Write-In Votes Don’t Alter Final Results of Elections

Some vote tallies from last week’s election changed when ballots with write-in votes were counted, but final results remained the same.

Elections in Rolling Hills Estates, Hawthorne and the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District were affected because some races in those areas had official write-in candidates. Ballots that had write-in votes were not counted immediately.

A few remaining ballots are expected to be counted by today, but the tallies won’t be official until the final canvass of votes is completed Nov. 23.

According to the latest count, write-in candidate William H. Ailor III received 788 votes in the Rolling Hills Estates City Council race, still behind Councilman Peter Weber, who was reelected with 903 votes. Also returned to office were Councilman Warren A. Schwarzmann, with 1,281 votes, and Mayor Hugh H. Muller, 1,263. Trailing were Dan E. Butcher, 409, and Carl Woodrow Robertson II, 393.

In Hawthorne, Mike Martin, a write-in candidate for City Council, received 467 votes, far behind two council members who were reelected: Steven Andersen, 2,064, and Ginny M. Lambert, 2,062. Another candidate, Eleanore I. Carlson, received 1,140 votes. Mayor Betty J. Ainsworth was reelected with 2,531 votes, defeating Kathleen Corsiglia, 820. Proposition H, the property tax measure to pay for more paramedics, received 1,749 yes votes to 1,609 no votes, but it failed to receive the two-thirds approval needed for passage.

JoAnne Schoetzow received 43 write-in votes in the race for the Palos Verdes Peninsula School Board. Elected were Jack Bagdasar, with 4,472 votes, and Joseph P. Sanford, 3,634. Others: Barbara (Mimi) Horowitz, 3,316; Brigitte Schuegraf, 2,835; Steven T. Kuykendall, 2,480; and Eric Engstrom, 495.