West Hollywood councilmembers-elect Sepi Shyne and John Erickson continue to gather votes and remain the top vote getters in the Nov. 3 City Council election, according to the latest figures from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office.
With the release of updated numbers on Tuesday, Shyne now has a total of 8,041 votes, up 30 votes since the results were last updated on Friday. Shyne amassed 23.57% of the vote.
Erickson now has a total of 7,299 votes, up 37 votes since the last update. He gathered 21.39% of the vote.
There is now a difference of 742 votes between Shyne in first place and Erickson in second place.
In third place, incumbent John Heilman now has a total of 6,194 votes, up 27 votes since the previous update. Heilman earned 18.16% of the vote.
Heilman is now 1,105 votes behind Erickson. There are still votes to count – vote-by-mail ballots, provisional ballots and same-day registration ballots. However, by this point, the number of ballots still to be counted is relatively small. It seems unlikely, if not impossible, for Heilman to surge from behind to overtake Erickson for second place and thereby remain on the Council.
Further down the tally, challenger Larry Block remains in fourth place with a total of 3,464 votes, an increase of 19 votes since the last update. He earned 10.15% of the vote.
In fifth place is incumbent John Duran with 3,346 votes, an increase of 15 votes since the Tuesday update. He earned 9.81% of the vote.
Block is now 118 votes ahead of his longtime rival Duran.
Heilman and Duran’s last official City Council meeting is the Dec. 7 meeting, where the city will pay tribute to them and they will offer their goodbye speeches. After certifying the vote results – their last official act as councilmembers – they will leave and new councilmembers Sepi Shyne and John Erickson will be sworn into office.
Traditionally, the swearing in of new councilmembers is big celebration in the city, attracting a large crowd at the Council Chamber. However, not this year. All of the tributes and farewells and swearing in will take place virtually due to pandemic social distancing requirements and the ban on large gatherings.
As for the rest of the updated election results, the other challengers all saw slight increases in their numbers. Noemi Torres now has 1,640 votes for sixth place, while Mark Yusupov has 1,437 votes for seventh place.
Marco Colantonio holds onto eighth place with 986 votes, while Jerome Cleary has 612 votes for ninth place.
The other two candidates on the ballot withdrew from the race before election day, but their names still appeared on the ballot. Tom Demille has 577 votes while Christopher McDonald has 521 votes.
The LA County Registrar-Recorder releases updated figures from the Nov. 3 election every Tuesday and Friday on the lavote.net website. The registrar is scheduled to finalize the results on Nov. 30.
Why is that ridiculous Karen?