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Turnout was just under 20 percent, 19.6, on Tuesday. That's much better than the 12.4 percent from the 2005 elections, so congratulations, voters!

A couple of districts had interesting turnout figures, though. Keeping in mind that all voters were selecting at-large candidates and a mayor, District 4 featured a race with a strong incumbent, Mike Barber, going against a candidate, David Crawford, who dropped out of the race. Turnout in D4 was 22.6 percent, higher than the city average.

But in District 5, which featured the hot-button race between incumbent Sandy Carmany and conqueror Trudy Wade, only 12.4 percent of voters turned out. Wade didn't even need 2,000 votes to win the seat.

From a story on the Greensboro City Council races tomorrow:

GREENSBORO - Voters elected some establishment candidates and some outsiders to the City Council on Tuesday, sending a mixed message about how they think City Hall is being managed.

Some winners - at-large incumbent Sandra Anderson Groat and former Councilman Robbie Perkins - support the status quo, including beleaguered City Manager Mitchell Johnson. Others, including former Guilford County Commissioners Mary Rakestraw and Trudy Wade, ran on a throw-the-bums-out platform.

One thing the winners share: Well-known names.

More on that theme here.

From Wednesday's story on the mayoral camapign:

GREENSBORO - The city's first black mayor-elect pledged Tuesday to unite the city and "deal with these issues that we keep hearing over and over again."

Those issues: keeping residents safe, bringing closure to the lingering police department controversy, creating a business-friendly atmosphere, and protecting the environment.

Yvonne Johnson steamrolled building contractor Milton Kern to become the city's first mayor since 1999 not named Keith Holliday. She garnered 57 percent of the vote to Kern's 43 percent, according to complete but unofficial results.

"I think I have a vision that people embrace, which is to bring this community together," Johnson said.

It would be easy at this point to over-state the effect voter dissatisfaction with how the current City Council handled the affair concerning former Police Chief David Wray.

Yvonne Johnson was elected mayor, and she is very much the embodiment of the current council.

But I don't think you can look at the results favoring Trudy Wade in District 5 (unseating long-time council member Sandy Carmany) and Mary Rakestraw (who it appears took an at-large seat) and not factor in the Wray saga.

How much is attributable to Wade and Rakestraw having names that have been in the news a lot (name recognition) and how much of it is attributable to their positions on Wray we don't have a sense for right at the moment. But thinking here at N+R HQ is that the Wray affair played some part. After all, Carmany had a name that was in the paper a lot and has been a fairly popular figure in the district but she still lost.

Joe Wilson in District 3 lost depsite campaigning on the Wray affair, but he was pretty well outspent by his opponent, Zack Matheny.

Those are some thoughts were starting with as my colleagues sit down to write their stories for tomorrow. What are your thoughts?

Update: Some thoughts from the blogosphere:

• *The CA: "If there is good news, it is that Rakestraw and Wade won't get rolled."
• *Fecund Stench ... has posted video today from an incident we heard about that happened at Gate City Baptist Church. Our man-about-town Jim Schlosser had this to report about the incident earlier:

  "At Precinct 66's polling place at Gate City Baptist Church on Hilltop Road, police were called after an argument broke out between a campaign worker and a voter. The voter accused the worker of being too close to the polling place.

  "There was some cursing involved," police Lt. Brian Cheek said. "Another lady heard the cursing (and) was upset, and apparently the campaign worker was abusive to her, too."

  A polling official asked the worker to leave.

• *Doug Clark: "In contrast, Greensboro candidates have gotten plenty of time in the spotlight, appearing at numerous forums and drawing lots of media coverage. It still may not produce a huge voter turnout, but the people who chose to vote today should have been well-informed. I have no doubt they will select a capable and interesting City Council."

All votes in Guilford County are in except for curb-side voting, reports Nate DeGraff from the Old Guilford County Courthouse. If these early, unofficial returns hold:

Yvonne Johnson is your new mayor.

Former County Commissioner Mary Rakestraw, current Mayor Pro-Tempore Sandra Anderson-Groat and former Council Member Robbie Perkins are your three at-large winners.

T. Diane Bellamy-Small will retain her seat in District 1.

Goldie Wells retains her District 2 seat.

Zack Matheny is the new council member from District 3.

Mike Barber retains his seat in District 4.

Trudy Wade will take Sandy Carmany's place in District 5.

For those keeping score at home, Barber, Rakestraw and Wade are all former Guilford County Commissioners.

Update: (9:15 p.m.) Our folks on the scene say there are at least a dozen precincts not plugged into the computer.

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Our boys and girls on scene say that with about 24,000 votes reported in the mayor's race at this point, the votes are more than half-way counted. That would indicate much stronger turnout than 2005, when fewer than 16,000 people voted in the mayor's race. Of course, Mayor Keith Holliday was unopposed in that election. Tonight, he's hanging out at the Old Guilford County Courthouse looking to see which of two candidates is going to take his place.

Pay no attention to those numbers... yet.

The Guilford County Board of Elections folks made a mistake when plugging in the numbers tonight. So you may have seen a report online at the Board of Elections site that said the bulk of the precincts were in with only 3,000 or 6,000 votes reported.

That is not the case. More in a minute, but we'll report back here once we have confirmation the whole vote is in.

Elections Director George Gilbert explained to the crowd down at the Old County Courthouse what went wrong.

Click here to listen to his explanation.

Update: The short version is this:

Voting laws require that those who cast early and absentee ballots be counted as part of their home precincts. The computers that tally Guilford County's can sort them back in, easy cheesy.

The problem comes when the computer is told to sort them early, which is what happened tonight. Because they sorted early, the bulk of the city's precincts showed up as having been counted when in fact they have not been. That leaves you, the home viewer, as well as us scruffy media types guessing as to when the vote totals are completed.

Okay, props to all the campaign workers I've seen shivering out in the cold today. Although it's not raining, it's not a fun day to be standing about outside just waiting for folks to come along.

One of those was Lee Taylor, shivering out in the cold for the Joe Wilson campaign.

Taylor said he had been out since 6:30 a.m. I asked why.

"He's one of the few candidates running his campaign the right way," Taylor said.

Click here to listen to his full answer.

And I should note that Yvonne Johnson supporters Richard O'Brian and Enola Mixon were also out there.

O'Brien and Taylor reported that they thought the polling place had seen slightly increased traffic from two years ago.

If you have a phone, you may have heard from Yvonne Johnson recently.

Luther Falls Jr., an unsuccessful candidate for council in the primary, was working for Johnson outside Bluford Elementary School. Falls said mayoral candidate Johnson has three automatic telephone messages ringing phones.

One Johnson recorded herself. Another is by the Simkins Political Action Committee, which endorsed her over Kern, and the third is by retired Bennett College president Johnnetta Cole.

- Jim Schlosser

Ivan Cutler, a precinct worker at Mt. Pisgah United Methodist Church, said he was moved by one voter in particular.

After pushing the final button on his voting machine, a man raised his right hand as he exited and declared, "Thank God we can vote. This is a privilege."

- Jim Schlosser