Hey, this election isn't over yet

With most eyes focused only on the presidential election, and the 30 state offices and propositions, there were also 153 city, school, and special district races in the county.

At 4:30 p.m. on November 13, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, Michael Vu, reported that 490,000 mail-in or provisional ballots remained to be counted. Statistically, very few races are expected to change from the semi-official results posted on election night.

With the strongest show of support in years for local schools, voters in 12 school districts favored increasing their property taxes to support a combined total of $1.3 billion in construction bonds. The only school-bond measure to fail was in Bonsall. The Cajon Valley School District’s $20 million bond was still to close to call, falling short by just .08 percent of the vote.

In most special district elections where multiple seats were open, those winning were clearly out in front from the other challengers listed on the ballot. However, out in the Borrego Springs Unified School District, with 1850 votes tallied, only 29 votes separated the four challengers for three seats on their board.

The battle for the open mayorship of Lemon Grove saw George Gastil flip-flopping his lead over Racquel Vasquez. Castil was leading with only 74 votes separating the two.

The smallest race on the ballot was in Pauma Valley’s Yuima Municipal Water’s second district seat. With only 74 votes cast, there appeared to be a heated battle between an investigative whistle-blower, now incumbent, Roland Simpson, and the district’s former general manager running for his seat, Lori Johnson, only 14 votes behind Simpson.

There were no surprises for incumbents in the 13 congressional, state senate, or Assembly races, except for congressman Darrell Issa (R-Vista). Issa lost in San Diego County, but will likely return to Washington DC because of a favorable vote in the Orange County part of the 49th District. As of yesterday (November 14), Democratic opponent Doug Applegate was reportedly gaining on Issa.

All 18 cities cast ballots for councilpersons. Five — Coronado, Encinitas, Lemon Grove, Oceanside, and Santee — voted on their mayors. Oceanside reelected their deceased treasurer, Gary Ernst, in favor of the council appointing his replacement, rather than supporting challenger Nadine Scott.

According to Vu, of the 1.653 million registered voters in the county, over 80 percent voted in this presidential election. Of those, 68 percent voted by mail. That number keeps growing every election and is the cause of delayed results. Ballots turned in or mailed on election day and those who cast a provisional ballot (wrong polling place, moved, etc.) are the ones remaining to be counted.

On the question of the chances of the November 8 semi-official vote count changing the outcome in some local races, Vu explained, “I don’t predict the outcomes. I don’t do statistics. I just report numbers.”

The registrar’s office worked through the weekend counting around 100,000 ballots. Vu has to have the official election tally certified to the secretary of state by December 6.