In an election that is still very much up in the air, a mere dozen votes separate six-term Cambridge City Council incumbent Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 and neighborhood activist John Pitkin from winning the ninth—and final—spot on the council.

The unofficial results will be finalized today when the remaining “auxiliary” votes—ballots unread by the scanner because they were marked for a write-in candidate, creased, or simply left blank—will be added to the totals. In 1999, there were “roughly 200 valid” auxiliary votes, according to Election Commissioner Lynne Molnar.

“Many of them are blank, some of them are write-ins, but they could change the results,” said Teresa S. Neighbor, executive director of the Election Commission and director of “The Count,” which began last night at the Senior Citizen’s Center and will resume today at 9 a.m.

“We have two police officers here overnight watching the ballots,” Neighbor said.

Following the first round of tabulations, Reeves came in eighth, outpacing Pitkin by 40 number one votes, with Councillor David P. Maher in tenth, 77 behind him.

But Maher picked up many “transfer votes” from other candidates, particularly from Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio. The mayor came in roughly 1,450 votes above this year’s “quota” of 1,670, the number of votes needed for election under Cambridge’s proportional representation system.

“It’s very much what I expected,” Maher said, exuding calm. “The mayor and I do live in the same neighborhood.”

But while transfer votes comfortably put Maher over the top, the Pitkin campaign is waiting to hear the results of the auxiliary votes.

“We are not conceding,” said Pitkin’s campaign manager, Cecily McMillan ’79.

Pitkin pointed to the closeness of the number one votes as reason to believe that the results could change today.

“Based on the number ones, it’s got to be very close,” Pitkin said. “It looks like the campaign is over, but the suspense is not.”

As expected, first-time challenger candidates Brian Murphy ’86-’87 and E. Denise Simmons claimed the two spots vacated this year by fellow members of the progressive Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) Jim Braude and Kathleen L. Born.

Galluccio sailed into first place with 3,145 number one votes, and Murphy took the second spot with 1,693 top votes. It was the third consecutive first-place finish for Galluccio, who received 2,716 number one votes in 1999.

By the unofficial count, incumbents Henrietta Davis, Michael A. Sullivan, and Marjorie C. Decker claimed the third, fourth and fifth spots on the council, followed by Simmons and councillors Timothy J. Toomey, Jr. and Maher.

The three Republicans and the lone Libertarian candidate finished near the bottom, while the Green Party candidate, Steve Iskovitz, finished 12th out of the 19 candidates.