2013 SPECIAL ELECTION:
By Marissa Acierto
SCCPRESS.COM

Myrtle Cole and Dwayne Crenshaw are the top two candidates for the San Diego City Council, District 4. The two Democrats will continue forward to the Special Election run-off for the General Election on May 21, 2013.

The last update for the final count of provisional and absentee ballots was on March 28, 2013 which had Myrtle Cole with 32.31% or 4304 votes. Dwayne Crenshaw came in second with 2025 vote, 15.20 %.

In a surprise showing, Pastor Ray Smith, a neophyte political candidate placed 4th out of 9 candidates. He had no mailers, but several yard signs in areas where other candidates did not. Meanwhile, the lone Filipino American candidate Tony Villafranca had no mailers too, but placed 8th out of 9 candidates. His campaign only had specks of sign visibility.

Despite the high percentage of Filipino Americans and Asian Americans in the district, their candidates did not received as many votes as projected, despite Asian American groups that went out to raise awareness through a Get-Out-To-Vote campaign, door hangers, and emails including social media.

The lone Latina candidate, Blanca Lopez-Brown, placed 5th receiving 1084 votes. Following Lopez-Brown was Asian and Lao American Sirivanh “Sandy” Spackman which had the lone local SD Republican Party endorsement. The GOP assisted with a Get-Out- To-Vote campaign.

Unfortunately, one of the top projected candidates Bruce Williams placed 7th. The late start on his candidacy hurt his campaign. Barry Pollard receoved the third most votes living up to his billing as a top contender.

The special election on May 21 will be the last election that is under the voting district prior to the redistricting in 2010.

The candidate who wins will be serving the final half the term vacated by Tony Young which will end in 2014.