Breaking election night tradition

Font Size:

By Ed Tibbetts | Tuesday, November 7, 2006 11:45 PM CST | () comments

(Quad-City Times file photo) This photo taken in the early 1960s shows how the public crowded into the 2nd Street newsroom of the daily papers that were Quad-City Times predecessors.

There always was something special about it, watching the election returns come in at the Scott County Courthouse.

Shortly before the polls closed, campaign volunteers, reporters and the occasional candidate would wander in to check results.

People would fritter away the time, anxiously chatting and swapping stories while awaiting the first trickle of numbers to be posted on an overhead screen.

When they came in, volunteers would scribble down the numbers and phone jittery candidates and party leaders, updating them as the night wore on.

It was a tradition. But now it’s over.

No longer is Scott County providing a central meeting place for people to gather and watch the returns, well, return.

The county auditor’s office sent a notice last week telling interested parties it will not provide a running tally of returns but will instead post results on its Web site (www.scottcountyiowa.com/auditor) after they are all in.

“I hate not being able to do it. It’s a tradition,” Auditor Karen Fitzsimmons said. However, she added, changes in technology do not allow the posting of a running tally. So, there will be no central place to watch the election results.

Some counties still post returns as they are reported from the precincts, but Fitzsimmons said her information technology department is not large enough to design a system for that.

The loss of that capability is lamentable, said Jerry Mohr, an Eldridge, Iowa, farmer and North Scott School Board member who was a regular auditor’s office visitor on the night of school board elections.

“It’s nice to be down there when you win,” he said, adding, “I also understand how change happens.”

Change, indeed.

It used to be that election returns were posted at the Daily Times, Morning Democrat and Times- Democrat newspaper offices on East 2nd Street. Those newspapers were Quad-City Times predecessors.

Politicians and the public would gather to watch the returns.

“It was the civics education my parents thought we needed,” Mohr, a 54-year-old farmer, recalled.

Eventually, the newspaper stopped doing the tally in the mid-1970s, giving way to the county.

Fitzsimmons noted that this will not be the first time the county has not provided an election meeting place. It was not done for the June primary nor the September school board elections or a late July referendum on four-year Davenport City Council terms.

This will be the first general election without the gathering spot, however.

As more counties post results to the Internet, it could be a trend, too.

“We still have what I call a hospitality room,” said Marjorie Pitts, the auditor for Clay County in northwest Iowa. But because the county posts a running tally on its Web site, “we don’t have many visitors anymore,” she added.

A lot of people would just as soon monitor the results “in their slippers,” she said.

In Manchester, Iowa, Delaware County Auditor Sharon McCrabb said officials will put numbers on a blackboard in the hallway outside her office, where people have gathered “forever” to watch returns.

“We have coffee and cookies out there. People visit,” she said. “You can hear people cheering” when results come in.

In Fayette County in northeast Iowa, Auditor Larry Popenhagen hangs sheets of paper on a board outside his office.

“I can’t say we ever have a big crowd,” he said, but “it’s exciting.”

Eventually, McCrabb said, the county will post its results to the Internet. “But it just isn’t there yet,” she added.

Even when it is, that doesn’t mean the county will stop providing a central meeting place. Some counties provide both.

For his part, Mohr said he understands the reason for the change in Scott County. But he also misses the camaraderie of the Election Night coffee klatsch.

On the night of the last school board elections, Mohr added, he checked the returns by flipping on his computer at home and logging onto the Internet. “It just wasn’t the same,” he said.

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.