Campaign Update: Absentee Count Puts Me in Third Place

November 11, 2006

The most recent update from the Elections Office has placed me in third place and should mean that I will win the third and last spot on council for this election. 20,000 absentees in the County of Santa Barbara were counted through last Friday -- the portion that was in the City of Goleta continued the trend we saw on Election Day where I was in third place among polling place voters. Here are the numbers:

MICHAEL T. BENNETT 	4460 	18.82%
ERIC ONNEN 		4410 	18.61%
ROGER S. ACEVES 	3938 	16.62%
CYNTHIA BROCK 		3917 	16.53%
MARGARET CONNELL 	3825 	16.14%
JACK HAWXHURST 		3108 	13.12%

I am 21 votes ahead with perhaps as many as 300 more ballots to be counted. Brock would have to win 38 percent of those votes to surpass me at this point. Considering the highest percentage vote anyone has gotten is around 19 percent -- my victory will likely hold. Thanks again for all of your support -- we will post another update when it is official.

Campaign Update: Goleta Council Election Too Close to Call

November 8, 2006

As of this writing I am 72 votes out of the third seat on council behind Cynthia Brock and am 6 votes ahead of Margaret Connell. 27,000 ballots remain to be counted in Santa Barbara County of which it is estimated that 3-5,000 are from the City of Goleta. The election is so close that any of the top five candidates could theoretically be in first place after all of the ballots are counted. I am cautiously optimistic as I actually came in third place among voters that voted on Election Day -- if the same holds true with these late absentee and provisional ballots, I could still win a seat on council.

No matter what happens, I want to thank all of you that supported my campaign. I appreciate your time and effort and could not have done this without you. For updates on the race, please visit the County Elections Division results page. I will also post news here on this site as it happens....