Update Tuesday 12/2, 4:45 pm…
It’s official from the Registrar of Voters. John McCann wins in Chula Vista by two votes. In essence, nothing changed from last Wednesday, as anticipated (see prior update below).
I’m not going out on a limb saying that Steve Padilla or one of his supporters — labor or the Democratic Party, for instance — will now likely start a recount process.
The results have to be official before a recount is requested. This is now official.
In election parlance, official and done are not always one in the same.
More will undoubtedly follow.
The last recount of real significance in the county followed the June 2010 primary election for State Senate between Juan Vargas and Mary Salas. After weeks of back and forth in the vote counting, the official results had Vargas up by 22 votes out of several thousand cast.
Things were a bit complex, with the 40th Senate District overlapping portions of three counties, Imperial, Riverside and San Diego.
Salas started a recount process, but seeing no change in the results, she conceded when the San Diego Registrar’s office had re-checked about half of the county’s ballots.
Salas, of course, just won the mayor’s spot in Chula Vista. Vargas ultimately left the Senate to take Bob Filner’s long-held spot in Congress.
Update Wednesday 11/26, 5 pm…
John McCann supporters are tonight claiming a two-vote margin of victory in the tight race for Chula Vista City Council.
Today’s reconciliation process for mail ballots in Chula Vista moved the race from a four vote margin between the candidates to a mere two vote lead for McCann over Steve Padilla.
The verification of ballots subtracted three votes from McCann’s total and one vote from that of Padilla, leaving this tally:
JOHN McCANN 18,448 50.00%
STEVE PADILLA 18,446 50.00%
The McCann campaign says that Registrar of Voters staff noted there are no more ballots to be counted, verified or audited in the race. Registrar Michael Vu said earlier today his office was trying to wrap up the Chula Vista count before the holiday weekend.
Pending the request for a recount by Padilla or his supporters, this appears to be a final count from the Registrar’s office, which must certify the results by December 2. A citywide recount is estimated at $50,000, to be paid by the requesting party.
Original post – Wednesday morning…
John McCann now leads Steve Padilla by a “huge” four vote margin in the Chula Vista City Council election, following yesterday’s reconciliation process at the Registrar of Voters.
The race was previously tied, at 18,450 votes apiece for Republican McCann and Democrat Padilla. Yesterday’s verification process added one vote to McCann’s total, while subtracting three votes from Padilla’s numbers. The tally currently stands at:
JOHN McCANN 18,451 50.01%
STEVE PADILLA 18,447 49.99%
As noted prior, the reconciliation includes the Registrar auditing each precinct to verify ballots were counted correctly. The vote count can change by a few votes during this process.
According to those watching the action, Registrar staff reconciled the entire city for ballots cast at polling places, including provisional ballots. Discrepancies were noted in some precincts, in which the number of votes reported as cast by precinct workers didn’t match the vote totals in those precincts. The ballots were then re-checked in seven precincts. This resulted in McCann gaining one vote and Padilla losing three, a net gain of four for McCann.
Padilla’s three subtracted votes had been double counted during initial vote canvas, while McCann’s one vote was previously under counted.
Due to the closeness of the race, the Registrar today is also finalizing a verification that all mail ballots were counted correctly.
Comments 6
That is just crazy…congratulations John!
Some more info from the UT, although their story was earlier in the day and missed the fact the race went from a tie to a four vote lead on Tuesday, then to a two vote lead today (Wed)…
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/nov/26/mccann-slides-ahead-of-padilla-chula-vista/
This victory by John only goes to show that everyone’s vote does count and that if we are to succeed as a Party, we need to have a better ground game than the Democrats.
As the President of the SD Chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association, it is my job to make sure that our candidates have adequate representation at the polling place, in the Registrar of Voters and in the courts.
For the next primary, we need a poll observer in every polling booth in the county and we need all Republican lawyers in the county to set-up and to volunteer their time to help our candidates with their campaigns and to make sure that the other side fights fairly and that we maintain integrity in the SD election process.
—-Randy Berholtz
“we need to have a better ground game than the Democrats.”
Yes we do. The Janney loss in IB and this CV race are perfect examples of why we need to have a robust volunteer precinct captain network.
Elections are won by one neighbor, on another neighbor’s front porch, having conversations about what’s best for their community. The Democrats are doing a much better job at this than we are.
Congratulations on a hard-fought and hard-won victory. The good guys do win. As much as we need a continued volunteer precinct network, we also need a volunteer army of precinct watchers at every precinct to make sure the election rules are followed. One way to get this would be the establishment in San Diego of Republican Clubs made up of men and women. Thanks to the hard work and effort of Waskah and the many fine women volunteers, there are robust women’s Republican Clubs throughout San Diego, but we need clubs with men and women. If they exist, and I’m not aware of them, we need to publicize them and encourage their efforts. This would help give us a bigger standing army of volunteers.
Mr. Padilla may just pull this off yet if he decides to request a recount.
Where are the conspiracy experts on this blog? The ones crying foul, warning the other side to ‘line up their attorneys’? Guess all the evil they claimed seemed to have disappeared.
Mr. Berholz, perhaps you might take Mr, McCann aside and whisper these words in his ear ‘stop with the cease and desist letters, you are making the Party look bad’.
The Party will continue to loose traction as long as you continue to support candidates like McCann. The close vote is indicative of the fact that more and more voters are learning and growing weary of his antics? Prepare yourselves, the embarrassments he will lay at your door most likely will continue, because he is who he is.
Just my opinion.