Our mayoral race is finally over and it's official: no hanging chads but absentee ballots were required. The new Auburn mayor is former fire chief Michael Quill.

The race was close, with Democrat Quill edging out incumbent Republican Mayor Tim Lattimore by only 92 votes. We've all heard that David Dempsey, who ran on the Independence ticket, took votes away from Quill.

This thinking is because Dempsey was on city council as a Democrat, so he took votes away from the Democratic candidate. The Democratic party pleaded with Dempsey not to continue his candidacy after he lost the primary. It was generally believed every vote that Dempsey got would come from someone who would have voted for Quill.

That theory never made sense to me. After all, Auburn is a solid Democratic city and always has been. A good example of that is there were two city council seats up and the Republicans couldn't even come up with a candidate.

So when Lattimore became mayor, who do you think voted for him? It certainly wasn't just Republicans or he never would have won. Obviously the Democratic vote was also essential.

Could it be that Dempsey actually took more votes away from Lattimore than from Quill? And if that's true, then it was actually the combination of Quill and Dempsey that cost Lattimore re-election.

Let's examine why I believe this. There are a certain amount of independent thinkers who don't just vote down party lines. The Democrats that voted for Lattimore last time are definitely in that independent category. These are the Democrats who most likely voted for Dempsey.

Dempsey ended up with 757 votes. Where did they come from? Certainly not from Republicans. It seems clear they came from the independent-minded Democrats who voted for Lattimore in 2003.

If Dempsey had decided to sit out, then Lattimore probably would have won a second term. Mayor Lattimore was gracious in defeat when he conceded and wished Mayor-elect Quill good luck at a city council meeting.

Dempsey said he would concentrate on business but would consider running for public office again. Don't be shocked if these familiar names show up in polling booths sometime in the future.

The political machines in Auburn are as well entrenched as any private club that is extremely careful about allowing in any new members. There were many close races this year; some of them decided by only a handful of votes. We can only hope some of the non-voters out there noticed and will realize how important it is to exercise our civic duty on Election Day.

Ducayne's column appears Tuesdays in The Citizen, and she can be contacted at

sacredheart6005@hotmail.com