Absolutely valid point.

I guess I would just hope that later in the day there would be a higher probability of at least one or two somewhat responsible adults being around that would do something to stop a street-consuming gang melee, or that the increased amount of time passing between events would give students more time to either a)reflect and decide not to go on a rampage or b) be victims of their fleeting attention spans and forget about it or c) talk about it to the wrong person who would then rat them out to a teacher/administrator/remotely responsible adult who could do something to try and stop it.

But, that is some admittedly wishful thinking on my part.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzRYTYZ-EhE

This is a video of Derrion Albert getting beaten to death last Thursday in Chicago on his way home from school. Many of us are fortunate to be removed from the daily threats facing the good kids just trying to make it in our nation’s inner cities, but the call to keep those students in school longer is a very real attempt to save their lives. Here is the money quote from the AP report on the incident:

“The violence stemmed from a shooting early Thursday morning involving two groups of students, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County prosecutor’s office. When school ended, members of the two groups began fighting.”

Notice those very important words “when school ended”.

According to John Borrow, the discrepancy was due entirely to the use of defective “in-house” paper ballots – affecting only those votes cast early at the courthouse.

If my calculations are correct, then the early voting results should have been the following:

FOR the millage: 762 (1175-413)
AGAINST the millage: 1058 (630+428)

So, as it turns out, 58% of early voters were against the millage.