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Candidates for Palo Alto City Council will be partying tonight, but by evening’s end they may not know which five of them have been elected.
That’s because many Palo Altans opted to vote by mail this year but relatively few mailed them back to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.
In addition, with 14 candidates vying for only five seats on the council the difference between those elected and those not could come down to a mere hundreds of votes.
As of this morning, about 7,500 Palo Alto voters had returned mail-in ballots to the registrar, out of about 26,700 who received them.
That leaves about 19,000 voters who may drop off their ballots today at any polling station or at Palo Alto City Hall — or who may not vote at all. Until the polling stations close at 8 p.m. and ballots are delivered to the registrar, no one will know how many voters chose which option, according to Elma Rosas, spokesperson for the county registrar.
Rosas said by 11:30 p.m. tonight the registrar’s office hopes to count all ballots cast in person at polling stations plus ballots mailed in by today. But mail-in ballots dropped off at a polling station will be counted tomorrow and Thursday because they need to have their signatures verified, she said.
Palo Alto has 36,300 eligible voters. About one-quarter of them opted not to vote by mail and had the chance to vote in person today.
Turnout at Palo Alto’s 31 polling stations has been quiet, according to poll workers. As of 3 p.m., only 50 people had turned out to First Lutheran Church on Homer Avenue and just 36 had voted at Lytton Gardens in downtown Palo Alto.
In addition to the five council seats, Palo Alto voters are being asked to approve or reject Measure A, the proposed business-license tax. That measure requires a simple majority to pass.
Information about the election, such as polling station locations, can be found at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters website.
The Palo Alto Weekly will be providing Election Night coverage on Palo Alto Online.
Vote tallies will be updated throughout the evening, and Weekly reporters and editors will be providing live updates from Election Night parties via Twitter. To follow the Twitter feed, go to www.twitter.com/paloaltoweekly.
“Peak Democracy” in action. The residents in this town are ‘civic-ly out to lunch’. Let’s see how many people cared enough to vote. if a low percentage, that does not bode well for giving the council ‘direction’ or the council listening.
Who are the 270 Palo Altans that voted for Frost? Should have written in Snoopy. Would have had a better chance.
Your vote counts, and you wasted your vote. Look how close the race is. Next time, take time to look at the candidates and what they stand for.
Thanks to the 270. You had a right to vote this way, but come on!
While I didn’t vote for Frost, why the disdain for those that did? A vote cast for him would be the ultimate protest vote.
The results so far show that Palo Altans want more women on their City Council. It shows women supporting women; I hope this holds to the end.
I am an intelligent woman and I take offence that I or any other woman should vote for someone just because she is a woman. I like to see women leaders, but to consider voting for someone just because of her gender would turn me into a fool.
We say we want the green options, then when the high speed train comes, we just NIMBY that, and we gonna sue. Then the candidates all waffle on taxing business right out of this city. You wonder we can’t elect nobody? And ‘disdain’ Frost. Just if you elected him, in two days you were wondering what good was that one bringing. Maybe he is an Alfred Doolittle and we can listen.
I will release my little secret – I voted for only one councilperson, enhancing the power of my vote. I won’t say for whom I voted, but it wasn’t Frosty the No Man.