Each election, the Department of Elections sets up a command station at the North Light Court at City Hall.

A television flashes the latest counts for the propositions and key races from SFGTV (Channel 26). Periodically (every 45 minutes or so), John Artnz, the director of the Department of Elections, will stand at a podium and update consultants and political junkies about the count.

At 8:30 p.m., I walked into the North Light after phonebanking for Proposition A. Approximately 35 people were there. The first count of the absentee votes were counted.

The surprise was that Jake McGoldrick, incumbent Supervisor for D-1, was not in the top 12 for the Democratic County Central Committee for the 12th AD. Tom Hsieh, an ally of the Mayor, had the largest number of votes for 12th AD DCCC, while District 9 Supervisoral Candidate David Campos lead with the most number of votes in the 13th AD DCCC. Thomas Mellon had a substantial lead on his challengers for Superior Court #12 seat. Proposition A had received 61% (the requirement was 66% since it was a parcel tax).

So I settled in and watch the consultants and various groups try to get any gleam of information that they could. A group of young Republicans and Chris Bowman were gleeful about Mellon (a Republican) and that Proposition G (Lennar’s initiative for Bayview/Hunters Point) was winning, while Daly’s Proposition F was losing. Tim Redmond, editor of the Bay Guardian, was posting on his blog. Rick Knee, commissioner on the Sunshine Task Force, was freelancing for Associated Press. Suited men and a few woman were calling clients on their cellphones to give them the latest update.

Around 9:15 p.m., the results for 16% of the vote came in. Mellon’s lead was holding at 46.24% with Sandoval at 39.14%. McGoldrick had still not gotten into the top 12 for the 12th District DCCC. Proposition A had gone up to 63.37%. Leno’s lead over Migden now stood at 54.11% over 33.63%.

At that point, Tim Redmond left with half of the story still left to be written and 83% of the vote not yet reported.

I talked to several supporters of Proposition F. They were still holding onto hope that Proposition F would bounce back up. Sandoval’s point person was holding tempered optimistism that Mellon’s lead was not deepen and thus, there would be a runoff between Mellon and Sandoval. The point person was confident that even though the judge seat was a nonpartisan race, voters were towards Sancoval who has pointedly used “Democrat” on his signs and material.

Around 10:15 p.m., Arntz came into the North Light. Seeing that only six or eight people were left to watch the count, he gathered us around him. His assistants handed out the results for 86% of the vote and Arntz promised that he would have all of the results in a half hour.

At that point, the consultants left. Proposition A was now at 69.6%. It now looked that it had enough votes to win.

The supporters for Proposition F saw that with 89% of the vote counted for that initiative, 62.o4% voted “No” on Propositon F and that Lennar’s countermeasure, Proposition G was winning with 61.42% of the voters saying “Yes.”

Sandoval’s representative was excited. Sandoval jumped into the lead with 44% of the vote, Mellon at 42.41% of the vote and Mary Mallen falling to 13%. Sandoval got his wish-there will be a runoff in November.

McGoldrick finally cracked the top 12 of the Democratic Central County Committee for the 12th Assembly. He had bumped off incumbent Trevor McNeil and was now 10th out of 12. Arlo Hale Smith, an incumbent on the DCCC who acts at the DCCC’s parliamentarian, rose to the number one stop on the 12th AD DCCC. David Campos was now sharing the lead in the 13th AD DCCC with BOS President Aaron Peskin.

Susan Leal in a suit and a scarf came into the Light Court with Supervisor Bevan Dufty. Neither Leal nor Dufty talked to anyone in the Light Court. Former PUC GM Leal was following how well Proposition E was doing. Proposition E would require that four of the five commission members come with credentials in areas f consumer advocacy, environmental policy, finance and utility management as well as reducing the threshold for rjecting a mayoral nomination from eight to six votes. Proposition E would also not allow a nominee to serve until the BOS has acted without a deadline for the BOS to act on. Proposition E was winning with 52.75% of their vote. Their spokesperson, Meagan Levitan was running for 12th AD DCCC as an incumbent. She was placing right behind McGoldrick at 11th place.

After a half hour and no new results, the crowd evaporated. Only a television crew from a Spanish language station, Rick Knee and I were left in the large North Light Court. A representative from the Department of Elections came into the Light Court and told us, “John will be here in a few minutes.”

As the minutes stretch into ten minutes, the television crew bid us goodbye as they left the building. Rick and I sat down and talked about our projections for the November election. It’s a good sign for Campos that he was at the top of the DCCC. As the person who Ammiano endorsed to take over his supervisorial seat in D-9, the perception of Campos being the frontrunner in the race will deepen.

Mar also won handily in his DCCC and that speaks well for his fall race for supervisor in D-1. Mar also worked with others to create a slate piece for others in the race-and they all won, including Hene Kelly and Michael Bornstein. The only one who was lagging was the incumbent Jake McGoldrick, who has endorsed Mar to take over his seat when McGoldrick’s term ends in November.

Arntz never did come back. But one of his assistants arrived at 11:00 p.m. with the final results.