Early voting results for The Woodlands Township are now in and the incorporation ballot propositions are both losing by a very wide margin.
Proposition A, which is the question of whether The Woodlands Township should become a city, is failing in early voting, with 69.87% voting against and only 30.13% in favor. In raw numbers, that would be 9,019 against and 3,890 for. Proposition B, which would have authorized the transition from township to city, is failing by a similar margin: 69.74% to 30.26%, or 8,983 to 3,897.
Although the results from election day have not yet been released, the wide margin in early voting for is essentially insurmountable and it would be almost impossible for incorporation to pass at this point.
The incorporation battle has pitted the pro-incorporation majority of The Woodlands Township board, led by Chairman Gordy Bunch, against County Commissioner Pct. 3 James Noack and developers like the Howard Hughes Corporation, who are against becoming a city. Montgomery County’s two tea party groups, the Texas Patriots PAC and the Montgomery County Tea Party PAC both supported incorporation, while much of the so-called “establishment” in The Woodlands opposed it.
Advocates of incorporation argued it would give The Woodlands greater autonomy and independence from the county, and and would have made the community eligible for more federal and state funding. Opponents argued that The Woodlands is fine as it is, and that incorporation would only create a new layer of government and increase bureaucracy and taxes.
Apparently the anti-incorporation message was more persuasive in the solidly Republican community, at least among early voters. The Texas Citizen Journal will continue to provide updates as more votes are counted.
Texas Citizen Journal 