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Published November 09, 2012, 12:00 AM

Nail-biters and shake-ups

Your one vote can make a difference. That’s one of the lessons that can be learned from Tuesday’s election. In the Minnesota House District 8B race, Incumbent Republican Mary Franson of Alexandria defeated DFLer Bob Cunniff of Alexandria, 10,652 to 10,651.

By: Al Edenloff, Alexandria Echo Press

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    Voting was steady at polling places like this one on Broadway all day Tuesday. (Photo by Lowell Anderson)

Your one vote can make a difference.

That’s one of the lessons that can be learned from Tuesday’s election.

In the Minnesota House District 8B race, Incumbent Republican Mary Franson of Alexandria defeated DFLer Bob Cunniff of Alexandria, 10,652 to 10,651.

Cunniff carried Douglas County’s 17 precincts but Franson picked up enough support in the other 37 districts to win re-election, barring any changes that could occur in a recount (see related story).

Other state Legislature winners included Republican Bill Ingebrigtsen in Senate District 8, Republican Torrey Westrom in Senate District 12, DFLer Jay McNamar in House District 12A (overcoming Scott Dutcher’s strong showing in Douglas County), and Republican Paul Anderson in House District 12B.

There was also plenty of excitement for Douglas County Board and Alexandria City Council and school board races. Tuesday’s election resulted in the following shake-ups:

--Two newcomers were elected to the Douglas County Board. Jim Stratton defeated incumbent Norm Salto in District 2, and Charlie Meyer prevailed over incumbent Paul C. Anderson in District 4. Meanwhile, incumbent Dan Olson hung on to his District 5 seat by just 18 votes over Carol Wenner. Jerry Johnson and Bev Bales were both re-elected in Districts 1 and 3.

--Todd Jensen won the Ward 5 Alexandria City Council race over incumbent Elroy Frank. Owen Miller, the incumbent in Ward 3, was re-elected. Sara Carlson, who has been serving as Ward 2 council member, made a successful run for mayor, defeating Mark Pederson. This means the council will have to appoint someone to take over Carlson’s Ward 2 seat.

--In an extremely close Alexandria School Board election, Angie Krebs edged Laura Knudsen by 55 votes, 6,725 to 6,670.

STATEWIDE AND NATIONAL RESULTS

Douglas County voters gave strong support to both proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. One would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman, and the other would have required photo ID at the polling place. Statewide, however, both amendments fell short of obtaining a majority of the votes.

Douglas County followed statewide trends in strongly supporting Amy Klobuchar’s re-election to U.S. Senate and incumbent Collin Peterson in U.S. House District 7.

Local voters, however, bucked the state’s trend at the presidential level by clearly favoring Republican Mitt Romney, giving him 11,905 votes to Barack Obama’s 8,665. Statewide, Obama took Minnesota with 53 percent of the vote and was re-elected nationwide.

VOTER TURNOUT

Douglas County voters can take pride in having an excellent turnout at the polls. The Douglas County Auditor’s Office said the turnout was about 91 percent, well ahead of the statewide turnout of 76 percent.

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