For some, it’s been a bit of a wild ride the past 24-hours! Last night’s UnOfficial Primary Results on our City Council race can be viewed on the Clark County Elections website HERE.
What becomes so tricky for us regular citizens in lil’ ole’ Boulder City to understand (myself included…) is that we decide our City Council positions as the number of votes cast for each candidate by VOTER – not the total number of Votes. Complicating that further is that the Clark County website does not tally that for us when viewing the election results on their site. So the screenshot below is therefore confusing. Those percentages are interesting to note, but they are deceptive because they do not reflect how we determine the final winners of our elections.
To review: in this Primary, each of us voted for up to TWO possible candidates to fill TWO separate City Council seats. So while the screenshot below shows us that currently 6,792 votes were cast and the numbers for each candidate, the important number isn’t shown.
The number of VOTERS who cast their vote, which according to our City Clerk Tami McKay currently stands at 3,938 people cast ballots.
For our Primary, any City Council candidate who earns more than 50% of those votes based on that number, wins the seat now, and does not have to advance to the final election in November. So with those numbers in mind, let’s do the math:
3,938 people voted. 50% of that equals 1,969. So that means any City Council candidate for Boulder City who earns 1,970 votes to date, is in for their seat. Right now, look at those numbers:
- 2,110 votes currently cast for Sherri Jorgensen
- 1,967 votes currently case for Denise Ashurst
So a way to interpret these numbers as of now would be that it appears as though Jorgensen has defended her seat, and it shows Ashurst very, very close to also winning.
But Wait! Not All Ballots are Counted Yet
Here is the wrinkle and this really matters folks. According to the City Clerk’s office:
- The UNOFFICIAL results do not include casted ballots deposited yesterday at the post office or deposited in mail ballot boxes placed throughout Clark County.
And they will ALL be counted together up at the Election headquarters in Clark County over the next week. So we have to wait. More importantly – we don’t know how many there are outstanding. There could be 10 uncounted Boulder City ballots or 500 or a 1000. We don’t know. And each one drives up that number of 3,938 as they are counted, so the threshold increases accordingly with each ballot counted.
We can all see the trend and do the math as it stands and make our best guesses, but the truth is – this ain’t over yet folks! So, we will keep you posted and watch the numbers as they roll in.
Possible Scenarios:
- On potential is that both Jorgensen and Ashurst win their seats outright. That means we’re done with the City Council elections in November. (we’ll still have ballot questions, as well as State and National elections to participate in.)
- Another possibility is Jorgensen wins her seat, but Ashurst does not at this time. That would mean Ashurst and the next highest vote getter in line, currently Matt Fox (which could also change), would run off for the single available seat in November. (2 candidates run for 1 seat)
- While less likely, another still scenario would be that both of these currently visible voting trends completely fall apart on these remaining ballots, and the top for vote-getters continue on to November. Right now that would most likely be: Jorgensen, Ashurst, Fox and Patterson. (4 candidates run for 2 seats).
Updates to these tallies have to be tallied by our City Clerk’s office and the will report them regularly to us, and we will share them! While we’re at it – let’s give our City Clerk, Tami McKay and ALL of her small but mighty staff a big round of applause and thanks! They earn it today, and all days for keeping their piece of our Boulder city government running smoothly!
Judicial Race Update
The Judicial race, to note, is NOT handled by our City or our City Clerk’s office. They are entirely handled by the State and County through their own processes. As of now, you can see these results below:
The Judiciary race is decided by that simple majority of Votes as show above. Currently, Tilman is in the lead with 51.56% of the votes. HOWEVER AGAIN NOTE THIS ARE UNOFFICIAL numbers as of this time. The same information above matters in this race as well, because the mail-in or mail dropped ballots, of an unknown quantity, have yet to be counted. So this race cannot be called at all. Again, we will watch these numbers as they change on Clark County Elections website HERE.
The last day to cure ballots is June 17, 2024. The final official results will be canvassed at a Special City Council meeting on June 21, 2024 at 9:00AM.
