Provisional Ballots

There were 1,931 ballots, which include mail-in and provisional ballots, yet to be counted the day after two City Council races and numerous school district board seats were up for election. The ballots could make a difference in one of the seats of the El Centro City Council race, where challenger Jason Jackson is leading incumbent Jon Edney by only 83 votes. Yet these are just the raw numbers, county elections coordinator Debra Porter said Wednesday. Poll workers still have to verify signatures and reconcile the number of signatures to the number of ballots, she said.

There are still nearly 2,000 unprocessed ballots that the Imperial County Elections Department needs to count before final tallies can be released from Tuesday?s election. County Registrar of Voters Dolores Provencio on Wednesday said 1,660 absentee ballots and another 297 provisional ballots remain unprocessed. ?What we have right now are just the raw numbers,? Provencio said. ?When we end up with the count, it could be less than the unofficial.? Provencio said those unprocessed ballots are in the process of being verified and checked for signatures.

Almost 9,200 ballots still need to be counted, according to a report sent to the secretary of state from the local elections office. In total there are 5,052 unprocessed vote-by-mail ballots, 2,173 provisional ballots and 1,961 damaged ballots, according to the report.

With the final preliminary votes counted, the incumbent Sharon Anderholt led the Imperial County Board of Education Area 4 election. Anderholt had 1,492 votes as of press time, giving her 60.55 percent of the vote. She led over Mary Slaughter, who had 952 votes, 38.64 percent of votes. However, some absentee and provisional ballots have not been counted.

The number of absentee and provisional ballots left to be counted from Tuesday?s election will be known later today, Imperial County Registrar of Voters Dolores Provencio said. Provencio said her staff was working Wednesday on verifying provisional ballots and county absentees. She also said once the absentee and provisional ballots are counted she would have a better sense of when a final official count would be made. Unofficially, 13,314 total ballots were cast for Tuesday?

The Imperial County Elections Department was still counting absentee provisional ballots Wednesday afternoon, a day after Tuesday?s election. Imperial County Registrar of Voters Dolores Provencio said because some ballots were not counted properly workers spent much of Wednesday manually counting them. Unofficial final results show that of the 53,123 total registered voters in Imperial County, only 12,879, or 24.24 percent, cast ballots. Of those, only 8,679 were cast at polling precincts with 4,200 coming via mail, or absentee, ballot.

Local candidates awaiting the results of an estimated 5,100 uncounted absentee and provisional ballots will have to wait at a least a few days more, as the Imperial County Election Department continues this morning to prepare the ballots to be tallied. County Registrar of Voters Dolores Provencio said this morning she has ?nothing new? to report on the rough estimate of the election tallies given by her last Thursday. Provencio added it may be as late as Wednesday before she has a more recent update on the uncounted figures for Tuesday?

34 percent voted locally By LAURA MITCHELL Staff Writer An unofficial report published Wednesday shows at least 34 percent of registered voters in Imperial County voted in Tuesday's primary election. The report by the county Elections Department shows 15,399 voters went to polls and another 800 voted by absentee ballot. There are 48,336 registered voters in the county. The numbers reflect ballots counted so far, county Registrar of Voters Dolores Provencio said.

Final election results, including tallied absentee ballots, could be available as early as Monday, Imperial County Registrar of Voters Dolores Provencio said Tuesday. Last week Provencio said there were 1,660 absentee ballots and 297 provisional ballots that still needed to be processed and counted. She said Wednesday the elections department is still in the middle of processing, verifying and counting provisional ballots. ?We?ve finished checking the absentee signatures,?

Leading candidates in the Calexico and Holtville council races are still on top following the latest update by the county Registrar of Voters. In the Calexico City Council race, John Moreno, Joong Kim and Luis Castro are still first, second and third, respectively. Moreno has 3,048 votes, Kim 2,903 votes and Castro has 2,335 votes. Guillermo “Willie” Hermosillo is trailing in fourth with 2,202 votes but is just 133 votes away from Castro. Erik Ortega, who managed to gain some ground since the last update, is now fifth with 1,901 votes.

As democracy marches through Imperial Valley, why was democracy placed in a dungeon in Calexico on Nov. 6? Three or more precincts ran out of voting ballots. Provisional ballots arrived late from the election department. Why do we have contentious problems at the electoral polls? How many votes were lost due to the failure of the electoral process? I blame the organization of the election department at the county level. This should not have happened. What can we do to resolve this issue in the future?

Steve Benson will likely represent Division 4 on the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors starting in December. The Brawley water engineer and businessman garnered 14,107 votes, or 56.16 percent, according to final preliminary results from Tuesday's election. Incumbent Stella Mendoza took 11,012 votes, 43.84 percent, likely ending her quest for a fourth term.  Benson said his first priority is financial. “Within 30 days I'm going to try to understand what they're doing with the budget,” he said.

The Imperial County Elections Department continues to make great strides in how it serves the residents of the county. Tuesday was another example of a job well-done despite many obstacles and unforeseen issues. On the surface, Tuesday had all the makings of a disaster, with polling places running out of supplies and ballots in droves throughout Calexico, areas of El Centro and Brawley and far up into the Salton Sea area. There was some confusion among poll workers, many of whom freely admit they had never experienced such crowds during an election.

Norma Sierra Galindo is leading the tightly contested Imperial Irrigation District Division 5 race with 6,053 votes, or 24.91 percent, according to final preliminary results from Tuesday's election. Wally Leimgruber is a close second, with 5,730 votes, or 23.58 percent. There are as many as 6,000 provisional ballots as well as mail-in and absentee ballots still left to be tabulated in the county-wide race. Unlike Divisions 2 and 4, the Division 5 race was a relatively low-key affair, with candidates focusing on what they feel the issues are, and their respective strengths.

Though it will take a few days before it's known how many people voted Tuesday, the county Registrar of Voters said there was “definitely” a historic turnout. And this historic turnout meant the county Registrar of Voters Office and poll workers had a hectic day. “We were just bombarded with calls and most were voters who didn't know where to vote,” county Registrar of Voters Sylvia Bermudez said. Many people didn't read their sample ballots, went to wrong polling sites, lost their mail ballots, didn't update their information, and some even came out to vote without being registered, she said.

Although Bruce Kuhn is the likely winner of the Imperial Irrigation District Division 2 seat, this race may be more easily remembered as the vicious battle between Super PAC Imperial Valley First and John Pierre Menvielle. With 14,253 or 58.01 percent of the vote, Kuhn, a former IID director returning to the fold, appears to have won handily, according to final preliminary election results released early this morning.  Kuhn could not be reached for comment by press time early this morning.

The County Registrar of Voters' office was a much calmer place Wednesday after an Election Day of endless voter lines and phones ringing incessantly. While some workers were seen cleaning up, others were sorting out pink, yellow and orange bags that hold the different types of ballots that came from all 159 precincts. Blue bags have paper ballots, pink bags have provisional ballots, yellow bags have surrendered ballots and orange contains mail ballots, said Debra Porter, county elections coordinator, as she pointed at the bags that on top listed how many ballots there were inside.  “Our (workers)

Democrat Juan Vargas has taken a large lead in the race for the 51st Congressional District. Vargas had 68.6 percent of the district-wide vote with more than half of the precincts reporting, compared to his competitor Republican Michael Crimmins, according to the Secretary of State's Office. Crimmins had about 31.4 percent of the total final preliminary vote. A number of provincial and vote-by-mail ballots still need to be counted. The 51st Congressional District encompasses a portion of south San Diego County and all of Imperial County.

The latest update of the county Registrar of Voters posted Tuesday show supervisorial candidate for District 4 Ryan Kelley has a somewhat wider lead over Sam Couchman. Some 299 votes separate Kelley from Couchman, a fellow Brawley City Councilmember, according to the Registrar of Voters Web site. As of Tuesday, Kelley has 2,025 votes while Couchman has 1,726. The last update showed Kelley was winning by 243 votes. All 147 precincts have been counted and about 6,500 votes were cast on Election Day, according to a Registrar of Voters report.