high number of voters in SF who cast early ballots, it appears that the information from the California Secretary of State is inaccurate. Check back.

http://pageoneq.com/news/2008/UPDATE_Many_ballots_outstanding_in_Cal_1107.html

[bluedawg12]

15. ourbluenation - well, gosh dern it ye'r right about that

the good people that wrote that little article forgot to mention that our hard working elections officials haven't counted the votes from those silly gays yet. Heavens to Betsy, what will they think of next. :sarcasm:

[bluedawg12]

16. Gosh, if us homo's came out like we did for Obama at over 80%

then maybe we did after all git out and cast the old ballot in SF, too.

Cuz, dern it, we did vote in big numbers for President, must just forgotten to vote for our own interests. Right? :sarcasm:

http://www.windycitytimes.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=19735

[readmoreoften]

12. Propaganda.

[Moloch]

13. A certain portion of the gay community (MTF transgendereds)

Live as women and haven't gotten operations to change their genders. I imagine it would be difficult for these people to present their licenses in order to vote... so they probably stayed home.

[Book Lover]

17. That's the funny thing about imagination, especially when you live

thousands of miles away from the county under discussion here. The mental pictures one forms get distorted in the most interesting ways. Please know that in the state of California you do not need to present any form of identification in order to vote.

[Duncan Grant]

19. .

:banghead:

[Book Lover]

20. it is kind of amazing, isn't it? (nm)

[racaulk]

22. Please just overlook him.

As always, he's just doing what apologists do best. He's trying to find reasons to excuse the shortcomings of those who do not come out in full support of equality, even if those reasons are not rooted in reality. And when his reasons are proven as bunk, he can't admit that he was wrong.

Although I must give him some credit. At least he didn't confuse transgender and transvestite...this time.

[Zuiderelle]

23. OMG, Where the fuck do you get off with your statements?

Why do you have such an obsession with transgendered people?