Here’s my review of the School Board election results after looking precinct by precinct:

Turnout:
Clairemont East: 26%
Clairemont West: 20%
Glennwood: 13%
Oakhurst: 25%
Ponce: 13%
Renfroe: 26%
Winnona Park: 28%

So while voter turnout was kind of weak overall (but substantially increased over the last municipal election’s turnout of 15% citywide), it’s Glennwood and Ponce that stand out as having the lowest turnouts, which matches what people were reporting from the polls on Election Day. Don’t ask me what the difference is between what areas go to Clairemont East vs West. The two polling places are churches right across the street from one another.

Garrett vs Marc:

Clairemont East: Marc won
Clairemont West: Garrett won by a hair
Glennwood: Marc won
Ponce: Marc won

There were only 32 absentee votes split pretty evenly so they didn’t make a difference.
Only one write-in vote.

If Clairemont West could have had a better voter turnout than only 20%, they might have influenced the election more. Marc clearly won but I would recommend that he find out what the issues are for Clairemont West voters.

Rob vs Valarie:

Clairemont East: Rob overwhelmingly won
Clairemont West: Rob won
Glennwood: Rob won by a hair
Oakhurst: Valarie overwhelmingly won
Ponce: Valerie won by a hair
Renfroe: Valerie won
Winnona Park: Valerie won

On polling night, Rob won by 16 votes, 1350 to 1334.

But there were 105 absentee votes, 31 for Rob and 73 for Valarie and one for a write-in.
Total write-in votes were only 6.

So in my opinion, the early/absentee votes were the deciding factor in this very close race. If Clairemont West, Ponce, and Glennwood, which had the three lowest turnouts had been able to get more voters out, they clearly could have tipped the election one way or another. I recommend that Valarie seek to understand the issues for the half of the voters who didn’t vote for her as well the issues for the half that did.

Bernadette Seals got 997 votes with the most write-in votes: 18.

For the next School Board election, I’d recommend that candidates work harder on influencing earlier in the campaign, before the absentee and early votes go in, and on getting the vote out. Oh, and the issues are important too…

As a point of clarification, the Cityof Decatur does not appoint anyone to a voting review committee. We contract with the DeKalb County Board of Elections to handle all aspects of the process. We had one staff person at the Board of Elections headquarters on Memorial Drive. She was there representing the City Clerk so that we could get information to post at City Hall and place on the website. I believe that campaign committees can have poll watchers and election watchers present during the ballot count and it is possible that is who was there but there was no one appointed by the City to supervise the ballot count.