Senate race widening

By ERIC LINDBERG

As election workers continue to tally the last chunk of ballots cast two weeks ago, the race for the 19th District State Senate seat continues to widen.

As of yesterday afternoon, Republican Tony Strickland led Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson by 2,211 votes. While admittedly still a narrow margin, it’s a gaping maw compared to the days following the election.

Figures tallied on Election Night had Jackson ahead by a mere 108 votes. The count has flipped back and forth as more absentee and provisional ballot results are compiled.

“We are furiously working on almost 7,000 provisional ballots right now,” said Billie Alvarez, Santa Barbara County’s elections division manager. “I think we’re about halfway through.”

It’s unclear how many of those votes, as well as 1,100 emergency absentee ballots, fall within the 19th District. However, those that are counted will likely fall in the favor of Jackson, who is leading in Santa Barbara County by 10 percentage points.

A total of 392,608 ballots have been counted across the district, which runs from Orcutt to Santa Clarita. Of those, 237,885 were cast in Ventura County, where Strickland holds the edge.

He took 52.19 percent of Ventura County votes, compared to Jackson’s 47.41 percent. In the small section of Los Angeles County included in the district, Strickland leads with 56.65 percent of the votes counted thus far.

Election officials in Santa Barbara have already launched a manual recount of 10 percent of the ballots due to the close nature of the race.

Another close battle is still unsettled in Carpinteria, where Kathleen Reddington holds a 42-vote lead over Steve McWhirter for the second spot on the City Council. Incumbent Joe Armendariz earned the first seat with 26.74 percent of the vote.

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SB Recount? : 11/19/2008

If Jackson's lead in Santa Barbara county is more than 10% then why would there be a manual recount of 10% "due to the close nature of the race"? Are they trying to help someone get more votes? It would make sense if SB was helping recount the votes throughout the three counties? But I doubt this is what they're doing.

Goletan

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