New Election Urged After Recount Finds 25 Ballots Missing

Sponsors of a defeated slow-growth measure in Seal Beach on Wednesday asked Secretary of State March Fong Eu to throw out the results of the June 7 balloting after officials said they could not find 25 absentee ballots counted on election night.

A partial recount Friday of the tally on Measure F, the city’s version of the countywide Citizens Sensible Growth and Traffic Control Initiative, came up short by 25 absentee ballots. In the official city tally, the initiative lost by 32 votes.

Although 25 ballots would not be enough to affect the outcome, the measure’s sponsors say the discrepancy means that they should have another chance to get it passed.

“There is no question that we have a discrepancy,” Orange County Registrar of Voters Donald F. Tanney said. “I can’t account for those 25 votes right now.”

The measure’s sponsors, known as Care, sent a letter to Eu on Wednesday calling for another election, Care spokeswoman Barbara Rountree said.

However, a state official said there does not appear to be any civil or criminal legal grounds to justify court action by officials to nullify the June 7 results.

“I can’t see this thing going to court,” said Deborah Seiler, chief of elections in Sacramento. She said the registrar is doing all he can to correct the situation.

The registrar’s office is investigating the possibilities that votes were either misplaced or counted twice during the registrar’s election certification process, Tanney said.

In Friday’s partial recount, paid for by Care, vote totals from nine of the city’s 43 precincts agreed with the official county tally for those precincts.

Care called off the recount, which would have taken two more days at $250 per day, because the group felt that it should not pay to correct inaccurate vote totals that should not have been certified by Tanney, Rountree said.

“Our feeling was that to continue the count would be up to the registrar of voters, not us, because it was not our mistake,” Rountree said. “Their certification was incorrect.”

However, if Care wants a full recount, the group will have to pay for it, Seiler said.

“Asking for a recount is their prerogative,” she said. “If they turned out to be right and the results were overturned, then their money would be refunded.”

She said Care’s unwillingness to continue the recount may be an indication the group feels that it does not have a strong enough case to overturn the results.

“The outcome of the election does not appear to be at stake here,” Seiler said, adding that the votes that are unaccounted for would still not be enough to pass the initiative. “The issue seems to be to resolve the discrepancy to the voters of Seal Beach.”

On Tuesday night, the Seal Beach City Council certified the vote totals from the registrar’s office after being advised that the figures were inaccurate, Rountree said.

No vote percentages were altered by Friday’s recount, Tanney said.

The 25 absentee ballots not accounted for Friday, Tanney said, meant that the recount would show nine fewer yes votes, 10 fewer no votes and would involve six other ballots invalidated for improper markings. The total number of absentee votes was 1,057 in Friday’s hand count, compared to 1,082 in the certified tally from the machine count on election night.

Two no votes originally disqualified in the machine count were allowed by Tanney on Friday because “the voters’ intentions were clear,” despite errors in marking the ballot, he said.