UPDATED Ballot Count Including Remaining Vote By Mail Ballots: (1) Garcia's Vote Total Included Higher Percentage Of Vote By Mail Ballots Than The Other Top Candidates; (2) In 7th Council dist. Uranga Now Has 50.42%, Closer To Avoiding Runoff With Greenwood; Provisional Ballots Remain To Be Verified Over Weekend And Tallied Monday; (3) Voter Turnout -- With Newly Counted Vote By Mail Ballots -- Was Over 16%
(April 11, 2014, 9:02 p.m.) -- At late afternoon Friday (April 11), the City Clerk's office released an updated ballot tally below, reflecting the inclusion of vote by mail ballots received on April 7 and 8 by U.S. mail plus vote for mail ballots delivered to the polls on election day (April 8.) With the caveat that provisional ballots remain to be counted (now scheduled for Monday April 14), the updated voter tally shows:
Mayoral candidate Robert Garcia's vote total included a higher percentage of vote by mail ballots compared to the other top candidates. Among the top five candidates, Otto and Schipske both had rughly 1,000 more vote by mail ballots than polling place ballots; Lowenthal had about 1,100 more; Dunn had over 1,200 more...while Garcia had roughly 2,300 more vote by mail ballots than precinct ballots.
Put another way, Garcia and Dunn would have nearly tied and had the same vote total...except that Garcia's vote total includes nearly 1,100 more vote by mail ballots than Dunn...a difference of over twice the number of vote by mail ballots in Garcia's total compared with the other top finishers.
7th dist. Council candidate Roberto Uranga has edged further ahead of the 50%+1 needed to avoid a runoff with Joan Greenwood. After the April 11 tally of vote by mail ballots, Mr. Uranga now has 50.42% (up from 50.25%.) The City Clerk's office has indicated (in a separate document) that it has 304 provisional ballots to verify and tally; the verification process will take place over the weekend, and the ballots will be counted on Monday April 14. By our unofficial estimate, if roughly 300 provisional ballots were verified and counted, roughly 60% of those provisional ballots would have to go to the three other candidates (Greenwood + Strickland + Chauser) to pull Uranga below 50%. In other words, if our estimate is correct, if Mr. Uranga receives a little over 40% of the provisional ballots, he could avoid a runoff with Ms. Greenwood.
Citywide voter turnout (with the additional vote by mail ballots included) was a bit better than the 14.2% turnout initially tallied on election night. When final vote by mail ballots are included (and with provisional ballots still to be counted), voter turnout was roughly 16.62%.
The City Clerk's office indicated after the election night tally that 2,166 vote by mail ballots remained to be counted (and are now apparently counted.) The City Clerk's office also indicated that it has 1,655 provisional ballots still to verify and count.
The City Clerk's office says that over the weekend, its staff will "work to verify the registration of voters who cast provisional ballots at the polls. If verification of provisional ballots is completed, we will tabulate provisional ballots on Monday, April 14, 2014."
