Up all night

Election nights are some of the strangest times in the news business.

Riveting and tedious, they promise important news and unusual spectacle, but not a word of it breaks until after 8 p.m.

The Register had reporters and photographers at various Napa election night parties, taking it in as the partisans hunched over laptops and groused that Napa County Registrar of Voters John Tuteur did not release updated returns often enough. I dropped by Tuteur's office a couple of times Tuesday night and can report that he wasn't sitting in a cushy chair, throwing M&M's into the air to see how many would land in his mouth.

He was laboring, serving as part of the chain of command that moved boxes of ballots from delivery cars on First Street to the counting machine on the third floor of the registrar's office. Elections workers had initial results up at 8:09 p.m., and our reporters could then ask meaningful questions of the putative winners and losers. By 10 p.m., most reporters and photographers were back in the newsroom, preparing to submit their work and calling for last-minute quotes.

At 1:30 a.m., bleary-eyed page designer Michelle Choat, Night City Editor Jill Decker, youthful Web master Brian Kennedy and City Editor Dan Ross were punching in the numbers (complete for Napa County, about 80 percent complete statewide) and putting the paper to bed.

On the newsroom TV, the second-string anchors had long since taken over the network coverage.

The upset of the night in the Register newsroom: The pineapple pizza was far more popular than suggested by early polling.

Though we knew pre-election chatter would be obsolete by Wednesday, one colleague asked if we should publish the Register editorial board recommendations one more time. Old news, I thought. Besides, we don't endorse the candidates and measures we think will win; we choose the ones we think will best serve the public, same as you do.

But comparing Register endorsements to the outcomes is still an interesting exercise, so here's how it went: We made endorsements on all 13 state propositions, two local propositions, and for 18 candidates seeking 11 local offices, including races in which two or more would win a seat.

The voters went the same way we did on eight of 13 state initiatives, one of the two local initiatives, and with 16 of the 18 candidates.

The initiatives on which voters and the members of the Register editorial board differed include: Proposition 1A, on transportation funding; and Proposition 1D, the state school bond; Proposition 84, the water and coastal clean-up bond; Proposition 86, the cigarette tax; and Proposition 87, the alternative energy tax.

We did not endorse Calistoga Fire Chief Gary Kraus for city council, but Calistogans did. We did not endorse St. Helena school board candidate Jim Haslip, who edged incumbent Monty Reedy, and we said no to the county parks initiative, Measure I, while voters said aye. The voters and the editorial board saw eye-to-eye on the Yountville and American Canyon mayor and council races, the Napa council race, and on several school board seats.

Election night was exhilarating and exhausting, boring and profound. Can't wait for '08.