Daily Detroit

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Detroit voters planning on brushing up on ballot issues the night before the May 5 election won’t get very far. Detroit Free Press editorial writer Stephen Henderson found out the hard way that a sample ballot doesn’t exist anywhere on the Web. Henderson blogged about his experience trying to find one while writing an editorial about the charter revision commission.

Detroit Free Press, April 29: I went to the Department of Elections Web site figuring that less than a week before the election, the ballot would certainly be available.

No luck. Although under the link for “Voter Information,” I did find a place to download a “Special Primary Election Newsletter.” Of course, that had information about the Feb. 24 primary election and a copy of the ballot from that election, but nothing about the May 5 contest.

I also went to the City Clerk Janice Winfrey’s Web site, thinking perhaps she had the ballot online. No luck here, either. Though there is a complete .pdf of the City Charter at her site, the only copy available online, at least to my knowledge.

A little puzzled, I called both Winfrey’s office and the Department of Elections, and was told that ballots never get put online.

Bottom line: if you want to make an informed decision, you’ll have to go the extra mile. And people wonder why it’s so hard to rally people to the voting booth.

As expected, talk quickly turned to the failed Cobo deal in last night’s third and final Detroit mayoral debate. Candidate Dave Bing called it an example of failed leadership, and today in front of The Detroit News’ editorial board, Mayor Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. reflected on what he could have done differently.

He said he wishes he had pushed it harder, but mostly, he just blamed council members.

The Detroit News, April 24: “I take responsibility for some of it; there’s no doubt,” Cockrel told The Detroit News editorial board Friday. “We engaged council pretty heavily. In retrospect, I probably should have been more involved personally in that…

“I also recognize that at the end of the day it takes two to tango, and I think at a certain point, frankly, I think certain council members just got scared,” Cockrel said. “They were scared of the perception about how that may be seen by the voters in terms of what was being done.”

Without naming them, he said other council members just “didn’t want to work with us. They just didn’t want to get it done for whatever reason.”

The News’ editorial board talked to both candidates today and videos of the interviews are on detnews.com. Here are links to the first parts:

Mayor Cockrel’s interview with The Detroit News Editorial Board, Part 1

Dave Bing’s interview with The Detroit News editorial board, Part 1