First things first:

The still unofficial totals, from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website as of midnight last night (and not yet updated):

 
A few caveats:

*Neither provisional ballots nor all absentee ballots received by 11/2/09 at the BOE are included in the above numbers.  I know for a fact that at least two people who voted for me had to vote provisionally and we suspect that there are others who had to do the same.  Primarily this happened because people either forgot ID and didn't want to go back and get it, had a change in address that had to be verified or had requested an absentee mail-in ballot but was now coming in to vote in person.  To prevent people from voting twice, the BOE has such folks vote provisionally so they can make sure only one ballot is cast.

*My absentee vote total was 593.  That placed me in fourth place (for four seats).  My total number of votes received on Election Day, excluding provisionals, was 733, thus a total of 1326.  And, in fact, more votes were cast for me on election day, at the polls, than for any of the other candidates, even though I was the fourth highest vote-getter out of six (I only needed to be fourth-highest thank goodness).

There are so many amazing stories and subjects I could write about in regard to this experience of running for - and winning - elected office.  But the one I want to share is about how much one vote matters. I know I can sound like a Pollyanna, but this story is for remembering when you think that one vote – your vote – or anyone else’s vote – does not matter.

I learned, through research in determining how I could win this election, that many Pepper Pike residents are indeed registered voters but do not use absentee ballots.  Yes, the number of absentees requested still totaled 31% of all registered voters in Pepper Pike, according to the Board of Elections.  But that meant that there was still 69% of our residents who were registered voters but either weren’t going to vote at all or would vote on Election Day.

My job was to get as many of that 69% to vote (and vote for me, of course!) on Election Day.  I did a lot of number crunching and analysis of who votes and who doesn’t and who I could reach – or who YOU could reach for me - to keep getting out the campaign’s message of bringing new perspectives to City Council.  And because, four years ago, the race results for this same group of seats included a tie between the fourth and fifth place vote-getters and therefore there was a fifteen-month legal pursuit for closure (decided in the end by a hanging chad and a coin toss), I really, really, REALLY wanted to GOTV, because I really really REALLY did not want to be involved in a tie for the final seat.

Thank goodness, yesterday, I saw countless examples of the success of my approach, but here is one of my favorites:

At 7:20pm, 10 minutes before the polls closed, after an absolutely exhausting day, week, month, campaign season, a woman and her husband got out of their car and started to walk in a rushed way to the doors of Garfield Memorial Church in the southern end of town.

The woman started to wave and shout to me as they walked quickly and I realized that it was a woman whose services I’ve used for more than ten years (okay - this is a women-oriented site - she waxes my brows!), whose husband is a well-established surgeon at one of our main hospitals and who raised three (now adult) children in Pepper Pike.  They have lived here for more than 30 years, on the same street, in the same house and have been empty-nesters for many years.

I knew that she wanted to vote and vote for me but I also knew that she and her husband had not requested mail-in absentee ballots. So I had called them and left a message for them on Monday, reminding them about election day, reminding them that there were county and state-wide issues of great importance that were also on the ballot, and reminding them that four years ago, two of the council candidates had tied and that one vote really does make a difference.

Then, in the message, I asked them to be please consider getting out and voting on Tuesday.

And there they were.  She shouted an apology for having arrived so late and I laughed back and just waved to her, motioning that she should get inside to do what she’d come to do.

THAT is an example of getting out the vote.  A concept whose acronym (GOTV) I had to Google just a few years ago to know what it was.

The residents of my city, and a whole of others, vicariously, got to see Jill run.  Now they and you get to see Jill win – because of the effort not just of me but so many other people. Of course I hope my performance over the next four years on City Council does the efforts justice, and I hope people will let me know when it’s not so that I can work harder for the community.

I continue to work to thank my family, my husband, my children, the politicos who have helped me, the neighbors, the new friends, the city personnel, the elections staff – everyone, including BlogHer.com and the BlogHer community.

This experience has been incredible, but I’m glad there is nearly four years before I have to even think about doing it again!

More reading on women and elections yesterday:

Women's Rights @ Change.org

From The Center for American Women and Politics, The Buzz for 2010 Elections

New Jersey Elects Woman as First Lieutenant Governor but Women Lose Ground in State Legislature

Sixty-One White House Project Alumni Ran for Office