Absentee Vote Played Role in Hill’s Victory

Assemblyman Frank Hill combined an effective absentee ballot strategy with a loyal constituency in his home district of Whittier to narrowly win the Republican nomination in a special state Senate election Tuesday.

Because none of the eight candidates in the 31st State Senate District election received more than 50% of the vote, Hill will face the Democratic nominee, Janice Graham, and the American Independent Party nominee, Robert Lewis, in a runoff election on April 10. Hill goes into the runoff as the favorite because the district, which is split between Los Angeles and Orange counties, is overwhelmingly Republican.

“I feel very confident that it will go well,” Hill said Wednesday. “I am ecstatic.”

Hill said he has talked with Gov. George Deukmejian and Republican Sen. Pete Wilson, a candidate for governor, about making campaign appearances on his behalf.

Half of the 15,265 votes Hill received were already in the registrar of voters’ office before Election Day because of a sophisticated strategy that included paying workers for each absentee ballot they collected.

Increasingly in California, candidates in special elections have been promoting such heavy use of absentee ballots.

Tuesday’s race came down to Hill and Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), the two best-known candidates on the ballot. Experts said Wednesday that the heavy five-week barrage of personal attacks and name-calling that dominated the election only resulted in keeping many voters away from the polls.

Ferguson finished a close second --fewer than 800 votes behind Hill.

More than two-thirds of Hill’s vote came from the portion of the Senate district in Los Angeles County, most of which overlaps his Assembly district.

Turnout for the special election to replace former state Sen. William Campbell, who resigned his seat in December, was about 17%.

“Hill and Ferguson were able to turn out their bases of support, and nobody beyond that even voted,” said Harvey Englander, campaign manager for Republican challenger Ron Isles. “Those people who were planning to vote for Isles got turned off by all the attack mail.”

There is a cloud over Hill’s candidacy--he is under investigation by the FBI in connection with its investigation of influence peddling at the Capitol.