American Fork Election Results (Tentative)

I’ve been waiting to post local election results, hoping for numbers more recent than 10:09 p.m. on election night — given that most of the ballots were mailed, and a lot of them presumably didn’t arrive in time to be counted on Tuesday evening.

I finally called the county clerk’s office, where I learned that state law requires them to publish updated numbers on Fridays and Tuesdays, until the final canvass two weeks after election day. They said they might publish an update sooner, but so far they haven’t.

So without waiting further, let’s see what we know.

American Fork Mayor

Understanding that there are votes yet to be counted, there is one clear winner in the American Fork mayoral race, and only a theoretical possibility that the second-place finisher could change. Brad Frost and Carlton Bowen advance to the general election.

Brad Frost

• Brad Frost: 1,432 votes, or 79.8%
• Carlton Bowen: 258 votes, or 18.0%
• Daniel Copper: 69 voters, or 3.8%

Looking ahead, given the 62-point margin, it’s hard to imagine Brad Frost not winning the general election in November. But as they say, that’s why we play the game. In some local electoral systems, finishing with more than 50 percent of the vote in a race involving three or more candidates would be an immediate victory, and the general election would be avoided altogether in this race, but it doesn’t work that way in American Fork.

American Fork City Council

It is more plausible that votes counted after 10:09 p.m. Tuesday will change the names on the November ballot for American Fork City Council, where there will be four candidates for two seats. Only nine votes separate the last in, Ernie John, with the first out, Jeff Shorter, so that’s essentially a dead heat, until more votes are counted and reported. Meanwhile, it’s safe to say that Barbara Christiansen and Staci Carroll will advance to the general election, and it’s likely that Kyle Barratt will advance as well.

Barbara Christiansen

Staci Carroll

Kyle Barratt

Ernie John

• Barbara Christiansen, 832 votes or 46.4% (percentage based on ballots cast, not total city council votes)
• Staci Carroll, 651 votes or 36.3%
• Kyle Barratt, 449 votes or 25.0%
• Ernie John, 385 votes or 21.5%
• Jeffrey Shorter, 376 votes or 21.0%
• Doug Richards, 247 votes or 13.8%
• Aaron Clegg, 198 votes or 11.0%
• Bill Houlin (withdrew), 52 votes or 2.9%

If you want to watch the updates yourself or see results from elsewhere in Utah County, they’re at the county website.

Turnout

At the moment, turnout stands at 13.3 percent — not terrible for local primary, not great either. However, that number will increase as more votes are counted and reported.

Third Congressional District Republican Primary

Again, we await a more complete report, but the winner is not likely to change — even if Chris Herrod still refuses to concede until more votes are counted.

• John Curtis, 18,898 votes or 42.2%
• Chris Herrod, 13,674 votes or 30.5%
• Tanner Ainge, 12,234 votes or 27.3%

If you want to want updates yourself, get them here. Utah County reports only votes from Utah County.

This result is interesting because John Curtis finished fifth, I’m told, at the Republican convention, and Tanner Ainge wasn’t even in that race. It’s a clear indicator that convention delegates are well to the right of Utah Republicans in general. (This is probably exacerbated by many departures from the party in the last year of so, including mine.) One wonders if the Utah GOP will take any measures to attract less extreme delegates, or if they will simply continue to challenge signatures as an alternate route to the primary ballot and attempt to handicap candidates who choose that route.

You might enjoy Robert Gehrke’s piece in the Salt Lake Tribune, “Why we can all celebrate John Curtis’ win in the 3rd District Republican primary.”

(For my part, I’m like the caucus/convention system as a means to reduce a large field of candidates to two for a primary; I like it less when it actually determines a single nominee. And I’m fine with closed primaries, even though I didn’t get to vote in this one.)

Stay tuned. I’ll post updates when I have them.