Early absentee count helps incumbent narrow gap in Sausalito Marin City schools race - Marin IJ - 11/9/2006

Early absentee count helps incumbent narrow gap in Sausalito Marin City schools race
Staff Report
Article Launched:11/09/2006 11:43:49 PM PST

The race for a seat on the Sausalito Marin City School District board tightened Thursday as Marin election officials released results of newly counted absentee ballots.
Incumbent board member George Stratigos, who was trailing challenger Mark Trotter by just 53 votes election night, has closed the gap to 34 votes.

"That's great," Stratigos said. "I'd love to finish what I started."

Stratigos is the board's president and leader of the district's attempt to turn around 40 years of academic failure. Trotter is a former board member.

Stratigos added, "Either way, Sausalito Marin City wins for better schools. I'm just excited that we have a democratic process, and the schools are no longer outcasts."

The county's registrar of voters office added results of 11,000 absentee votes to Election Day totals Thursday. Those ballots were either turned in at the polls Tuesday or arrived in the mail too late to be counted on Election Day.

Tony Acquilino, a computer analyst for the county, estimated that another 14,000 to 15,000 absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted in Marin.

The registrar's office will release its next update Nov. 17, Acquilino said.

The outcome of some candidacies and measures on Tuesday's ballot hinged on results in Marin and Sonoma counties. Janice Atkinson, Sonoma county's assistant registrar, said she was unsure how many votes remain to be counted there. Atkinson said there are between 23,000 and 27,000 absentee ballots and an unknown number of provisional ballots still to be tallied.

Despite the number of uncounted ballots, backers of train tax Measure R have given up hope of eking out a victory. The initiative would have raised Marin and Sonoma counties' sales tax one-fourth of a cent to create a rail line from Cloverdale to Larkspur. It needed 66.7 percent of the vote to pass but fell short with 65 percent.

The newly counted Marin ballots added 5,852 votes in favor of Measure R and 4,631 opposing it.