Election hangover: Yesterday's poll results

A low turnout and only a few surprises marked yesterday's general election in Philadelphia.

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Election hangover: Yesterday's poll results

POSTED: Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 9:54 AM

Those few voters who bothered to appear at the polls yesterday didn't throw too many curve balls. Michael Nutter is still mayor in Philadelphia — the only surprise being, perhaps, that Republican Karen Brown managed to claim 21.65 percent of the vote in yesterday's election. Brian O'Neill, longtime incumbent in the 10th District City Council seat, hung on despite a vigorous challenge from Bill Rubin, who was looking to link O'Neill with the politically toxic Deferred Retirement Option Plan. Mark Squilla, the heir apparent to Councilman Frank DiCicco's First District Council slot, won handily and threw a massive party in South Philly to celebrate (perhaps funded with the thousands of dollars that have come into his campaign even since it became clear that he had no serious challenger).

There were upsets though: Isaiah Thompson details the byzantine politics that almost (but maybe not quite!) quashed David Oh's chances of winning a Republican at-large City Council seat: Dennis O'Brien has the most votes, but Oh is still neck-and-neck with Al Taubenberger with 96 percent of voting precincts counted. He also looks at the larger implications of anti-establishment Republican Al Schmidt's win for City Commissioner here.

As for the voting process itself, there were some reports of political materials illegally being brought into polling places as well as late poll openings. But Committee of Seventy said the bulk of the issues it heard about centered on some polling places not posting required foreign-language notices in Spanish and Chinese. (Also, Karen Brown told CBS 3 her car had been vandalized for the 10th time on Tuesday.) Voter turnout was under 20 percent.

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