Democrats redo delegate election, with similar results

More than 700 local Democrats took part in a redo delegate election Sunday after an earlier contest was marred by allegations of fraud, and state party officials determined scores of votes had been improperly cast.

In the end, however, the new election had essentially the same results as the first, with the Democrats United slate — most of whom are supporters of Glendale City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian and Anthony Portantino — defeating the Progressive slate — made up of allies of Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale).

“I think the votes confirm what the original election told us,” Kassakhian said on Tuesday.

Delegates attend the state convention, help shape official platforms and select endorsements for races in their area, in this case the 43rd Assembly District, which includes Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada and La Crescenta.

Portantino, a former assemblyman from La Cañada, has announced his intent to run for the state Senate seat currently occupied by Carol Liu (D-La Cañada) when she terms out. Gatto has raised funds to run for the same seat, but has not formally announced his candidacy.

Kassakhian has announced plans to run for Gatto’s assembly seat when Gatto is himself termed out next year.

Both Gatto and Portantino have rejected the notion that the delegate election was a proxy battle.

This week, Portantino said it’s about a “bigger picture,” which is that of the residents of the district “empowering themselves to make a difference.”

“To the extent that is relevant to the races next year,” he said, it’s a positive result. “I’m happy to be associated with the grass-roots slate.”

Gatto could not be reached for comment.

A review by state party officials earlier this year showed at least 117 people of the 738 who voted in the January election either did not live in the 43rd Assembly District, which includes Glendale, Burbank, La Crescenta and La Cañada Flintridge, or were not members of the Democratic Party — both requirements to vote for the party-specific positions. Another 107 could not be verified one way or the other, meaning as many as 30.4% were improperly cast.

Every other year, seven men and seven women are elected as district delegates and one person is elected as an executive board representative. Two candidates — Berdj Karapetian and Shant Sahakian — received enough votes in January that the number of ineligible voters would not have affected their outcomes, officials ruled in April.

At the state Democratic Convention in Anaheim in May, officials also declared Tereza Yerimyan as a winner in the earlier election, leaving open six seats for women and five seats for men.

Following Sunday’s election, Jordan Del Guercio, Malcolm Johnson, Leonard Manoukian, Steve Whiddon and Garry Willis were declared winners on the male side while Elen Asatrayan, Aline Babaian, Mijin Fernandes, Jamie Garcia, Silva Kechichian and Judith Smith won the women’s seats.

Eric Bauman, chair of the Los Angeles Democratic Party and vice chair of the California Democratic Party, served as convener for the do-over election at the Pacific Community Center in Glendale. Bauman said he took stringent steps to avoid a repeat of issues that rendered the earlier election invalid.

“We have a well-trained staff of 70 volunteers. As they [voters] register, the staff looks them up in the registry to check eligibility,” said Bauman. “If they are not in the system, they are sent to a troubleshooting station where specially trained volunteers research the possibility that Sacramento has them in the system.”

“Challenges will be dealt with on the spot,” Bauman said. If voters were not found in the register, they were given a provisional ballot that will be sent to Sacramento for verification.

More safety features and redundancies were built into the registration and voting processes to avoid the mistakes of the original election, he said.

“Some of the most common problems are ballots where someone has voted for more than 11 candidates,” said Bauman. “Those ballots are void. People also might make the wrong choice and try to correct it by scratching out or drawing arrows.”

Bauman said as long as the intent is clear in those cases they will “go with that.”

Voters who do not speak English were allowed to bring an interpreter with them, but Spanish and Armenian volunteer translators were on hand to assist.

Sal Polcino is a contributing writer.