Mayor Bill Bell and three incumbent City Council members won landslide re-elections Tuesday, each taking more than 71 percent of the vote.

Bell defeated challenger Steven L. Williams 77.5 percent to 22 percent, with a handful of write-in votes. Results are unofficial until the Durham County Board of Elections tallies 1,047 early, absentee and provisional ballots and makes its final canvass next Tuesday.

"It's a vote of confidence, and I appreciate it," Bell said at a victory party Tuesday night.

Ward 1 incumbent Cora Cole-McFadden beat challenger Donald Hughes 76 percent to 23.5 percent; Howard Clement, a 26-year council veteran, beat Matt Drew 71.4 percent to 26.8 percent in Ward 2; in Ward 3, Mike Woodard took 86.5 percent to Allan Polak's 13 percent.

"The numbers are quite telling," Cole-McFadden said.

"Experience matters," said Clement. "To me, that was the basis for our election."

All the challengers were political newcomers. Williams ran for mayor in 2005 but dropped out before the election, while the three council candidates were making their first bids for office.

The vote closed an election most citizens sat out of.

Of the city's 141,834 registered voters, only 10,204 went to the polls Tuesday. With the ballots yet to be counted, total turnout comes to only 7.9 percent.

In the 2007 council election, 25 percent voted, and 18.5 percent in 2005. Those elections, though, included several bond issues. Tuesday's voting was only for mayor and the three ward seats.

Tom Miller, president of Durham's InterNeighborhood Council, said the low turnout is "a signal of satisfaction. We have the best team on the council in a long time."

Woodard said the margins, "sent a clear, strong signal Durham values leadership."

For those who did turn out, voting went off without a hitch, Board of Elections Director Mike Ashe said.

"Every voter that voted was treated properly and satisfied," he said.