It will be several days before the final results of Culver City’s Municipal Election are known. Councilmember Scott Malsin was re-elected by a wide margin of almost 400 votes over his closest competitor Tuesday night while Jeff Cooper and Meghan Sahli-Wells must await the counting of approximately 140 “provisional” ballots and 220 absentee ballots.
While the lead for second place see-sawed all night between Cooper and Sahli-Wells the semi-final count for the evening showed Cooper ahead by a slim margin of 42 votes. It will be one or two days until be ballots can be verified and counted by city election officials.
Malsin led by a wide margin throughout the tallying of the votes on election night.
The most common provisional ballots are from Vote-by-mail voters who appear in person. In this instance, the voter's name is on the polling place roster and the roster notes the voter requested a vote-by-mail ballot. However, the voter states they didn't receive the ballot, lost the ballot, or spoiled the ballot and doesn't have it with them. After the voter casts a provisional ballot, Culver City election officials will send the ballot to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office to check the records to ensure that the voter did not cast their vote-by-mail ballot. If this is the case and the voter's signature on the provisional ballot envelope matches the signature on the voter's registration card, then the voter's provisional ballot will be counted.
The second group of is made up of absentee ballots received in the mail on Election Day and not yet verified. The process for determining the validity of the ballots is the same as for the provisional ballots is the same.
Maslin spoke Tuesday night at his victory party of the tremendous support he had received throughout the community noting that he had been the victim of the most negative campaigning near the end of the campaign he had ever seen in Culver City.
When reached by phone on Wednesday Cooper cautiously told the Observer that, “While I’m confident, I’m not going to assume anything and will wait until all the ballots are counted.” Complimenting the other candidate Cooper said it was “a great race.”
Sahli-Wells was equally cautious saying; I’m looking forward to hearing what the final result is.” She went on to comment that I am thrilled over how much support I’ve received and I’m very proud of the outstanding team, including my campaign managers, who worked for me.”
Zirgulis, ran his campaign around fighting the red light cameras at Culver City intersections and having police advise local residents of registered sex offenders living in Culver City.
The Current Count as of Wednesday Morning is as follows:
Scott Malsin 2662
Jeff Cooper 2279
Meghan Sahli-Wells 2237
Robert Zirgulis 770
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