CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: CONGRESS : Absentees to Decide Demo Nominee in 42nd District

Election officials in Orange and Los Angeles counties Thursday began counting the absentee ballots that will decide who will win the Democratic nomination in the 42nd Congressional District, where the top two vote-getters were separated by a handful of votes.

However, the results won’t be known for several weeks, officials said.

“This is terrible,” said James Cavuoto, one of the candidates. “My hope is to get at least an indication of how these votes are going to swing by tomorrow.”

Cavuoto and Guy C. Kimbrough emerged from Tuesday’s primary just 14 votes apart. Bryan W. Stevens, the third candidate, trailed the leader, Kimbrough, by 1,204 votes in the race for the right to challenge Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) in November.

That brings the contest down to an undetermined number of uncounted absentee ballots received on Election Day.

Since the largely coastal 42nd District stretches from Torrance to Huntington Beach, some ballots in the district are counted in Los Angeles County and others in Orange County.

The Orange County registrar of voters office plans to have an unofficial count of late-arriving absentee ballots by late this afternoon. But Los Angeles County’s tally will be part of a detailed canvass lasting more than two weeks, said Marcia Ventura of the county registrar-recorder’s office.

Election officials in Orange and Los Angeles counties said they do not know exactly how many late-arriving absentee ballots are at stake--much less how many of them were cast by voters in the 42nd Congressional District.

With little left to do but contemplate the hair-thin margin separating them, Cavuoto, a computer industry publisher from Torrance, and Kimbrough, a political science instructor from Huntington Beach, are busy debating who will wind up as the Democratic nominee.

Kimbrough, who cast himself in the campaign as more conservative than Cavuoto, said he is optimistic because studies show that absentee voters are more conservative than other voters. He also pointed out that his campaign sent mail to people who had requested absentee ballots, while Cavuoto’s did not.

The result, Kimbrough said, was evident in the roughly 2,800 absentee ballots counted before primary day: Kimbrough captured more than twice as many as Cavuoto.

“I believe the final tally will probably confirm my win,” Kimbrough said.

Cavuoto disagreed. Unlike absentees who sent off their ballots well before Election Day, he said, many late absentees may have received his campaign literature before voting.

“I’m convinced (they voted) differently from the early absentee voters,” Cavuoto said. If they did not, and the margin separating him from Kimbrough remains slim, Cavuoto said he will request a recount.

“If it’s just a handful of votes, I think I owe it to my campaign workers to find out if the totals were right,” Cavuoto said.