Absentee ballots solidify 2d District election results

State Rep. Kenyatta Johnson has apparently won the Democratic nomination to replace Anna C. Verna as City Councilman from the Second District, representing most of South and Southwest Philadelphia.

Johnson held a slim but solid 46-vote lead Monday over his nearest rival, Barbara Capozzi, as city election officials completed counting the absentee and provisional ballots cast in the Second District in last week's primary election.

Absentee ballots for the rest of the city are expected to be counted Tuesday, possibly resolving the other too-close-to-call primary race – the contest between Karen Brown and John Featherman for the Republican mayoral nomination.

Brown holds a 57-vote lead over Featherman based on voting-machine results, but there are 177 absentee ballots, 20 alternative ballots from voters with disabilities, and an unspecified number of provisional ballots yet to be counted.

The Second District results will not be official until the three-judge panel sitting as city commissioners certifies the results, a step expected in early June. It is still possible that some additional votes could arrive in the mail, from soldiers whose absentee ballots may arrive as late as 5 p.m. Tuesday.

But no issues suggesting that Capozzi will be able to overturn Johnson's apparent victory in the four-way race have surfaced.

The other candidates were Tracey Gordon and Damon K. Roberts, who withdrew a week before the election, too late to remove his name from the ballot.

The Republican candidate, unopposed in the primary, is Ivan Cohen, 66, a boxing manager . Cohen is a longtime Republican committeeman, making his first run for public office.

Capozzi, a real estate agent and developer, sat glumly Monday in an office building at Delaware Avenue and Spring Garden Street as election workers opened absentee ballots and announced the results, one vote at a time, split almost evenly between Johnson and Capozzi.

She declined comment to a reporter, but afterward issued a statement that she is "considering all options" with regard to the election results.

Johnson, 37, now serving his second term in the state House, is a native of Point Breeze with an undergraduate degree from Mansfield State University and a master's in government administration from the University of Pennsylvania.