Most votes counted, so on to November

With the March 5 primary day election three weeks in the rear-view mirrors of voters and elected officials, results seem set, even if the election won't be fully certified until mid-April.

The closest race, state or local, has been Proposition 1, the mental health treatment measure championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom which, as of Monday, was leading by about 28,000 votes out of nearly 7.7 million ballots cast.

The Secretary of State's Office estimates only 56,133 ballots statewide remained to be counted as of March 22, so after a lot of back-and-forth statements of victory by proponents and concessions by opponents, the proposition can finally be said to have passed. Barely. Counties have until April 2 to report the final results of March 5 primaries to the Secretary of State's Office, and until April 5 for other state races. Final results will be certified by April 12.

Why so long? Because every active, registered voter in California was sent a vote-bymail ballot. Any of these ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the county elections official no later than seven days after the election will be counted. County elections officials in processing vote-by-mail ballots have to confirm each voter's registration status, verify each voter's signature on the voteby-mail envelope, and ensure each person did not vote elsewhere in the same election before the ballot can be counted. All that takes a while.

As of Friday, Santa Cruz County reported that 78,533 ballots had been processed with estimates that only 255 ballots remain to be counted. There are nearly 169,000 registered voters in Santa Cruz County, so the overall turnout will be around 46%, higher than the state's overall turnout of about 34% in an election with no major overriding issues sparking voter interest.

With most votes counted that means in the three Santa Cruz City Council district elections, the winners will be the more moderate candidates: In District 2, Sonja Brunner; in District 5, Susie O'Hara; and in District 3, Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson. Brunner and Kalantari-Johnson are holdover councilmembers although both were running in the district system for the first time. With the passage of Measure E in June 2022, Santa Cruz moved away from at-large City Council races and was divided into six districts.

O'Hara's race was considered to be the most volatile, with an expected last-minute boost of votes from UC Santa Cruz students some thought would propel her opponent, UCSC student Joe Thompson, into victory. Didn't happen.

In addition, the hotly debated Measure M was behind overwhelmingly in the early vote count and that didn't change. The measure, which would have put allowing some taller buildings in the city to a popular vote, was supported by many traditional slow and no-growth progressives. But it apparently did not convince many voters it wouldn't impede building more “affordable” housing in Santa Cruz.

Voters also approved sales tax increases for both the city of Santa Cruz and the county.

In South County, Measure N, a bond measure that will fund improvements at publicly owned Watsonville Community Hospital passed. The measure needed a two-thirds majority and will exceed that by about 1.5% – just enough.

In the three supervisorial races, two are headed for November runoffs. In the 5th District, Monica Martinez, who garnered more than 46% of the vote, will face off against Christopher Bradford. In District 2, Kristen Brown and

Kim De Serpa will be in what looks to be a tight race. But in District 1, incumbent Manu Koenig won reelection over Lani Faulkner, the choice of many progressive organizations in the county.

November promises to bring a lot of election sound and fury, with the likely presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But in addition to the two local runoffs noted here, 10 measures statewide have so far qualified for the November ballot with proponents hoping to bring even more onto the ballot.

All this means that starting in a few short months, our Editorial Board again will be interviewing local candidates and ballot measure partisans, and make voter recommendations on all these as well as state propositions.