Menifee Valley Talk Radio  

I didn't attend last nights meeting, but according to John Hunneman, a Staff Writer for the Californian, the council have asked the staff to look into the cost of hiring a consultant to examine how by-district elections should be implemented in 2010.  In June, voters chose to incorporated Menifee as a general law city with 'by-district' elections.  It's true that there were no real statements filed that explained charter cities, general law cities or at-large versus by-district elections.  Perhaps because of that the city is also looking in to community interest in a special election to determine again if the by-district plan would work best for our community. 

According to the article in the Californian, about a dozen people attended the council workshop, put on by city attorney Betsy Martyn to explain those and other options to the council.  Under the by-district election, voters in each city district would cast ballots for one council member among candidates who live within that district.  Since we don't really know yet how the districts are to be determined, let alone what they might look like, it is all a bit confusing.  In an at-large election, voters in the city choose from among all the candidates, regardless of where they live.

Another election focusing on Menifee is still rather close to call.  As of November 12 the results looked like this, with 100% of the 76 precincts counted.

RANDALL FREEMAN 8,141 20.12%
RON ULIBARRI 7,834 19.36%
JERRY BOWMAN 7,264 17.96%
VICTOR GIARDINELLI 7,236 17.89%
PHOEBA A. IREY 7,035 17.39%
MANOLITO V. VITUG 2,945 7.28%
Total 40,455 100.00%

I spoke to Doug at the Registrars office on the 17th to clarify a press release that several local elections warranted a mandatory check of either 1% or 10% of the precinct votes. It's mostly a manual quality control check that's done with close elections. He assured me that the results will NOT be certified until Dec 2nd, maybe a day or so earlier.

County wide there were over 47000 provisional BLUE ballots still to be researched and counted, and even if only a small percentage were Menifee, the margins are such that there could still be some changes in the outcome.

Provisional ballot research does not begin until November 24 and there was a very high % of last minute registrations that contributed to the high number of provisional ballots.

The tally of qualified write-in candidates will begin the week of Nov17th. Provisional ballot research will begin the week of Nov 24th. Final Ballots include
Provisional and uncounted duplicated ballots will be counted Nov 28th – Dec 1st.