In Mission Viejo’s City Council general election, voters must decide whether to re-elect candidates who have been in office for years or to opt for new faces.
Early voting results show incumbents leading in nearly every race as of early morning Nov. 9.
In District 1—the only race without an incumbent running—Bob Ruesch leads with 53.4 percent of the vote. His two opponents Deborah Cunningham-Skurnik and Linda Shepard follow with 25.4 percent and 21.2 percent, respectively.
For District 2, incumbent Brian Goodell comes out ahead with 59.4 percent, while challenger Stacy Holmes has 40.6 percent of the vote.
Due to Mission Viejo’s new by-district voting system, two current councilors are vying for the District 3 seat—incumbent Greg Raths and mayor pro-tem Ed Sachs—along with newcomer Cynthia Vasquez. Raths has a narrow lead with 38.1 percent, while Vasquez is close behind at 37.3 percent and Sachs has 24.5 percent.
District 4’s incumbent Trish Kelley stands at 65.3 percent, while Terri Aprati has 34.7 percent.
Incumbent and Mayor Wendy Bucknam gathered 64.3 percent of the vote for District 5, while Jon Miller gained 35.7 percent.
This year marks the first time the city’s elections are held through a district voting system—where voters choose their representatives in the district they live—instead of an at-large voting system, which means each voter can decide on all seats up for election.
In 2018, the council was sued by a resident who claimed it violated California’s voting law after failing to change its election system.
For three years, the council attempted to implement a cumulative voting system in which voters receive as many votes as open seats and may cast multiple votes for the same candidate. But it was ultimately blocked by the California Secretary of State, who said the council needed approval from the state Legislature first.
Earlier this year, a series of lawsuits challenged the terms of councilors who were elected in 2018 and 2020, when the city was attempting to switch to cumulative voting.
In both elections, candidates were elected for two-year terms, but after those plans were delayed and discarded, the councilors stayed in office for four-year terms.
An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled in August that Bucknam, Raths, and Sachs overstayed their terms and ordered their removal from the dais. However, an appellate court halted their removal after the councilors appealed.
All five councilors who are elected in this race will serve for four years.
