Poll Position: Ballots Drawn for May Primaries

The Lehigh County Election Board drew the ballot positions for the May primaries yesterday morning and the results were posted that same day.

Ballot positions are drawn, rather than simply listing the candidates in alphabetical order, because it has been widely established that those candidates at the top of the list generally get more votes.

Listed alphabetically, anyone with a last name starting with “Z” wouldn’t have much of a chance. Of course, if there are only a couple candidates, the “ballot effect” is weakened.

In the race for local Magistrate, which covers Emmaus, Macungie and Upper Macungie, there is no effect at all because there is only one candidate, Donna R. Butler. She’s also the current Magistrate. 

For the East Penn School Board, on the other hand, there are 12 candidates for five seats. Ten of the candidates cross-filed. And that works out to 11 names on each side of the ballot.

Candidates for positions that are typically meant to be non-political, such as a school board or magistrate, can cross-file as both a republican and a democrat.

That also means, theoretically, that the election could be decided in the primary. If the same five candidates are chosen on both sides, well, then that’s that.

All the candidates in the race for Emmaus Council, on the other hand, will go on to the November election no matter the May turn out.

There are five candidates, three republicans and two democrats, for four seats. That means all the candidates in May, as long as they get at least one vote, will continue to the November election, when there will be only one loser.

There are three council incumbents running: Nathan Brown, Lee Ann Gilbert and Brian Holtzhafer. R. Erick Reinhard is not running for re-election.

The most competitive race seems to be the Upper Milford Supervisor race, which has four candidates for one open seat.

That means two will be eliminated at the primaries with a mano a mano fight in November. Steven Ackerman is running for re-election.

Patch plans to bring you profiles of each candidate so you can get to know them better. The ballot order for the local elections is attached.