POLITICAL NOTEBOOK:Number-crunching the uncounted ballots

The number of votes cast in the City Council election continue to creep up as ballots uncounted on election night are processed, but the order of finish — Toni Iseman, Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider, Kelly Boyd and Verna Rollinger — has not changed.

“The total number of voters — about 10,000 — is very close to the total four years ago when four candidates also ran for three seats, but the votes are much more spread out in this election,” said former election consultant, Norm Grossman.

“Four years ago, Elizabeth beat Steve [Dicterow] by only five votes. The top three candidates were within 150 votes and then there was a gap of 250 to fourth place.”

In figures posted by the Registrar of Voters on Tuesday, with unspecified but somewhat more than 100 ballots still unprocessed, Iseman had 5,640 votes, 385 votes ahead of Pearson-Schneider who tallied 5,255 votes, 120 ahead of Boyd’s 5,135. Boyd topped Rollinger’s 4,996 votes by 139.

The registrar expects to certify the election and present it to the Orange County Board of Supervisors Dec. 5. That would be a good thing because Laguna’s new council is scheduled to be installed at 6 p.m., that night, which requires certification of the local election by City Clerk Martha Anderson.

All of the council candidates have increased their votes by about 1,000 since the first count with all precincts reporting was posted. The count did not include some provisional and absentee ballots hand-delivered to the polls.

“Kelly won the election on mailed-in absentee ballots,” Grossman said. “Since then, he and Verna have been virtually in a dead heat. Mailers targeted to Republicans and [members of Laguna Beach] Taxpayers, who tend to vote more conservatively and in higher numbers on absentee ballots, paid off — big time.

“Conventional wisdom was that the reason Kelly beat Verna was due to bullet voting, but there is no way to tell. The registrar counts all the [Laguna] ballots regardless of the number of, if any, votes cast for council candidates.”

“Bullet” voters cast ballots for less than the number of seats on the ballot.

The percentages for each candidate remained virtually unchanged since all the precincts reported, with Iseman at 26.8%, two tenths of a point higher than posted on the Wednesday after the election. Pearson-Schneider at 25% dropped a tenth. Boyd’s 24.4% is off two-tenths. Rollinger picked up two-tenths to 23.8%.

HIGHER TURNOUT

What did change dramatically was the registrar’s estimate of the number of registered voters who cast ballots.

The totals released on the Wednesday after the election showed a disappointing 44.5% of Laguna’s 18,075 registered voters had cast ballots.

However, according to the latest figures, 55.4% of the city’s registered voters cast ballots.

In the precinct breakdown of Nov. 14, voters at Fire Station Three at Top of the World had the top turnout: 68.9% of the 527 registered voters. The lowest turnout percentage was at 7 degrees, with only 30.4% of the eligible voters casting ballots.

The highest number of votes for Pearson-Schneider (365) and Boyd (299) were cast at the Three Arch Bay Clubhouse.

Iseman’s biggest turnout (348) of voters cast their ballots at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. Ditto Rollinger (317).

The lowest number of votes cast for each of the four candidates was at the South Coast Water District offices, which has the least number of registered voters of any precinct.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Laguna Beach has 18,075 registered voters, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters: 7,006 registered as Republicans, 6,637 Democrats and 3,525 “declined to state.”

Only 202 local voters are registered in the Green Party — perhaps a surprise to those who think of Laguna as a community of tree huggers. The remaining 705 registered voters are split up among the American Independent, Libertarian, Natural Law and Peace and Freedom parties and 70 listed as miscellaneous.

The breakdown by party of local voters in the Nov. 7 election has not yet been reported.

LATE CAMPAIGN

STATEMENTS

Laguna Beach Firefighters Public Awareness Group filed a campaign statement Nov. 2 that differed from the one filed on Nov. 1, covering the reporting period, July 7-Oct. 21. Contributions of $24,459 and payments of $18,523, to the company that did the group’s mailers and $1,187.78, to Firefighters Print & Design were declared on the Nov. 1 statement.

The new statement for the period from July 1-Oct. 21 reports contributions of $12,849 and total contributions in the calendar year of $16,770.

Expenditures during the period were listed in the new statement at $20,574.15 and $25,323.09 for the calendar year with outstanding debts of $20,574.15 for the period.

Village Laguna’s recipient committee filed a late report on Nov. 2 of $3,300 in contributions and expenditures for mailers and mailing of almost $12,000 in support of candidates Toni Iseman and Verna Rollinger, both endorsed by the group.

No reasons were given for either late report.