Now that the final July 30 election results have been posted by Coconino and Yavapai Counties, Sedona residents should be utterly disappointed by the final numbers in the race for Sedona mayor and Sedona City Council. In no way should the election be considered a real “victory” for anyone — the only winner here is voter apathy.
Sedona’s voter turnout dropped significantly between the races for mayor in November 2022 and July 2024, falling from 80.7% to a dismal 44.32%, meaning that some 45.1% of Sedona’s 2022 voters decided not to cast ballots in this election.
That’s also lower than the 45.9% voter turnout in Yavapai County as a whole — the first time that has happened in recent memory.
Of Arizona’s 15 counties, Yavapai County invariably has the highest voter turnout, anywhere between 5% and 10% higher than the nearest county, with the highest ever being seen during the 2020 November general election, at 87.63%. Sedona’s voter turnout that year was 89.64%, while Gila County had 82.52% voter turnout, Pima 82.45% and Coconino 81.58%.
Sedona’s turnout in July might be the lowest ever for a contested election.
Don’t chalk it up to the difference between a robust November general election and a limited summer partisan primary: In the 2022 primary, a midterm election year, not a high-energy presidential one, 4,434 votes were cast in the four-way mayoral election, some 1,274 more votes than in the July 2024 mayoral race. Sedona’s voter turnout in that 2022 primary was 55.56%, 25.4% higher than it was last month.
Even the 2020 primary had a higher voter turnout at just over 49%, and that occurred in the midst of the COVID- 19 pandemic’s second wave, as voters coped with social distancing, national headlines about 8,400 deaths a week, no vaccines in sight, few competitive federal partisan primaries to draw voters and a race for Sedona City Council that was effectively uncontested — a homeless, official write-in candidate jumped in, but picked up about 2.2% of the final vote.
The winning candidate for mayor in the 2024 race, Scott Jablow, got fewer total votes — a mere 1,712 across Sedona in both Yavapai and Coconino counties — than 2022 mayoral hopeful Samaire Armstrong got in just Yavapai County alone: 1,770.
For his reelection bid in 2024, Jablow only pulled 52.7% of the votes that he did for his first run in 2022. He lost a staggering 1,532 voters in the intervening two years; 84 more than voted for his 2024 opponent.
To put that in perspective, had all those voters Jablow lost over the last two years decided to cast ballots for a third candidate in the recent 2024 mayoral race, that candidate and Jablow would be now heading to a November runoff because they would have been 635 votes short of the needed threshold.
With less than half of Sedona’s voters deciding who they wanted to be mayor in 2024 and the incumbent winning just 54.18% of that — 2.7% less than his 2022 win — Jablow earned the support of merely 24.01% of Sedona’s registered voters — nothing close to a “mandate” by any stretch.
Voters also seemed disappointed by their choices for Sedona City Council, because candidates couldn’t garner many votes from those who did cast ballots. With voters allowed to vote for up to three candidates for the three open seats, some 1,691 “undervotes” went unused on ballots, with voters only picking one or two candidates. Election officials didn’t give a breakdown of how many only voted two or one, but it means that roughly 18% to 30% of voters didn’t vote a full ballot. That speaks volumes about how voters viewed their options.
It should be disappointing to every candidate who campaigned, gathered signatures, collected donations, spent funds and worked hard to reach voters that so few of them actually decided to cast ballots in the election. A narrow win eked out thanks to an apathetic population apparently disappointed by their choices is certainly not worth any victory lap. It’s an embarrassing wake-up call that voters just aren’t that into you.
Based on how crowded some council meetings can be and the hundreds of Facebook comments, dozens of emails and number of letters we get daily about the news, Sedona residents are politically invested in their community; they clearly just weren’t impressed by their election choices.
They want a diverse slate, and if it’s not offered, they don’t vote grudgingly, they just don’t vote at all — and voter turnout plummets, as the numbers show.
We urge the Sedona City Council and especially the candidates who got more votes than others — “win” doesn’t really feel appropriate — activists, political groups and voter advocacy nonprofits to push a major get-out-the-vote campaign, vow to host forums, educate and urge invested residents to run for office and do everything possible to get voters to the polls in the next election. Being elected by less than a quarter of voters isn’t representative and it isn’t democratic. Voters can do better if the choices are worth their time.
