by Ed Naile
Out in Keene the local newspaper reports:
Keene School District Voters Prove To be Most Agreeable…
Really, agreeable – some headline.
Out in Keene the numbers say it all. Check it out yourself at the state web site:
Profile of Keene, NH
Keene has some really smart people, being a college town. Smart people are educated and know the issues. They are often described as “informed voters” because they vote to “invest” in their municipality.
Keene had an 8.3% voter turnout to invest another $60.4 million dollars in their school system.
With 16,724 registered voters in 2010 that means 1,388 voters made that very informed investment of other people’s money, as well as their own – sort of.
“Sort of” is a very popular expression among the college crowd. Listen to any college kid and see how long it takes to work “sort of” into just about every sentence. I think it is a mandatory expression for graduation.
Back to numbers:
Keene has, according to the state web site, 16,618 “residents” above the age of 19. Let’s call them potentially eligible voters.
That sure looks like an almost 100% registration rate even factoring in how many are in the 18-19 voting-age bracket.
Another interesting thing about Keene is how many people work for the city school system; 690, and the college; 820.
Looks like just the “friends and family program” of Keene School District employees is enough to pass a $60 million dollar budget or anything else they feel like.
Now that is an informed bunch of voters – sort of.