Predictions are best made when unprinted

S.J. CAHN

As of late Wednesday, the race for the third, and last, Costa Mesa

City Council race was all about 67 votes, with Planning Commissioner

Eric Bever still leading colleague Bruce Garlich.

If that sounds closer than I anticipated last week, there are two

lessons to take from my miscue.

* Don’t ever make a prediction in print, which I rarely ever do.

* If you do make a prediction in print, have a ready explanation

if you’re wrong.

I’ve got one. The number of registered voters I used to judge how

much movement there’d be as final ballots came in was wrong. There

are about 55,500 registered voters in Costa Mesa. We accidentally

reported about 35,500 registered voters in Costa Mesa -- a mistake we

corrected, and a correction I missed.

So when I roughly guessed there were 2,360 Costa Mesa ballots to

count with 100,000 remaining last week, I was off significantly. The

number was likely closer to 3,689. With a third as many votes, I

would have been less likely to categorically state that Bever was

going to hold on to the third seat.

It’s still, of course, the most likely scenario. And for whatever

it’s worth, there’s been little change in the past week, with Garlich

cutting the lead from 88 to 67. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Bever

gained three votes and Garlich four.

So, there are plenty of reasons for both to sweat.

When 100% is all there is

A reader called in after last week’s column to complain about my

pronouncing Newport Beach Steve Bromberg still a victor with 100% of

the vote.

The problem, at least according to this view? While Bromberg has

received 31,561 votes in his uncontested race, 35,951 voted in the

two-person race between winner and incumbent John Heffernan and

Dolores Otting. Even more, 37,083, voted in the three-person race won

by incumbent Steve Rosansky. And 42,877 voted for or against Measure

L, the referendum on a resort at Marinapark.

How then can Bromberg be said to have captured 100% of the vote?

Simple. He did. He’s captured 100% of the vote in his race, and while

some people might like to see the fact that more than 10,000 Newport

Beach voters didn’t vote for him as a sign they were voting against

him, there’s no reason to jump to that conclusion.

Even if he’d garnered just 10 votes, he’d have 100% of the total.

A better explanation for the disparity in the totals is that there

is a large minority of voters who don’t care about the City Council

election. Even the three-person contest had nearly 6,000 fewer votes

than the Measure L one. In a race with only one name, it’s easy to

picture an uninterested voter decided not to take the time to color

in the box next to Bromberg’s name.

I’ll as quickly as possible chime in with: They should care. The

City Council has as much, if not more, affect on residents’ daily

lives than their Assembly member, state senator or president.

This explanation will be reinforced, or dismissible, once we have

final numbers and can see how many people in Newport Beach voted in

the presidential contest. If that total is higher still than the

Measure L vote, then we can assume there is greater interest in

national politics than local races.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (714)

966-4607 or by e-mail at s.j.cahn@latimes.com.