Nevada County election results update still a week away
kmacmillan@sierrasun.com
TRUCKEE, Calif. — With several races and Truckee’s Measure U school bond still undecided, Nevada County officials on Thursday began the official post-election canvass, including tabulating almost 10,000 uncounted ballots.
As of Thursday, there were estimated totals of 8,558 vote-by-mail ballots, 1,053 provisional ballots and 25 other ballots still to be counted, said Sandra Sjoberg, Nevada County assistant clerk-recorder.
Those numbers could change since some of the ballots from Truckee, dropped off at the elections office on Wednesday night, were still being tabulated. Many of those were vote-by-mail ballots left Tuesday at the Truckee Post Office or at Truckee Town Hall, Sjoberg said.
Processing the uncounted ballots will take at least a week, meaning that the first update won’t be until Friday, Nov. 14, Sjoberg said.
“With the vote-by-mail, we have to check signatures first, then verify the signatures, then batch and scan the ballots,” she said.
In Truckee, initial results from Tuesday’s general election show 52.27 percent voted in favor, with 47.73 percent against the $114 million Measure U that would fund improvements at Truckee-area schools within the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District.
The measure requires 55 percent voter approval to pass. Of the votes counted Tuesday, 1,217 were in favor in Nevada County, with 1,110 against. The handful of precincts in Placer County voted 132 in favor and 122 against.
In Placer County, there are 36,651 outstanding ballots to be processed as of Thursday, according to information provided by the county elections office.
The Lake Tahoe area of Placer County is encompassed by District 5 (which also includes the cities of Auburn and Colfax). According to the county elections office, of the 36,651 outstanding ballots, 7,296 come from District 5.
Measure E, the $62 million school bond that, like U, would fund school improvements at the district’s Tahoe-area campuses, saw 58.62 percent in favor, with 41.38 against in Placer and El Dorado counties.
It also requires 55 percent voter approval to pass. In Placer County, 1,240 voted in favor, with 860 against. In El Dorado County, 124 were in favor, and 103 were against.
Other Tahoe-Truckee races are very close. In the race for three seats on the Tahoe Forest Hospital District Board, semi-official results in Placer and Nevada counties show Chuck Zipkin garnered 1,862 votes; Dale Chamblin, the lone incumbent, got 1,705 votes; and Greg Jellinek earned 1,557 votes.
However, Mark Spohr finished just 22 votes behind in fourth place, and Ronda Brooks, in fifth, is only 41 votes behind Jellinek. The hospital board is voted about equally in terms of number of voters in both counties.
The race for Truckee Town Council, voted on by only those in Nevada County, is also tight. Jamie Brimer led the way with 1,104 votes, followed by Patrick Flora (incumbent) with 1,096 votes and Carolyn Wallace Dee (incumbent) with 1,076 for the three open seats. Morgan Goodwin is only 36 votes behind in fourth place.
For the Truckee Fire board, which is mostly decided by Nevada County voters, challenger Gary Botto finished first with 1,528 votes, followed by Victor Hernandez (incumbent) with 1,336 votes and Paul Wilford (incumbent) with 1,170. Gerald Herrick (incumbent), at 1,129 votes, is 41 votes back.
Further, initial results from Tuesday’s general election show incumbent Sue Daniels received 464 votes, with Sarah Coolidge getting 422 votes for Seat 3 on the North Tahoe Public Utility District board, which is voted on by only those in Placer County.
Going back to Nevada County, although upsets are always possible with uncounted votes, decisive victories appeared relatively certain Tuesday night for Robert Tice-Raskin in the Nevada County Superior Court judgeship race, for “No on S” in the Measure S ballot measure, for Garrett Spencer Jr. in the Nevada County Consolidated Fire District board race, and for Doug LaMalfa in the U.S. Congress race.
— Keri Brenner, a reporter for The Union newspaper in Grass Valley, contributed to this report.
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