Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : Sumner Pulls Ahead as Recount Continues

By week’s end, the chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party had pulled steadily ahead of a Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. follower in the continuing recount of primary ballots from the 40th Congressional District.

Bruce Sumner, a retired judge, had extended his lead to 341 votes over Art Hoffmann, a follower of political extremist and presidential candidate LaRouche.

Sumner waged an intense write-in campaign to prevent Hoffmann, who was unchallenged on the Democratic primary ballot, from carrying the party’s standard against incumbent Republican Robert E. Badham in the November election.

An election-night count showed write-ins leading Hoffmann by 1,459 votes, but a hand tally later showed Hoffmann leading by 267 votes. Registrar of Voters Al Olson declared Hoffmann the winner.

Sumner asked for the recount after stories of poll-worker mishandling of write-in ballots began to surface. Some precinct workers said they were misinformed about write-in procedures and had, in some cases, prevented voters from casting ballots for write-in candidates.

The recount, Olson said, could take several weeks.