Brian’s Utah Weblog

Chris at YDems handled the liveblogging for today. I couldn’t be at the redistricting committee, so I was happy to see another member of the Utah blogging community there to cover it.

A technology note on the difference between blogging at the county and the legislature:

The legislature’s wireless internet is great but Salt Lake County’s wireless internet is not as wonderful.  While the bandwidth is great, the county has chosen to block access to an apparently random set of sites.  And no, I wasn’t surfing illicit sites in a room with 40 other people walking in and out looking over my shoulder. The county also closes off all outgoing ports except 80 and 443, which makes server maintenance next to impossible.

FINAL RESULTS (two election results change):

4:42 Here we are at 4:42 in the County Council chambers as the council is about to reconvene to count ballots in its capacity as the Board Of Canvassers. Planned start time for this session was 4:40.

4:46 Convening, Sherrie Swensen is speaking.

4:47 Races that changed: State Rep 22, Carl Duckworth (D-Magna) wins by 33 votes. County Auditor Elect Jeff Hatch wins by 1235 votes.

Races with no change: Laura Black loses to Rep. Mark Walker by 18 votes. Speaker Greg Curtis retains his office over Jay Seegmiller by 19.

Good News

Parents For Choice In Education loses its one success and the state House gets one seat more secure for public education. If you were worried about public education (the previous poll subject here), take this as a big victory.

Bad News

I really wanted to defeat Greg Curtis, and we didn’t;  Jay Seegmiller would have made us proud in the House. Laura Black would have been (and may yet be in another year) a great legislator.

Final

Here at the County Council work chamber candidates in razor thin races like Jay Seegmiller, Laura Black, Jeff Hatch, and Phil Riesen sat to hear Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen reveal the final results to the County Board Of Canvassers. Two Democrats had something to celebrate. District 22 Rep. Carl Duckworth (D-Magna) survived the challenger who was ahead by 25 votes on election night and reversed that into a 33 vote margin for his reelection and County Auditor-elect Jeff Hatch reversed a 344 vote deficit to win by 1235 votes.

It was a heartbreaker, though, for Laura Black who challenged District 45 Rep. Mark Walker (R-Murray) and Jay Seegmiller who challenged House Speaker and District 49 Rep. Greg Curtis (R-Sandy).

Seegmiller was 46 votes behind and almost made up the difference only to lose by 19. Knocking off Greg Curtis would have been an important symbolic victory. Maybe Jay will agree to get out and run for the sake of Utah one more time. Laura Black was down 32 on election day and ended up down 18. Both Black and Seegmiller will request the automatic recounts in their districts.

One special point is that Parents For Choice In Education, the anti-public school group with almost a million dollars of out of state money, lost the one race it claimed to have swung this year when Carl Duckworth survived. PCE relied on lies and unfounded attack flyers against Democrats because they knew their real agenda of draining money out of public schools for out of state corporations was opposed by voters. It’s nice to see people like that lose.

Final Salt Lake County election results.

When the canvass is done today, the poll will come down.  Vote on the main page in the right hand column.  The Salt Lake County Board Of Canvassers is starting their final meeting right now.