Further Salisbury analysis

Late edit: After the absentee ballots were counted, Bob Caldwell made a late charge but to no avail - he still fell a dozen votes short. It's just outside the 0.5% margin which usually triggers an automatic recount.

The oddity of their system may make the results a bit tricky, but I suspect Bob Caldwell isn't going to make up 38 votes out of the 200 or so absentee ballots left to count tomorrow. Here's why.

Let's say for sake of argument that there's 200 votes left to count. Gary Comegys was named on 560 of 1,394 cards, which translates to 40.17% of the people having him as one of their two votes. Thus, it's reasonable to expect that Gary would pick up about 80 votes out of the 200 remaining.

In order for Bob Caldwell to pass Gary Comegys, he in turn would have to be named on 119 of the final 200 ballots, or just under 60 percent. Jim Ireton won the primary by being on just over 60% of the ballots, so Caldwell would have to pull off the feat of matching the pace of the overall winner in a race where he performed 20 points worse.

By the same token, it's all but impossible for Tim Chaney to make up 17 votes in what are probably around 40 outstanding ballots for District 1. They would almost have to be "bullet votes" for Chaney in order for him to make up the deficit.

"Bullet voting" is a philosophy that would be interesting to explore in this election. In a multi-candidate election, the principle holds that not casting a full ballot gives an advantage to the chosen aspirant because none of their opponents gain votes. With Jim Ireton winning by such a large margin it wouldn't surprise me in the least if many of his supporters didn't vote for another candidate, simply choosing to vote for just Jim.

But others who saw Ireton as a weaker opponent for their favorite (either Bob Caldwell or Gary Comegys) may have padded Jim's total with their second vote to assure he would be the general election opponent. Ireton does have a few questions surrounding his earlier City Council term and Gary Comegys elaborated on one during the NAACP forum.

I don't see this mayoral race being the runaway that the primary suggested it would be. I think it's going to be a margin in the single digits when all is said and done, and I don't think Jim Ireton is the shoo-in favorite some may see him as being based on yesterday's vote. There's five weeks of slugging it out between now and April 7th and who knows what rocks may be hidden in the mud being slung.