Absentee Ballots Not Expected to Upset Apparent Lagomarsino Win

Two dozen part-time election workers, hired for about $6 an hour, will finish counting thousands of Ventura County absentee ballots today in a tedious process that has entailed opening stacks of sealed envelopes by hand, checking the validity of signatures and sweeping away hundreds of loose “chads,” the tiny dots that voters punch from their ballots.

But in one of the area’s tightest and most closely watched races, in which Republican Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino is edging out state Democratic Sen. Gary K. Hart by fewer than 2,300 votes, chances for a last-minute upset appear minuscule.

Although more than 12,000 absentee ballots in the 19th Congressional District had not been counted on Election Day, returns released this week by Santa Barbara County election officials show Ventura’s Lagomarsino widening his lead over Hart, from Santa Barbara, by another 1,500 votes.

With only about 4,000 absentee ballots left to be counted from a portion of the district in Ventura County, Hart would have to win more than 95% of those votes to surpass the GOP incumbent.

“We’re not particularly hopeful,” said Hart’s press secretary, Ann Adler, adding, however, that the 14-year Sacramento legislator will not concede the race until all ballots are counted.

Celebration Under Way

Nevertheless, Lagomarsino campaign officials are already celebrating. “This is merely extending our final margin of victory,” said campaign manager Ed Bedwell.

That the absentee votes so far heavily favor Lagomarsino has come as no surprise to either camp, where officials readily acknowledge that voters who cast absentee ballots tend to be conservative Republicans.

“Conservative voters tend to feel a greater duty toward voting and, if they recognize that they’re not going to be able to vote on Election Day, they take care of business early,” Bedwell said.

Hart officials agreed. “Conservative Republicans are just more likely to vote anyway,” Adler said. “It’s a fact of political life.”

Santa Barbara and Ventura County election officials said the absentee ballots had not been counted earlier either because they were hand-delivered to polling places or were received by mail on or shortly before Election Day.

Although the actual counting of the ballots by electronic machine takes only several minutes, election officials said they need at least a week to open all the envelopes, confirm that the voters are registered, and sort the ballots according to precinct.

‘Always Have to Do This’

“We always have to do this,” said Ruth Schepler, Ventura County assistant registrar of voters. “It’s just that nobody pays attention unless it’s a close race.”

Semiofficial returns early in the morning after Election Day showed Lagomarsino with 108,257 votes to Hart’s 105,981, a margin of only about 1% of the total votes cast.

Hart’s hopes for an upset evaporated this week, however, when Santa Barbara County officials released results from the 8,300-plus absentee votes that had not been counted in that part of the district. Lagomarsino won 4,875 of those ballots to Hart’s 3,388, officials said.

Although more than 13,000 ballots will be counted in Ventura County today, only about a third will fall within the 19th Congressional District, which covers Ventura, Santa Paula, Oak View, Meiners Oaks, Casitas Springs, El Rio, Saticoy, Piru and parts of Oxnard.