Socialist gets over 11,000
votes in College Board election

ON MONDAY, June 14 school board elections took place across the state of Michigan and Carl L. Williams, Socialist Party and Debs Tendency member, and Oakland Community College student, was on the ballot for OCC Board of Trustees. Carl received 11,675 votes, coming in a strong sixth place (out of nine candidates).

This is a remarkable showing considering that the top four vote-getters were the three incumbents and a candidate with both wide name-recognition and previous office experience. Carl's 11,675 votes translates to 10.1 percent. By comparison, the top vote-getter received 17 percent. This is a great showing for the first 2004 SP candidate in Michigan!

Upon an overview of the votes broken down by district, Carl came in second place in Troy (Warren Consolidated District), and third place in Northville, Oak Park, Oxford and Southfield. Carl came in fourth in a handful of districts as well. In Southfield, Carl was a solid 344 votes ahead of the fourth place finisher. Click here for election results.

While this was a non-partisan election, Williams made no secret of his affiliation with the Socialist Party, posting links on his website and discussing the issues with the workers and students of the school. He had wide support from the Socialist Party of Michigan and Detroit Socialist Party, who posted information on their websites.

The SPMI -- along with Socialist vice-presidential candidate Mal Herbert -- had a presence at the NAACP-sponsored debate as well. The areas in which Carl did best were the most working class. The SPMI is continuing its work on the fall campaign, running candidates in several statewide offices.