Write-in candidate results

The write-in candidate results are in, and boy are they underwhelming. None even reached three digits, with Lynn Smith leading the pack at 93 votes.

Clerk & Recorder: Kevin Slevin 61
City Council D01: Gerald Styron 6
City Council D08: Lynn Smith 93
City Council D09: Ray Barela 9
City Council D11: William Helfrich 0

If you voted for someone who was not an authorized write-in candidate, your vote was not tabulated. That means we'll have no official tabulation of the votes for "Santa Claus," "George Washington," "Martha Stewart," or the ever-popular "John Elway." Sorry, folks!

CD1: Garcia running (officially) unopposed

Jason Bane wrote an article for Denver's 5280 Magazine that Councilman Rick Garcia is going to have an unexpectedly easier time running for re-election. The title of the piece was "You’ve Got to Know When to Fold ‘Em":

Denver’s city elections in May won’t be all that exciting given that many candidates don’t have challengers. Yesterday was the deadline to turn in signatures in order to qualify for the ballot, and four city council candidates didn’t even draw an opponent because nobody submitted any signatures. As the Rocky Mountain News reports, a fifth name could be added to that list…but one guy is still trying anyway. Gerald Lee Styron failed to collect enough signatures to make the ballot in Council District 1 (North Denver), but he says he’s running as a write-in candidate.

That’s probably not a good idea, because I can virtually guarantee that Styron won’t beat incumbent Rick Garcia.

How do I know that?

Styron only needed to get 100 signatures in order to get his name on the ballot. 100!

If he couldn’t find 100 people who thought he should run for city council, the chances are pretty good that he’s not going to get a lot of people willing to write his name on the ballot in May.