An 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.