With about 300 ballots left for tallying, the Measure G facilities bond for San Benito High School continues toward a slim passage.
There are no other close local contests with potential for changes after last Tuesday’s primary preceding November’s general election. The county elections office released its latest results late Friday and has a goal of releasing more figures Wednesday. There were 291 ballots left to tally, but those didn’t include an undetermined number of provisional ballots left – those with problems potentially deeming them ineligible, said Angela Curro, assistant county clerk-recorder-registrar of voters
In total through Friday, 7,290 voters cast ballots. With the additional 300 or so ballots coming, the county is headed toward registering a turnout figure of 32 percent for the primary.
The most prominent countywide item drawing voters to the polls was the high school district’s Measure G bond. It needed 55 percent of the vote to pass. As of Friday, it had 56.11 percent support against 43.89 percent dissent. There were 3,384 voting for it and 2,647 against the $42.5 million bond. Of the 6,031 ballots counted, supporters would need 3,318 yes votes in the current pool of tallied ballots to pass the 55 percent threshold.
The other prominent local item on the ballot was the District 4 county board race. Incumbent Supervisor Jerry Muenzer gained the most votes with 951, or 42.78 percent. Hollister Councilman Victor Gomez had 851 votes, or 38.28 percent of the vote. Daniel Recht had 415 votes, or 18.67 percent.
In other elected races locally, candidates winning while running unopposed included District 3 Supervisor Robert Rivas, Assessor Tom Slavich, Clerk/Auditor/Recorder Joe Paul Gonzalez, District Attorney Candice Hooper, Sheriff Darren Thompson, Treasurer Mary Lou Sanchez and San Benito High Principal Krystal Lomanto capturing the county superintendent seat.
For the local congressional seat, Sam Farr, D-Carmel, beat out independent challenger Ronald Paul Kabat on the county vote – he won easily districtwide as well – with a 67.91 percent to 31.8 percent margin.
In statewide races on the local ballot, 56.43 percent of county voters supported Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s reelection bid. Coming in second with 18.32 percent of the local vote was Republican Tim Donnelly.
In the race for the District 30 Assembly seat, Democrat Luis Alejo gained 52.23 percent of the vote to 46.67 percent for Republican Mark Starritt. In the contest for State Senate District 12, Republican Anthony Cannella gained 58.74 percent of the vote to 41.14 percent for Democrat Shawn Bagley.
