LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday evening accepted the final results for the June 3 primary and, in so doing, declared the election of the new sheriff, the district attorney and several other county offices.
Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley had until 5 p.m. Tuesday to finish the final election canvass, which had begun first thing June 4, the day after the primary.
Board Chair Denise Rushing said at the Tuesday meeting that Fridley had believed she would need all of that time, thus the decision to schedule the meeting at a special time in the evening rather than the usual morning start time.
However, Rushing pointed out that Fridley bested her own estimate by about a day, releasing the final numbers Monday evening.
Fridley took to the board a resolution certifying the final canvass and declaring elected officials who had either been unopposed or who received 50 percent plus one vote in fields of two or more.
Those running unopposed were Brock Falkenberg, seeking the county superintendent of schools job; Cathy Saderlund, the county clerk and auditor-controller; and Barbara Ringen, treasurer-tax collector.
Incumbent District Attorney Don Anderson received 59.1 percent of the vote over challenger Andre Ross, who had 40.9 percent of the vote, and so Anderson was declared elected in the resolution.
Brian Martin also was declared elected as Lake County's new sheriff. He received 52.1 percent of the vote to beat incumbent Frank Rivero, who had 25.6 percent, and retired Clearlake Police Chief Bob Chalk, with 22.3 percent.
Measure L, a half-cent sales tax to help restore and improve the health of Clear Lake and other local water bodies, fell just short of the supermajority of 66.7 percent that it needed, bringing in 65.2 percent.
“County Measure L failed by not very much,” Fridley said.
Measure N, which institutes rules for medical marijuana cultivation, received the needed majority, coming in with with a “yes” vote of 51.6 percent, with no votes totaling 48.4 percent, according to Fridley.
The measure becomes law on July 11. State election law provides that after the election is certified such measures go into effect 10 days afterward.
Fridley also explained to the board the public manual tally of a minimum 1-percent of randomly selected precincts her office was required to complete as part of the canvass process.
That count, which took place beginning on June 17, is required of counties like Lake that use electronic ballot counting devices, she said.
The county must include each and every contest on the local ballot, so Fridley said they counted one precinct each from Middletown, Clearlake and Upper Lake.
Fridley said the canvassing board found only one discrepancy between the manual count and the machine. It involved a ballot that had a very small dot in the middle of a rectangle next to a particular candidate's name.
The ballot counting machine had counted that as a vote for that candidate, she said.
“It was obvious to me that the voter did not intend to vote for that candidate,” Fridley added.
She also reported that there were no qualified write-in candidates during the primary.
The initial election night results indicated that turnout was at 28.5 percent, which Fridley said improved to 45.7 percent with the canvass completed.
As of election night, Fridley's staff had counted 9,703 ballots, and after the election they counted another 5,845 ballots, of which 611 were provisionals cast at precincts and 5,234 were absentees.
Fridley said in this election 30.6 percent of ballots were by absentee voters, with 15.2 percent cast at precincts.
The board voted unanimously to accept Fridley's resolution accepting the official canvass and the statement of votes cast for the Statewide Direct Primary Election, and declaring Anderson, Falkenberg, Martin, Ringen and Saderlund elected.
Fridley thanked Deputy County Administrative Officer Alan Flora for coming up to help her with the county on Monday.
Fridley had a number of observers of the count, and had been under increasing pressure due to Lake County's vote count essentially deciding the tight race for the Democratic Party's place on the ticket in the November state controller's race.
She received a round of applause following the resolution's acceptance.
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