Today, clicking "refresh," on an internet website is the way people stay up to date on political races. And on Nov. 8, all around Sunnyvale, people began clicking around 8 p.m. as polls closed and results poured in.

Most of Sunnyvale resident's attention was on the council races for Seats 1, 2 and 3.

The only runaway victory went to former Planning Commissioner Christopher Moylan, who held 50 percent or more of the votes for Seat 2 throughout the night. Retired firefighter Tony Spitaleri won the race for Seat 1, and incumbent John Howe won Seat 3.

Moylan's south Sunnyvale home was abuzz Tuesday night, with appearances by County Assessor Larry Stone and a number of Moylan's fellow planning commissioners.

There were also a number of Moylan's Stanford University students, many who helped him by walking precincts. A map in his garage showed all the precincts his people walked. Overall, his team hit 83 of Sunnyvale's 115 precincts, reaching over 9,000 voters in almost 7,000 households.

"Precinct walkers--to me--are like gold in an election," Moylan said when it became clear that he would win.

Across town, the party was more cautiously optimistic at former Sunnyvale Mayor Pat Castillo's house. Castillo's home served as the meeting place for Tony Spitaleri's Seat 1 race, and they kept track of the votes on a large tablet of butcher paper. The race between Spitaleri and Risch was close throughout the night, but with each update, Spitaleri pulled farther ahead. He ended up with almost a 20 percent lead over Risch.

In the closest race of the night, incumbed John Howe edged out newcomer Nancy Smith, winning with just over 10 percent more of some 17,000 Sunnyvale voters.

Measures D and E--increases to the Business License Tax and Transient Occupancy Tax respectively--both won, meaning Sunnyvale will be getting more than a million dollars in additional revenue from those two sources.

Measure F--to standardize board and commission term limits to two consecutive four-year terms, and eliminate a two-year waiting period between board appointments--passed with more than two-thirds of the votes.

In a closer race, Sunnyvale residents elected not to amend the city charter to remove the requirement that the city manager must live in the city, which means the city manager still must live in Sunnyvale.

Voters also approved Measure G, which will amend Sunnyvale's charter to include the term "heritage resource" for review by the Sunnyvale Heritage Preservation Commission.

And in the four-person Sunnyvale School District race, Anita Herrman, Wendy Bockholt and Jeffrey D. Arnett all won a seat on the board.

In the race for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District Board, Sunnyvale councilwoman Julia Miller lost her bid for the board, earning just over 20 percent of the vote. The winners of that race were Paul Fong and Bruce Swenson.

All figures came from the vote tracking from smartvoter.org.