Harrison re-elected with 66% of the vote (by Pr. Charles Henrickson)

It was announced this morning that LCMS President Matthew Harrison was re-elected, with 66% of the vote. Here are the results:

Candidate / Votes / Percentage

Matthew C. Harrison / 4,262 / 66.26%
David P. E. Maier / 1,906 / 29.63%
Herbert C. Mueller, Jr. / 264 / 4.10%

So, rounding off:

Harrison 66%
Maier 30%
Mueller: 4%

This is pretty much what I expected. Before the election I was predicting:

Harrison 65%
Maier 34%
Mueller 1%

So 66% for Harrison–and another 4% for Mueller–70% is a very strong showing for this team. That the candidate backed by Daystar (Matt Becker, David Domsch, Marie Meyer, DP David Benke, et al.) and by a few of the DPs who used their office to electioneer (Paul Linnemann, Robert Newton, Chris Wicher)–that their candidate, Maier, received just under 30% of the vote, this is a very poor showing.

The Harrison team now comes into the convention with a strong mandate. Let’s hope the elections and resolutions there go well also. In tht regard, I plan to post a series of columns this coming week with my analysis of the proposed resolutions coming from the seven floor committees.

One last note on the SP election. This was the first time using the new system for voting. Here was the level of participation:

Total Ballots = 6,432
Total Electorate = 8,201
Percentage Voted = 78.43%

It should be noted, though, that the “Total Electorate” could have been significantly higher. If all 6,000 congregations had sent two delegates to their 2012 district conventions, that would have made for closer to 12,000 potential electors.

Personally, I prefer our previous system of voting, i.e., the elected circuit delegates voting at the national convention itself. That’s where we vote for everything else. Why set up–and pay for–a whole separate system of voting? The reason this system was pushed by the Blue Ribbon folks in 2010 was so that the president-elect could basically pick the slate for 1VP. That’s the only reason the SP would need to be elected before the convention. Maybe the 2016 convention can vote to go back to the previous system.

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