Alarcon’s Lead Shrivels to 7 Votes Over Katz

Just when it seemed the state Senate race in the San Fernando Valley couldn’t get tighter, election officials announced Friday that City Councilman Richard Alarcon’s lead over former Assemblyman Richard Katz had shrunk to seven votes.

After a late batch of 350 absentee and provisional ballots were counted, Alarcon had 38,489 votes, or 40.90%, compared to 38,482 votes, or 40.89% for Katz.

But the outcome is still uncertain because election officials said that 80 to 100 write-in ballots from the 20th Senate District are left to be counted. In addition, there are about 1,000 untallied provisional ballots from throughout the county, which may include a few misplaced ballots from the 20th District, officials said. All the remaining ballots will be counted Tuesday.

In the past 94 years, only five legislative races in California have been decided by six votes or fewer.

The margin has been so slim during the count of absentee and provisional ballots over the past week that neither candidate has claimed victory or even suggested that victory is near.

“I’m certainly not taking seven votes and declaring victory,” said Alarcon. “Whichever way it goes, there will definitely be a recount.”

The losing candidate normally pays for the recount, which can take up to a week and cost between $35,000 and $40,000. The candidate is reimbursed if the election’s outcome is changed by the recount.

“At this point, it’s mostly about finding out who pays for the recount,” said Katz.

A recount can only be requested in writing within five days of the certification of the results by the county Board of Supervisors, scheduled for June 30.

But even after a recount is completed, the losing candidate can still challenge the results in court by questioning the verification process or the admittance of questionable ballots.

“When it gets this close, it gets wrapped up by lawyers and recount specialists,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a longtime political consultant. “It could become a mess.”

According to election experts, the county’s ballot-counting process is so precise that a recount rarely changes the outcome of a race.

After the polls closed last week, Alarcon’s held a 791-vote lead. But the margin has narrowed with each bi-weekly tally of absentee and provisional ballots.

Katz is hoping the trend will continue until he holds the lead.

“I’m going to the Dodger game tonight and I’m going to the registrar-recorder’s office tomorrow and help find more ballots, because the more we find, the better for me,” he said.

Since the polls closed last week, election officials have counted 11,251 absentee and provisional ballots from the 20th District. Provisional ballots are cast by voters whose names do not appear on the rolls but are accepted pending verification.

What remains to be counted are 80 to 100 absentee ballots from the 20th District on which voters printed the names of write-in candidates for other races.

Those ballots have been set aside since the polls closed, so that election officials can verify that the names correspond with one of the 27 certified write-in candidates in the county.

Lawyers for both candidates have camped out at the elections division of the registrar-recorder to watch over the tally.

Earlier this week, that caused some tension when Alarcon’s attorney, Fred Woocher, wrote to Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack, accusing Katz representatives of discriminating against Latinos by challenging the absentee ballots of voters with Spanish surnames.

Katz dismissed the charge and McCormack responded with a tersely worded letter, saying that race and ethnicity do not influence which ballots are counted.

In a related matter, a group that is circulating a petition calling for a study of political secession by the San Fernando Valley said it has uncovered hundreds of voters in the 20th District with dual voter identification numbers.

Walter Prince, a member of Valley Vote, said he uncovered the dual numbers while reviewing voter information purchased from the registrar-recorder for use in the petition drive.

McCormack conceded that the county’s voter rolls, which contain 3.8 million registered voters, contain some dual names and errors. She said the county is about to launch a $3-million upgrade to the election computers’ system next month to identify most of those problems.

“We do have duplicates on the rolls. When it is brought to our attention we look into it,” she said.