The Moab City election has been an exciting race, with six candidates running for mayor and five candidates running for the two open seats on the city council. Last week, results for the city council seats were too close to be sure—Luke Wojciechowski and Josie Kovash were within one vote of each other in the third round of ranked-choice eliminations—but a third round of preliminary results were released on Nov. 5.
The results show Joette Langianese elected to mayor with 934 votes, 53.8% of the total. The race for mayor went through five rounds of ranked choice voting eliminations, and Langianese leading runner-up Bill Winfield by 131 votes.
In the race for city council, Jason Taylor took the first seat with 896 votes, or 51.6%. The race for the first seat went through four rounds of ranked choice voting eliminations, and was mostly between Taylor and Josie Kovash. In round three, Kovash was ahead of Luke Wojciechowski by two votes, meaning he was eliminated. Most of the first-choice votes for Wojciechowski then transferred to Kovash, but 90 votes transferred to Taylor, securing his seat by giving Taylor more than 50% of the votes.
The race for the second seat went through three rounds of eliminations. Wojciechowski and Mike McCurdy were within 23 votes of each other in round one (Wojciechowski with 586; McCurdy with 563). Anthony Charles was eliminated in round two. Kovash was eliminated in round three. The bulk of first-choice votes for Kovash then transferred to Wojciechowski, securing him the seat with 63.5% of the votes—1,060 votes to McCurdy’s 608.
This is the first year Moab has participated in the State of Utah’s ranked choice voting pilot program—because of that, votes are being counted in Utah County. The official vote canvass will occur no later than Nov. 16.
Elected officials will join current council members Rani Derasary, Kalen Jones and Tawny Knuteson-Boyd.
What did you think of ranked choice voting in this election? Did you like it? Hate it? We’re working on a story—email Alison Harford at alison.moabsunnews@gmail.com with your comments.
