Proposal 1 lost: Examiner.com article

As I predicted twice, Proposal 1 lost.  Here's the article I wrote for Examiner.com dissecting the loss.

Proposal 1 loses badly statewide while winning Ann Arbor

The polls predicted that Proposal 1 would lose badly.  It did even worse than expected, although it was not Ann Arbor's fault.

As of 12:22 A.M., the Detroit Free Press reported that 1,332,676 votes against the measure had been counted to 330,764 votes in favor in the statewide tally so far, a loss of eighty percent to twenty percent.  That was an even larger defeat than predicted by the most recent poll, which found twenty-nine percent of those surveyed saying they would vote yes to sixty-one percent saying they would vote no.

While Proposal 1 went down to defeat statewide, it won in both the City of Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor Township by slim margins.  The measure earned 8,347 yes votes (51.2%) to 7957 no votes (48.8%) in Ann Arbor proper and 507 yes votes (51.6%) to 475 no votes (48.4%) in Ann Arbor Township.  Those results were not enough to outweigh every other part of Washtenaw county voting against the measure, for a county-wide total of 39,031 (64.6%) no votes to 21,375 (35.4%) yes votes.

More at the link, including the following WXYZ video.

Voters overwhelmingly reject proposal 1

Michigan voters overwhelmingly rejected proposal 1, putting the future of the state's roads in question.

Here's what I had to say on Monday over at Kunstler's blog.

Michigan's Proposal 1 is polling terribly.  The roads are terrible, but the people are not willing to go along with the legislative compromises required to fix them.  Therefore, the potholes I'll be driving over and around on my way to work today will still be there next year.  Meanwhile, marijuana legalization is likely to pass next year.  In a choice between potholes and potheads, Michigan will choose potheads.  I'd rather they do both.

They didn't.  Sigh.