Nearly a dozen cities held an election Tuesday. Most of those were special elections to fill vacancies. Santa Barbara held its final odd-year election this year. Nearly all of the 482 cities in the state have shifted to even-year elections in order to be compliant with a state law intended to increase voter turnout in local elections. A breakdown of how voters across the state marked their ballots is below:
Emeryville
Director of Policy and Communications for Bay Area Community Land Trust Courtney Welch is leading the Emeryville Special Council Election by 124 votes. She currently has 55.35% of the vote and should sail into victory. Welch will serve the remainder of the term until 2024.
Carson
In the Special Election for City Clerk, Myla Rahman is currently leading the pack of five candidates by 311 votes. Rahman serves as the District Chief of Staff for the California State Legislature. She currently has 29.22% of the vote. We will be monitoring this race to see if late ballots could shift this result.
In the Special Council Election for Carson’s District 4, Los Angeles Police Officer Arleen Rojas leads the pack of 5 candidates by 135 votes. With 34.36% of the vote, Arleen should be able to hold onto this lead but we will monitor late returns to track any changes in this race.
Both victors in Carson will serve the remainder of their terms until November 2022.
Madera
Elsa Mejia leads the Special Council Election for Madera, District 5 by 99 votes. Should this lead hold, Mejia will fill the remainder of the unexpired term until December 2022.
Tiburon
Noah Griffin leads a pack of four candidates by 350 votes for the Tiburon Town Council. Griffin, a public affairs specialist, will serve the remainder of the term until 2024.
Hemet
After being removed from the dais this year for not having lived within the District 4 boundaries when he initially filed to run in 2020, Joe Males is winning the seat again in this special election.
Moreno Valley
Ed Delgado is in the lead for the Moreno Valley District 2 seat with almost half of all votes cast.
Hollister
The District 3 special election sees Dolores Morales leading the way with 44% of the vote. Lauretta Avina is coming in 2nd in the field of 5 with a little under 34% of the vote.
La Mesa
Republican Laura Lothian is the frontrunner in the special La Mesa Council race with almost double the votes as 2nd place vote-getter Patricia Dillard. The longtime Democratic seat was left vacant when Akilah Weber was elected to the State Assembly.
Santa Barbara
In the Santa Barbara Mayoral race former Councilmember Randy Rowse is leading the field of six candidates by 2,833 votes. According to the County Registrar there are slightly more than 4,000 votes left to count, though this is not expected to change the final result. Rowse will be the first man to hold the seat in nearly three decades, and the first non-democratic official to hold the seat in a similar amount of time. Rowse is registered as no-party-preference.
All of the incumbents in Santa Barbara’s Council Races look to be holding their seats. In District 5, incumbent Kristen Sneddon leads the sole opponent by 2,150 votes. In District 5, incumbent Eric Friedman had no challenger. And in District 6, Meagan Harmon, who was appointed to the council in 2019 following Gregg Hart’s election to the County Board of Supervisors, looks to be headed into a full term. She’s leading her field of four candidates by 475 votes.
All officials elected this year will serve five-year terms as Santa Barbara moves to even year elections in 2024.
Sonoma
Sandra Lowe has earned more than 61% of the vote so far in this special city council election. Michael Nugent has less than half that and James Cribb came in with under 9% of the total vote.
Oxnard
Gabriel Teran leads the way with more than 54% of the vote in the field of 3 for this special election to fill the term remaining for the District 2 seat held by Carmen Ramirez, who resigned after winning a seat on the County Board of Supervisors.