Liveblogging the Election

Just before 8 p.m. County Clerk-Recorder Carolyn Crnich says that around 26,000 absentee and vote-by-mail ballots were sent out for this election. Ten thousand of those have been counted and should be available shortly. There’s 3,000 of these ballots that are in the Elections Office’s possession but uncounted. They will not be counted tonight.

8:01 p.m. First absentees should be in any moment now. Note that there will be a long gap between this first report and the next. Crnich said this evening that she doesn’t expect the first precinct results until about 9:30 p.m. Reminder: Results available from this page.

8:09 p.m. First absentee results ETA 8:15 p.m., says elections….

[Relive election night glory after the jump. Spoiler alert: Jimmy Smith won, Mark Lovelace won, and there’ll be a runoff Second District …]

8:19 p.m.

8:22 p.m.: Whoa! That’s Clendenen and Smith awfully strong out of the gate. In the Third, Lovelace must be feeling just a tad disappointed, but it’s a truism that absentees skew conservative. Except in the Second, apparently.

8:28 p.m. Might as well call it — Jimmy Smith wins in the First District.

8:33 p.m. One caveat about those Second District results — much of Southern Humboldt is vote-by-mail, which means the hippies vote absentee just like the conservatives do. Still, a very, very strong showing for Clendenen. Remember, if Rodoni fails to get 50 percent plus one, that means that it’s a Clendenen-Fennell runoff in November. Rodoni’s numbers, so far, are way beneath that. The first precinct results will tell the tale — those will almost certainly be your Fortuna voters.

8:41 p.m.: Vevoda on KHUM: “It was very, very challenging, to say the least.” Then: “I learned that there are some very, very mean individuals out there.” He says that someone took the lug nuts off of a truck that was pulling a Vevoda sign. He blames it on politics, and said a police report has been filed. “It’s just lucky no one was killed.”

8:45 p.m.: Heidi Walters at the Clendenen party. She says there’s about 30 people there for the party — more just hanging out at the bar. Apparently no one there knows that their candidate is pulling off a victory.

8:51 p.m.: Johanna Rodoni is about to give a speech in the Hot Brew, according to Japhet Weeks. Earlier, she told him that she thought the results were looking good for Rodoni. “The fact that Roger is ahead in the absentees is a good sign,” she said. O RLY?

9:00 p.m. “It’s been a difficult campaign for all of us,” Johanna Rodoni tells a group of about 100 at Hot Brew. “I feel blessed to have you all here. However we come out on this, we’re all winners.” In the crowd: Fortuna Mayor John Campbell, Sheriff Gary Philp and the mayors of Fortuna and Rio Dell.

9:04 p.m.: First two precincts of the night returned to elections — Ridgewood School and the Humboldt County Office of Education.

9:05 p.m.: Supervisor Jimmy Smith is spending the evening at the Elections Office. He tells Meghannraye Sutton that he doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions. “”It’s been a difficult campaign for all of us,” he says. “I feel blessed to have you all here. However we come out on this, we’re all winners.” “”Looking at this list of candidates — I know all of them, and I’ve talked to all of them, and I know they’re working their hearts out right now,” he says.

9:10 p.m.: Roger and Johanna’s daughter Monica tells Japhet Weeks that when this election started getting close, her parents had a discussion about which of them would run this time around. They eventually settled on Roger, figuring it would be his last time before handing it off to her. So, she said, when her father was killed it wasn’t that much of a stretch for her mother to step into his shoes.

9:31 p.m.: “We’ve dealt with a campaign that threw a lot of money into electing a legacy,” Estelle Fennell tells Japhet Weeks. She says that her campaign was expecting Rodoni to get a big bump from the absentees, and that didn’t happen. She says that she’s looking forward to a November runoff with Clendenen.

9:37 p.m.: Food at Fennell HQ: two types of baguette sandwich (pesto and cranberry, goat cheese and olive), veggie wraps, falafel, Santa Cruz juices, wine. Food at Rodoni HQ: Swedish meatballs, bean dip and chips, off-the-shelf juices and hard liquor.

9:45 p.m.:

9:47 p.m.: Ten precincts in out of 105, none of them from the Second District. In the Third, Plumley drops a bit, Lovelace gains a bit.

9:59 p.m.: Larry from KHUM — hey, Larry! — updates us on the food situation. At Plumley HQ: Wings and cheese fries. At Lovelace HQ: Cookies and some other stuff I didn’t catch.

10:02 p.m.: Our Japhet Weeks says that Rodoni HQ has pretty much emptied out. A few diehards waiting for more results, but everyone else pretty much left after Johanna Rodoni gave her thank-you speech and hour ago.

10:04 p.m.: Cigarette break.

10:12 p.m.: Third report, not posted on the Web site yet:

FIRST DISTRICT:
12 out of 23 reporting

Vevoda: 28.34 percent
Smith: 71.56 percent

SECOND DISTRICT
0 out of 27

Clendenen: 36.4 percent
Rodoni: 39.25 percent
Fennell: 24.17 percent

THIRD DISTRICT
4 out of 28

Plumley : 40.81 percent
Pitino: 10.75 percent
Lovelace: 48.19 percent

10:14 p.m.: Lovelace coming up very quickly with only four precincts counting. Rodoni languishing.

10:16 p.m.: Rodoni languishing … because no more votes have been counted in the Second.

10:22 p.m.: “I’m a little nervous,” Clif Clendenen tell Heidi Walters. “Win lose or draw, I think it’s been a positive experience. I’ve pulled a lot of people into the process, both in the southern and northern parts of the district.” They’re in the dark at Clendenen HQ — no wi-fi. So there’s a lot less standing around the computer and a lot more chatting. “All the time I’ve lived in Southern Humboldt we’ve been hoping for a moderate,” says Anna Hamilton, who actually now lives just over the line in Mendo County. “I’m opposed to Estelle,” Hamilton continues. “I was a former member of the Mateel board.” Proving, again, that the wounds from the great SoHum Reggae War are deep indeed.

10:31 p.m.: Crack reporter Bob Doran files his first report of the night. At Mark Lovelace’s party, he says: Jim Test, Mike Wilson, Bonnie Neely and Connie Stewart.

10:33 p.m.: Confidential to KHUM — gusto, gravitas and a perky bell.

10:34 p.m.: Meghannraye Sutton reports that the reason there’s been nothing from Fortuna yet is that they gather all the polling machines at a central location down there, and all the machines have to be at the location before they’re driven to Elections. When they come in, they’ll all come in at once.

10:50 p.m.: Fourth Report…

FIRST DISTRICT
19 out of 23 precincts reporting

Vevoda — 28.34
Smith — 71.54

SECOND DISTRICT
1 out of 27 reporting

Clendenen — 36.43
Rodoni — 39.28
Fennell — 24.11

THIRD DISTRICT
6 out of 28 reporting

Plumley — 40.43
Pitino — 10.15
Lovelace — 49.13

11:10 p.m.: Word at the Rodoni party is that the police van that’s supposed to ferry the Fortuna ballots up to elections is still parked at the FPD, reports Japhet Weeks.

11:20 p.m.: Estelle Fennell tells Japhet Weeks that the police van bringing ballots up from Garberville just now left.

11:57 p.m.: The numbers aren’t up yet, but Lovelace has pulled above 50 percent in the Third District, and Plumley has fallen to 36 percent. Clendenen and Rodoni are running neck and neck, with the Fortuna votes still out.

12:59 p.m.: And it’s over. After the paper went to press, of course.

1:00 a.m.: Result: There will be a runoff between Clif Clendenen and Estelle Fennell in the fall — unless the Rodoni supporters come up with some sort of grounds for a legal challenge. Barring an uncounted-absentee miracle, Mark Lovelace is the new Third District Supervisor.

1:03 a.m.: Good night, and thanks for playing along at home!

This article appears in Summer of Fun 2008.