(This post was updated at 12:30 p.m. to include additional information.)
Carolyn Ramsay gathered the most votes in yesterday’s primary election for City Council. According to the City of Los Angeles election website, Ramsay won 15.32% of the vote, David Ryu came in second with 14.61% of the vote, Â followed closely by Tomas O’Grady with 14.39%. As of 9 am this morning there were only 61 votes separating the two second place contenders.
In yesterday’s election, just over 157,577 ballots were cast or 8.62% of the 1,827,123 registered voters in the city. With such a low voter turn out, Ramsay got 2,911 votes, followed by Ryu with 2776 – making it easy to see how every vote really counted for each candidate.
“It was such an exciting night. I had the best team – my family, my campaign team, the volunteers and communities that supported me and the folks who endorsed me including Councilmembers LaBonge and O’Farrell,” Ramsay told the Buzz early this morning. “This is a grassroots campaign to protect neighborhoods, hold City Hall accountable and build our creative economy. There were many excellent candidates. I send congratulations to David and look forward to the next round.”
“There are still very many ballots to be counted, but I am humbled by the support that I have received in every neighborhood across this diverse district,” said Ryu in an email to the Buzz this afternoon.
“Last night, we showed that the best way to fix a City Hall that wasn’t listening was to run for office, and make the City listen.  Every day I’m inspired by my volunteers that have driven this campaign, and their energy builds me up. In the runoff, we’ll run the same way we did for the primary – one voter and one vote at a time. And if I’m chosen to serve on the City Council, I’ll govern the exact same way I ran the campaign: by listening to the community first. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” wrote Ryu.
Tomas O’Grady is also carefully watching the city election office.
“City clerk will release provisional numbers this afternoon. Official could take up to 21 days,” wrote O’Grady in a text message to the Buzz late this morning.
The City Charter Amendments, changing the timing of city elections to coincide with national elections, passed with a whopping 76% of voters in favor of the two measures.
The City has 21 days to certify election results. Â It usually doesn’t take that long, according to the City Clerk’s office, but there are 43,814 ballots election wide that need to be reviewed as part of the certification process. (though there is no way to know right now how many of the ballots are relevant to the CD 4 race.) The outstanding ballots include provisional ballots, vote-by-mail ballots that were illegible, or ballots that couldn’t be processed at the polling place for some reason.
