As county continues to count ballots, mayor's contest remains three-way race between Brianne Zorn, Sean Trambley and Lara DeLaney; Ben Therriault closes on Debbie McKillop in City Council race
For context, DeLaney had a 194-vote lead after Election Night but now trails by 141 votes. Her vote count REALLY fell off in this batch of ballots, indicating most of her supporters may have voted early and/or in person. Meanwhile, Zorn led Trambley by 79 votes after Election Night and is now ahead of him by 122 votes. Not a huge difference, but if they continue that rough split in the remaining votes, she should be in strong position. No way to know, however, how the remaining votes will break.
Thanks Craig! And this is why a recent article in The Patch is misleading in its title (can’t find it now - something like Martinez chooses a new mayor and names Laura DeLaney).
Yes, I saw that. Some folks still seem to operate under the assumption that the vast majority of votes are counted on Election Night and that the person ahead Wednesday morning is the presumptive winner. Because of changes in voting laws and patterns, a substantial percentage of the total ballots cast are not counted until days after the Election, so unless a candidate has a very big lead (double digits) on Election Night, the race is still very much up for grabs. The other mistake people make is putting too much stake in the Election Day in-person vote. That used to make up the majority of ballots cast, but now it makes up a very small portion as the vast majority of people vote by mail, and many of them don't drop off or mail their ballot until Election Day or a day or two before, creating a big lag in vote counting. This is something that really needs to be explained and emphasized by the news media and election officials to the public before results are posted, because I've seen time and again in recent elections where people jumped to premature conclusions about winners. When I saw the initial results Wednesday morning and how bunched the leaders were, I knew it was far too early to draw any conclusions about who would win. It's still too early to draw any conclusions.
Some more info that might be helpful in gauging where things go from here. I checked the vote totals from 2018 in the mayor's race and District 4 Council Race. There were 15,962 votes in the mayor's race and 4,692 in the council race. If turnout this year roughly matched 2018 (no idea if it did), it suggests there might be somewhere on the order of 3,800 votes still to count in the mayor's race and around 1,300 in the council race. With margins this close, anything can still happen if we're looking at that number of outstanding ballots.
For context, DeLaney had a 194-vote lead after Election Night but now trails by 141 votes. Her vote count REALLY fell off in this batch of ballots, indicating most of her supporters may have voted early and/or in person. Meanwhile, Zorn led Trambley by 79 votes after Election Night and is now ahead of him by 122 votes. Not a huge difference, but if they continue that rough split in the remaining votes, she should be in strong position. No way to know, however, how the remaining votes will break.
Thanks Craig! And this is why a recent article in The Patch is misleading in its title (can’t find it now - something like Martinez chooses a new mayor and names Laura DeLaney).
Yes, I saw that. Some folks still seem to operate under the assumption that the vast majority of votes are counted on Election Night and that the person ahead Wednesday morning is the presumptive winner. Because of changes in voting laws and patterns, a substantial percentage of the total ballots cast are not counted until days after the Election, so unless a candidate has a very big lead (double digits) on Election Night, the race is still very much up for grabs. The other mistake people make is putting too much stake in the Election Day in-person vote. That used to make up the majority of ballots cast, but now it makes up a very small portion as the vast majority of people vote by mail, and many of them don't drop off or mail their ballot until Election Day or a day or two before, creating a big lag in vote counting. This is something that really needs to be explained and emphasized by the news media and election officials to the public before results are posted, because I've seen time and again in recent elections where people jumped to premature conclusions about winners. When I saw the initial results Wednesday morning and how bunched the leaders were, I knew it was far too early to draw any conclusions about who would win. It's still too early to draw any conclusions.
Some more info that might be helpful in gauging where things go from here. I checked the vote totals from 2018 in the mayor's race and District 4 Council Race. There were 15,962 votes in the mayor's race and 4,692 in the council race. If turnout this year roughly matched 2018 (no idea if it did), it suggests there might be somewhere on the order of 3,800 votes still to count in the mayor's race and around 1,300 in the council race. With margins this close, anything can still happen if we're looking at that number of outstanding ballots.