Determining the winner of the second open seat on the City Council in yesterday’s election is far more complicated than it appeared earlier.
With Jeff Cooper a mere 42 votes ahead of Meghan Sahli-Wells on the day after, tensions are running high, and there is increasing reluctance to stamp Mr. Cooper as “winner” — at least yet.
By the close of business today, City Clerk Martin Cole said this afternoon, he will know the numbers of untabulated provisional ballots and vote-by-mail ballots.
The total is believed to be well into the hundreds, plenty of elastic for Ms. Sahli-Wells to overturn the present tentative result. Each one must be checked and validated by the County Registrar’s office, Culver City being one among numerous communities that staged elections yesterday.
By about 5 o’clock, Mr. Cole told the newspaper at 12:30, he hopes to be in position to estimate when the final call will be made.
That only is one step in a network of variables.
“We all want to know the results of the election,” Mr. Cole said. “I can only spend a few minutes with you because I am working on getting those results out to everybody who wants to know. We understand the urgency. My staff is waiting for me to join them.
“We won’t know the actual results at the end of the business day, but we have processing we need to do, in accordance with the Election Code. I want to start that process immediately.”
How do the candidates feel?
“Guardedly optimistic,” Mr. Cooper said this afternoon. “Lots of people have been calling me. But I tell them this is not a time to celebrate. I am confident. But this is tight.”
“This election is not over,” Ms. Sahli-Wells told the newspaper this afternoon. “I am feeling hopeful.”
She said that she is not given to demonstrative reactions. “But I am not wooden, either. I am more cerebral.”
When last night ended with Mr. Cooper the evident winner, even then her mood was serene.
Having heard that as many as 220 vote-by-mail ballots (formerly known as absentee ballots) are floating about, she said she that “I am not only hopeful but very encouraged” she can reverse the result.
The longer she reflected, the stronger she felt about recent events. “For a community organizer, for a stay-at-home mom, we have had a tremendous campaign. We had a great campaign, really,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said. “I still may come out on top.”
