More info on declinations, nominations, and nominees (by Pr. Charles Henrickson)

In our article, Nominations announced: Harrison tops ballot by wide margin, we reported and gave some analysis on the official notice of nominations for president and vice-presidents. Now, via a story in the Reporter Online, comes further information on the declinations, nominations, and nominees.

Declinations: “Seventeen men received enough votes to be listed on the ballots for president, first vice-president, or second through fifth vice-presidents, but decided not to let their names stand.” That accounts for, just as we guessed, the huge gap between the third nominee’s 503 and the fourth and fifth nominees’ 5 and 3. Many men declined to be on the ballot of five for president, thus “clearing the field,” so that pretty much all votes will probably go to either Harrison or Kieschnick.

Nominations: “Nominations were received from 2,041 congregations, or 33.9 percent of the Synod’s 6,021 member congregations.” We said that adding up Harrison’s 1,332 and Kieschnick’s 755, a total of 2,087, would be a fairly good indication of how many congregations sent in nominations, since most ballots would list either one or the other. That turned out to be the case. (By the way, it appears a few congregations, for their two nominating slots, sent in a ballot listing both Harrison and Kieschnick!) Also, the total of 2,041 nominating ballots recorded is about the same as in 2007, when it was 2,075 ballots. The difference is, this time Kieschnick has 300 fewer nominations (1,055 -755) than he did last time, while the main alternative nominee has 725 more nominations (607 – 1,332) than last time!

Nominees: The Reporter story has photos of the nominees for SP and 1VP, as well as the ages and some biographical information about all the nominees.

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