Hollister
– Local candidates will have to wait a few more days for final
election results, according to San Benito County Registrar John
Hodges. Hodges said that all the votes should be counted by Monday,
although he hopes to finish sooner.
Hollister – Local candidates will have to wait a few more days for final election results, according to San Benito County Registrar John Hodges. Hodges said that all the votes should be counted by Monday, although he hopes to finish sooner.
“We want to get the results out as soon as possible,” he said. “We’re dealing with human beings here, and I want to know myself.”
Hodges added that he felt additional urgency since there are three tight local races whose outcomes are still up for grabs: District 4 on the Board of Supervisors; San Juan Bautista’s City Council; and the Gavilan Community College Board of Trustees.
According to the most recent results released by the elections office, 40 percent of the votes had been counted. Former Pinnacle newspaper publisher Tracie Cone trailed Supervisor Reb Monaco by 40 votes; 70 votes separated Robert Paradice and Jim Pereyra, the candidates who received the most and the least votes, respectively, for San Juan Bautista City Council; and Dee Brown was 15 votes behind Elvira Robinson in a contest to join incumbent Kent Child on the Gavilan board.
One thing Hodges did to move things along was to continue counting votes on Wednesday.
“In the past, we just did a little housekeeping on the next day,” he said. “But because of the amount of unprocessed absentee ballots, we made the decision (Tuesday) night to call in help early to speed up the process.”
He estimated that there were still 3,800 absentee ballots to process, as well as an unknown number of precinct ballots that could not be scanned. Hodges said election workers will try to determine the intent of those ballots.
“We want everyone’s vote to count,” he said.
Hodges also acknowledged that there were a few problems on election day, including touchscreen machines that recorded incorrect votes. In those cases, Hodges said, the voters were given paper ballots and the machines were repaired. He added that in a few polling stations, workers were only able to enter 15 minutes before voting began, because they had trouble finding the keys.
Incoming registrar Joe Paul Gonzalez was also very involved in the process, Hodges said.
“In the last few elections, Mr. Hodges has asked me to take on more and more responsibility,” Gonzalez said. “At the same time, we’ve had to comply with the new (American with Disabilities Act) requirements. That and the fact that we had to change to (touchscreen voting machines) have made it very challenging.”
Voters may also have noticed observers from the U.S. Department of Justice at the polls. Cynthia Magnuson of the DOJ’s public affairs office said the department sent out more than 500 federal observers to 69 jurisdictions in 22 states. She could not give any details about observers in San Benito County but said that in general, observers were watching for violations of federal law. These include the bilingual provisions of Voting Rights Act and disability accessibility requirements for voting machines.
“Throughout the day, our observers gathered concerns at the polls,” Magnuson said. “They shifted as they received complaints.”
She added that all complaints, including those received through the DOJ’s voting hotline, will be thoroughly investigated.
Overall, Hodges said, all the problems encountered on election day were “very minor.”
“We aimed to do a perfect election,” he said. “That’s probably impossible, but as long as a person tries.”
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
