One incumbent and three newcomers triumphed in both the Democratic and Republican Saucon Valley School Board primary elections Tuesday, on a day when overall voter turnout was reportedly low throughout Saucon Valley and Northampton County as a whole.
Tracy Magnotta
In a crowded field that included eight candidates (seven of whom were cross-filed) and two incumbents vying for four seats, Tracy Magnotta, Cedric Dettmar, Sandra Miller (I) and Shamim Pakzad came out on top.
On the Democratic ballot, unofficial county results have Magnotta–who ran unsuccessfully as a write-in candidate in 2015–as the top vote-getter across 11 precincts, with 17.68 percent or 666 votes.
Cedric Dettmar
The other top three vote-getters were:
- Sandra Miller – 605 votes (16.06 percent)
- Cedric Dettmar – 589 votes (15.64 percent)
- Shamim Pakzad – 559 votes (14.84 percent)
On the Republican ballot, unofficial county results have Dettmar as the top vote-getter, with 560 votes, or 20.17 percent of the total votes cast.
Sandra Miller
The other top three vote-getters were:
- Tracy Magnotta – 489 votes (17.61 percent)
- Shamim Pakzad – 434 votes (15.63 percent)
- Sandra Miller – 394 votes (14.19 percent)
Shamim Pakzad
The other candidates were Scott Babashak, Joseph Harvey, Matthew Milliren and Jack Dowling (I).
Milliren did not cross-file and appeared only on the Democratic ballot, where he finished in seventh place with 308 votes (8.18 percent of the total) after Babashak (417 votes; 11.07 percent) and Harvey (342 votes; 9.08 percent). Dowling finished in eighth place with 275 votes (7.30 percent).
On the Republican ballot, Dowling finished in fifth place with 334 votes (12.03 percent), Harvey finished in sixth place with 291 votes (10.48 percent) and Babashak finished in seventh place with 269 votes (9.69 percent).
Because the same four people were the top four finishers on both the Democratic and Republican ballots, barring a succesful write-in challenge from another individual, the four candidates who won in Tuesday’s primary election are virtually assured election to the four open seats on the school board in November.
