Part of the Isle of Palms mayoral election was rhetoric that there is a divided island—an "Us vs. Them" attitude toward our neighbors in Wild Dunes. What follows refutes that rhetoric.

Candidate	Precinct        1A	Precinct        1B	Precinct      1C	Absentee	Provisional	Total
BUCKHANNON	184	267	105	8	1	565
CRONIN	86	152	374	50	0	662
TOTALS	270	419	479	58	1	1,227

Total registered voters = 3273

1A registered voters = 886

1B registered voters = 1204

1C registered voters = 1183 of which roughly 872 are within the gates of Wild Dunes

 

1A and 1B votes for Cronin = 86+152 = 238

 

Absentee votes not included in the calculation.

 

Musings 

At first blush it looks like the voters in Wild Dunes carried the election for Cronin.  But let’s look at the numbers more carefully. An analysis of the votes obtained from the official record shows the 1C vote breakdown of 377 votes cast were from within Wild Dunes and 102 cast were from outside the gate of Wild Dunes.  Cronin received 374 total votes in 1C. It is apparent  that Cronin did not receive 100%of the votes inside the gate since his overall total for 1C is lower than the number of votes cast inside the gate and probably of these, he did not receive 100% of those votes.  However, if we use a faulty assumption that he received 100% of the votes inside the gate, with his total of 612 votes (absentees removed for consistency) that leaves 238 votes from outside the gate—a fairly comparable number of votes between the “sides” of the island or roughly 38%.

 

A more realistic scenario, given our polling, is that probably 40 votes (of Cronin’s 374 1C total) came from outside the gate in 1C. That would mean best case that Cronin received 334 votes inside the gate and 278 outside the gate or roughly 45%

 

When you look at voter turnout percentages that show the Wild Dunes turnout out of 32% of the 1C 41% turnout, you see that it is slightly more than 1A’s 31% turnout and less than 1B’s 35%.