This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
An official count of votes Tuesday night didn't change the outcome in any Salt Lake County municipal races from the Nov. 5 election.
In Salt Lake City's closest contest, Council District 1, James Rogers expanded his lead over Kevin S. Parke to clinch an official 68-vote win — for a victory margin of less than 3 percent.
The closest mayoral race in Salt Lake County was in South Jordan, where challenger Dave Alvord, a dentist, edged Mayor Scott Osborne, who had been appointed mid-term. Tuesday's canvass confirmed that win but boosted Alvord's victory cushion from just 19 votes in the unofficial tally to 100. Still, the margin was less than 1 percent of the more than 10,000 votes cast.
The canvass — counting mail-in and provisional ballots — also confirmed the ouster of two South Jordan council members. In District 5, Christopher Rogers defeated Larry Short and Don Shelton beat Brian Butters in District 3.
Holladay's mayoral election actually tightened with the official vote count. Robert Dahle won a 142-vote victory in earlier unofficial results — but that shrank to just an 88-vote lead over D. Blaine Anderson with the final official count. That margin was just 1.8 percent of the nearly 5,000 votes cast.
Another close mayoral contest was in South Salt Lake, where the canvass increased Mayor Cherie Wood's margin of victory over challenger Derk O. Pehrson from 37 votes to 49 votes — 2.5 percent of the nearly 2,000 votes cast.
West Valley City — the largest municipality to hold a mayoral election — saw Ron Bigelow defeat City Councilwoman Karen Lang in a landslide. The final count put the victory margin at 62 percent to 38 percent.
The Salt Lake Tribune