Write-ins won minimal support in Senate race

There were 11,324 total votes cast in San Bernardino County in the state’s 21st Senate District special election, with a combined total of just 208 votes garnered by local write-in candidates, according to final certified results posted Monday.

Joshua Conaway, a Democrat from Apple Valley, received 141 votes, while Republican Jerry Laws, of Victorville, collected 67. Conaway and Laws were two of six write-in candidates challenging eventual runaway victor Sharon Runner for the open seat, and the only two from the Victor Valley.

The two-county 21st Senate District is more than two-thirds encompassed by Los Angeles County, with the remaining third mostly in the Victor Valley.

There were 17,850 votes cast in Los Angeles County, according to that county’s elections office.

Only 844 voters in San Bernardino County turned out to 16 polling places last week, while 10,480 voted by mail. Just 8.28 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, a dismal participation rate that had been expected partly because Runner’s name was alone on the ballot.