Scott Malsin knew he could rest easy Tuesday night.

For just about everyone else associated with Culver City’s general election on Tuesday, April 13 the what-ifs and contingencies will continue for perhaps a few more days.

Malsin, the lone incumbent member of the Culver City City Council up for re--election, easily secured a second four-year term on the five-man council, collecting almost 34% of the nearly 8,000 votes cast in person and by mail by Culver City voters.

The numbers won’t become official until last-minute vote-by-mail ballots can be verified, as well as any provisional -ballots that may have been cast. However, with city officials estimating only 450 or so ballots left to count, Malsin and his supporters gathered at the Culver Hotel were able to get an immediate start on a victory celebration.

“Culver City is a great community,” said Malsin soon after city officials, with the help of Martin & Chapman, an Anaheim-based consulting firm, finished the unofficial ballot count. “My sense when I was walking through our neighborhoods and talking to voters is that they like what’s happening here in town.

“It was really nice to celebrate how far Culver City has come and where it’s going. It feels good. It feels really good. I had a great time. The campaign was wonderful. It’s a unique thing to get to do.”

As the lone incumbent seeking one of two open council seats, Malsin figured to have the advantage of name recognition when voters marked their ballots, and that was borne out almost from the start. The vote count began with the first batch of vote-by-mail ballots at 8:08 p.m., and it took just two precincts for Malsin to nab a lead he would not relinquish.

At the conclusion of tabulations for the 13 vote-by-mail precincts, Malsin held a 200-vote edge against both Jeff Cooper and Meghan Sahli-Wells, with Robert Zirgulis trailing those two by a wide margin in fourth place. The gap continued to grow as the ballots from each of Tuesday’s precincts were unsealed at City Hall, with the final votes posted at 9:53 p.m.

Malsin’s final tally was 2,662 votes, good for a nearly 400-vote margin of victory.

“It was nice to pull ahead early on and not have to think about that and not have to worry about that,” said Malsin, who received text messages throughout the vote count from campaign supporters stationed in City Hall.

By contrast, the race to see which newcomer will grab the second seat has still not officially crossed the finish line. With the aforementioned ballots remaining to be counted, Cooper — who finished fourth in a nine-way battle for three seats two years ago — holds a slim 42-vote over Sahli-Wells, 2,279 to 2,237.

Zirgulis sits in fourth place with 770 votes.

As such a tight number would suggest, the quest for the No. 2 spot behind Malsin swayed back and forth for Cooper and Sahli-Wells throughout Tuesday night’s vote tabulation, eliciting a roller-coaster of exuberant cheers and complete silences among the 90 or so supporters gathered at Cooper’s home in Studio Estates.

“Rather unnerving, quite frankly,” said Cooper when asked to describe his feelings throughout the process. “I don’t know how it could be anything but that. … I knew it was going to be close. I would have just liked to have been able to enjoy my election party a little bit more.”

Instead, it will be a continued case of unsteady nerves while the city sends the remaining vote-by-mail ballots to county officials for a verification of signatures.

“We understand how important getting accurate results as quickly as possible out to the candidates is,” said Martin Cole, Culver City’s city clerk and assistant city manager. “My hope is that we will have tentative final results by the end of the week at the latest.”

While not taking anything for granted, Cooper admitted he feels good about the campaign he ran and the position in which he currently sits.

“But I’m guardingly optimistic,” Cooper said. “I’m feeling really good and looking forward to serving on council if everything plays out. … But right now I’m not celebrating at all until the final count comes in. I’m not going to presume anything.”