Politics & Government
Analysis: Leslie Hairston Has Won the 5th's Alderman Race
There Are Not Enough Mailed-In Ballots Remaining to Switch Hairston's 170-Vote Lead to a Deficit With Calloway
Official certification by the Chicago Board of Elections, and the subsequent swearing-in of the City Council's new aldermen, is yet to happen for all candidates from this past Tuesday April 2nd's Runoff Elections. However, with a 170-vote lead and my estimate of no more than about 200 remaining paper ballots yet to appear and to be counted, incumbent Alderman Leslie Hairston has won this 5th Ward Alderman election ... for her 6th time. Completing an upcoming term of four years will mean that Alderman Hairston will have served 24 years as 5th Ward Alderman, from her inauguration in 1999 through the February 2023 election, four years from now. Only time will tell if Hairston seeks a seventh term in February 2023.
Unless there is revealed a giant hidden glitch or error (or cheating) within the voting and vote-counting, the probability of Calloway winning enough of the remaining 200 to-be-counted votes ... is a 0.000 with a bunch more 0's and finally a one. I.E., it is zero. It is almost exactly equal to getting heads on a flip of a fair coin 185 out of 200 times. You do not want to spend the rest of your life seeing how many sets of 200 flips it will take you to get 185 heads!
If Calloway does make up his deficit of 170 votes by some miracle, you are welcome to print this article out and hold it next to a print-out of the Chicago Tribune's headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman"!
Alderman Leslie Hairston has won re-election as Alderman of the 5th Ward.