The final Sacramento City Council election results did not yield any last-minute statistical miracles.

Furthermore, a Sacramento city clerk’s predictions about City Council runoffs proved true: The leading two candidates in Districts 5 and 7 will compete in a Nov. 2 runoff election.

The county elections office finished counting ballots from the June 8 election on Wednesday. Candidates Jay Schenirer and Patrick Kennedy will run for the District 5 seat, while candidates Darrell Fong and Ryan Chin will square off in District 7.

Incumbent District 1 City Councilman Ray Tretheway lost his battle against challenger Angelique Ashby — just barely.

A City Council candidate needs at least 50 percent of the vote plus one vote to win. The final count shows Ashby with 50.99 percent of the vote. Tretheway trailed with 41 percent.

Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno noted that the county elections office will need to invalidate the 25 write-in votes cast in the District 1 race. (There were no official write-in candidates in any of the City Council races, Mizuno said. However, some people wrote in names anyway.) Once those write-in votes are removed from the record, Ashby’s win will be more secure, according to Mizuno.

Incumbent Councilman Robbie Waters lost the District 7 race, while incumbent Councilman Steve Cohn won the District 3 competition.

Brad Buyse, Sacramento County’s campaign services manager, said it usually takes the county three weeks to certify election results. This year’s count was conducted in “a normal amount of time,” he said. He pointed out that state law gives the county 28 consecutive days after Election Day to certify election results.

The county should have data Thursday on how many ballots total it counted for the June 8 election, according to Buyse.

Now that the ballots are counted, Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Jill Lavine will officially certify the election results and send the data to the California Secretary of State’s office, Buyse said.

In response to questions, Mizuno checked voter turnout rates in 2006 and this year for City Council Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7. She said the turnout rate was about the same in both election years.

Voter turnout in District 1 was about 30 percent this year, compared to about 32 percent in 2006, according to Mizuno. In the 2006 District 1 election, Tretheway ran unopposed and the number of registered voters was lower, she said.

In District 3, about 40 percent of registered voters cast ballots in both 2006 and 2010, Mizuno said.

Roughly 32 percent of registered voters turned out for the June election in District 5. In 2006, about 35 percent of voters went to the polls.

About 42 percent of voters cast ballots in District 7 in June, while 41 percent voted in 2006, according to Mizuno.

Photo by Suzanne Hurt.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.