Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The primary elections for the Kansas State Board of Education took place today and the results are slowly trickling in. It's far too early to predict the finish this early, but at this point all but one of the pro-science candidates are either winning or in a dead heat in the early returns. Here are the pro-science candidates:
District 1 - Janet Waugh
District 3 - Harry McDonald, former KCFS president.
District 5 - Sally Cauble
District 7 - Donna Viola
District 9 - Jana Shaver
Let's keep our fingers crossed that this trend continues as more results come in. This could be a huge loss for the ID side, especially given the amount of money they put into these races.
Update: Holy cow, these results are bouncing all over the place. Two of the races just completely flipped. We're still up in 3 out of 5, but this could go any possible way.
Update #2: It's pretty much settled now. We picked up two seats (Cauble and Shaver) and retained a third (Waugh). That is enough to shift the power back in favor of science and against ID, 6-4. An absolutely huge victory, especially given how much money and effort the DI, IDNet and others put into their candidates. Congratulations, Kansas, and welcome back to the reality-based community. And especially, congratulations to Jack Krebs, Liz Craig and all the other folks from Kansas Citizens for Science who worked so hard to overcome the massive amount of money spent by the other side.
Comments
As I understand it given the board's current makeup and the five seats being contested, the 'good guys' need win only two of the five races to shift the current 6-4 creationist majority back to a pro-science majority.
And knowing that the Disco Institute spent some of its "research" funds on radio ads in Kansas (nothing at all to do with the election, of course!), wouldn't that be a lovely outcome?
Posted by: RBH | August 1, 2006 11:06 PM
Here's another link if you can't get through to the first:
http://www2.ljworld.com/elections/2006/aug/01/
Looks like 2 wins, 2 losses and one too close to call, though leaning towards a win.
Posted by: tacitus | August 1, 2006 11:28 PM
Looks like a win in 3 of 5.
Posted by: Gh | August 1, 2006 11:33 PM
Dunno - Connie Morris is not that far behind with nearly half the votes left to count. Don't count your chickens yet!
Posted by: tacitus | August 1, 2006 11:38 PM
This is a primary, right? Isn't there another chance to take (some of) the contested seats in the November election?
Posted by: Gerry L | August 1, 2006 11:40 PM
Sure, but I would think that those voting in November would be more likely to vote the party line. It would take a concerted effort to make sure Republican voters would know to either abstain or vote against a specific candidate.
Posted by: tacitus | August 1, 2006 11:43 PM
I'm confused. I only see one party voting per district. That leads me to assume that the OTHER party controls the school board seat. I thought Connie Morris was already a school board member. Why is she in a primary if she is an incumbent?
Posted by: FishyFred | August 1, 2006 11:50 PM
Incumbents can be challenged in a primary just as opposition candidates can. I assume there is no controversy with the other party's propective candidates, so no primaries.
Posted by: tacitus | August 1, 2006 11:57 PM
There ARE two parties in Kansas...
Conservative Republicans
And RELIGIOUS ULTRA Conservative Republicans...
Posted by: dogmeatIB | August 2, 2006 12:18 AM
LOL!
Posted by: tacitus | August 2, 2006 1:11 AM
Results as of 6:48 AM Eastern, unofficial:
District 1: Janet Waugh
District 3: John W. Bacon
District 5: Sally Cauble
District 7: Ken R. Willard
District 9: Jana Shaver
The only district where all precencts haven't yet reported is #5 (603 of 609). The lead there is 12,932 (Cauble) to 11,133 (Morris).
Posted by: Dave S. | August 2, 2006 6:48 AM
Morris, we hardly knew ye. And we never wanted to in the first place!
Posted by: plunge | August 2, 2006 9:20 AM