Final City Council election results in - Ender wins first place
Written by Jeff on April 16th, 2008An astounding 9,905 people cast ballots by mail in last week’s City Council election, more than double the number of people who voted at the polls, official election results released today show.
A total of 14,220 people cast ballots in the election, which is just 17.2% of Santa Clarita’s registered 82,253 voters.
As for the tallies, here’s how the official results break down:
- Laurie Ender - 6,180 votes (24.5%)
- Bob Kellar - 6,135 votes (24.3%)
- Bob Spierer - 5,089 votes (20.2%)
- Diane Trautman - 4,959 votes (19.7&)
- Maria Gutzeit - 2,800 votes (11.1%)
The official results confirm that Bob Spierer got the third most votes in the election; the unofficial results which didn’t include provisional or late drop-off ballots had Spierer two votes behind Trautman for third place.
And, of course, Laurie Ender’s efforts to bring more voters into the fold paid off handsomely; the Parks Commissioner and Councilmember-elect even beat incumbent Mayor Bob Kellar by 45 votes.
Blogger Tim Myers ran the numbers the day after the election last week and said that if only precinct votes had been counted, Diane Trautman would have won; he echoed those comments today in a post at West Ranch Beacon where he discusses the election results and the reaction to Laurie Ender’s victory:
The surprising fact? Laurie would need less than 40% of the votes she actually received on election day to close the deal; the rest just put her way over the top.
Myers says he’s going to have more election thoughts in the coming weeks, but you can read his first post here.
Other stats:
Comparing this year’s election to the 2006 election is interesting:
| 2006 Results | 2008 Results | Percentage Difference | |
| Voter Turnout |
11,982 | 14,220 | + 18.68% |
| Absentee/Mail In | 7,319 | 9,905 | + 35.33% |
| Precinct Votes | 4,663 | 4,315 | - 7.45% |
| Registered Voters | 79,164 | 82,253 | + 3.9 % |
Clearly, vote-by-mail ballots won the election, as observers have said. The race, in a sense, was over before election day, especially given that turnout at the polls was lower than in 2006.
Another interesting statistic: not all 14,220 voters voted for two candidates. If you add up all the votes cast (25,163) and subtract it from what should have been the total (14,220 voters voting for two candidates = 28,440), you get 3,277 voters who only voted for one candidate.Were those likely Ender voters? Hard to say!
I’ll keep an eye out for precinct results. Those might yield even more clues into how the candidates fared across the valley.
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Boooooooooooooo!
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The good news from this election is voter turnout increased. The sad news it only takes 6100 votes to be elected to the City
Council from 82,253 registered voters. The 17.2% turnout is a
disgrace in my book.
bb
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The Chamber and VIA membership vote enough to assure Kellar’s seat.
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Some voters
Apparently, some voters were able to cast more than the two votes the rest of us were limited to:
Robert J. Spierer, Retired - The Strong Résumé Candidate!
Commentary by Tim Myers
Monday August 20, 2007
“…..I met Spierer recently when he asked to meet with me to discuss his candidacy for the City Council in 2008. In the spring of next year a sliver of registered voters in the city of Santa Clarita will vote on two council seats, one currently held by incumbent Bob Kellar and the other held by appointed member TimBen Boydston, who promised not to take advantage of his incumbency and thus will leave the seat open. I plan to cast my two votes for Kellar and Maria Gutzeit, but after my meeting with Spierer, I wish I possessed a third vote…..”
Let’s see - Kellar, Gutzeit, Ender……….um………..
I DEMAND A RECOUNT!
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oops - I forgot to include The Signal’s copyright stuff to my above post, here it is:
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