ELECTIONS / BEVERLY HILLS SCHOOL BOARD : Slow Count Leaves Candidates on Edge : Balloting: At last tally, Jo Ann Koplin is one vote ahead of Michael Karlin. It has been touch and go since Nov. 2--and a recount appears certain.

By Monday, the suspense might be over, and Jo Ann Koplin and Michael Karlin will finally know which of them has been elected to the Beverly Hills School Board.

The latest tally of absentee ballots from the Nov. 2 election, released Tuesday by the county registrar-recorder’s office, showed Koplin ahead by one vote, 3,141 to 3,140. On Election Day, the unofficial tally showed Koplin ahead by three votes. Two updates last week put the candidates in a dead heat.

The registrar-recorder’s office plans to issue final and official results Monday. The winner will serve the remaining two years of an unexpired term on the board.

“It’s the most miserable experience,” said Karlin, an international business and tax lawyer whose campaign promises included reinvigorating arts programs and expanding computer courses. “Now it appears that we’ll have to go through the agony of a recount that could go on for a month or more. It is likely I will call for a recount (if I lose).”

Koplin, a former business manager of an architectural design firm, campaigned on a promise to include teachers in district decision-making.

“It’s like water torture,” she said. “It’s so anticlimactic. To have campaigned so hard for three months and not know is so unfair. The absolute worst thing would be to win or lose by a flip of coin, which I heard sometimes happens when there is a tie. I’d rather have a special election than flip a coin.”

Nobody is quite sure what will happen if the two candidates, who campaigned vigorously for the unexpired term, end up in a tie.

School Board President Richard A. Stone said the school district’s lawyer is checking on the procedure for a board election that ends in a tie.

“The law will dictate whether or not we will call for a special election or choose them by lot,” he said. “If a canvass shows one or the other is ahead, I’m sure the loser will call for a recount.”

Stone said the slow count, which he blamed on the registrar-recorder’s counting methods, is preventing the board from swearing in the winner and getting down to business, including the implementation of Proposition S, the $77-million bond issue that voters approved Nov. 2 to upgrade schools.

“(The numbers) are all meaningless,” Stone said. “I’m certain one of them will call for a recount. If any message should be gotten across from this, it should be shoot the counters.”

Registrar-recorder spokeswoman Marcia Ventura said, however, that counting absentee and provisional ballots is a labor-intensive process. The late votes are from absentee ballots that were hand-delivered to polling places and to the registrar-recorder’s office on Election Day, and provisional ballots, which are issued when a person’s qualifications to vote cannot be immediately verified at the polling place.

These ballots are not counted Election Day, but are processed afterward to allow time for signature and eligibility verification, Ventura said.

At the last school board meeting Nov. 9, Koplin was holding a 17-vote lead over Karlin. Stone, so confident then that Koplin was the likely winner, congratulated her on what appeared to be an imminent victory and suggested she should prepare to attend an out-of-town conference for board members. Karlin said he wished her well and thanked his supporters and campaign coordinator.

Everyone now concedes that was a bit premature.

Karlin, 41, tried to cope with the suspense this week with a measure of humor. “My campaign coordinator called the registrar’s office to get an update, and they told her, ‘Well, you’re the eighth person to call and say you’re Michael Karlin’s campaign coordinator today.’ ”

Koplin, 42, said she felt a little like a yo-yo, her moods going up and down with the changing tally.

“It’s time for it to be over,” Koplin said. “I have to get on with my life.”