You may or may not be aware that we have an election coming up in about 5 weeks. After the 2006 elections, I became interested in what Alameda’s election history, at least in the past 35 years, looks like and was surprised to find that there were no easy resources to dig into to get the election results for past elections. Working with the city clerk’s office, I was able to dig up election info for all the municipal elections from 1970 onward. I’ll put it all up online in the next few days.

In looking at the info and in the spirit of the upcoming vote, I figured it might be amusing to post the results of our elections past this week.

Looking at the mayoral elections, two things jump out: first, holding your mayoral elections in an off year, when there are no state or federal elections, as Alameda did up until 1991, has a significant affect in how many people vote. Despite the Naval Air Station closing and the resulting decrease in population, many more people voted for mayor in 1994 onward than did previously.

Second, Beverly Johnson received more votes for mayor two years ago, than any candidate in the last 35 years (and likely ever) and is therefore the city’s most popularly elected official by that measure, a close second is Ralph Appezzato. She also ranks 4th on the list of highest percent of the vote (out of 10 elections). What’s also interesting is how high her percentage was in 2002 when she ran against two other well known politicians in town.