Election is not over till it's over

Like the candidates, I breathe a sigh of relief when the election is over.

But it's not over till it's over.

Only 20 votes separated Greg Prestegard and Mike Backman. Another 300 or so votes will be counted today (Thursday) at 12 noon, and they may still not settle the race for the District 1 position on the county board of commissioners.

Some of the statewide elections are close. The races for governor, secretary of state, and state auditor were very close when counting ended Tuesday evening. Initiative 1240, concerning charter schools, was passing with only 50.83 percent of the vote, and Referendum 74, affirming the marriage equality legislation, was passing narrowly with 52.39 percent of the vote.

I expected the races, especially the local races to be very close, closer than they were Tuesday. Other voters didn't have the problems I had in picking among candidates I've known for a long time.

I also expected the race for president to be closer than it appears. The national vote may be close, but with our nation's crazy Electoral College system, President Obama won the right states to gain re-election rather handily.

The Democrat party retained control of the US Senate, and the Republican party retained control of the House of Representatives.

I hope that doesn't mean a return to the partisan deadlock that has plagued us the past few years. Both President Obama and Gov. Romney called on citizens and representatives to work together to solve the country's problems.

We'll see. Good luck to all.

There were a couple letters to the editor we didn't publish this week and last. One cited a previous letter supporting marriage equality but became a discussion of religious dogma more suited for in church than in the letters to the editor.

Another came just before last week's edition and endorsed a local candidate while leveling criticism of the candidate's opponent. Because there would have been no time for the second candidate to respond before the election, we didn't run the letter.

Both decisions were based on grounds found in the guidelines for letters to the editor, which we publish most every week.