Margins of Victory Widen After Final O.C. Vote Tallies

The county registrar of voters’ office Friday announced official vote totals from the June 5 election.

The final count held no surprises, and margins widened in two of the county’s closest races.

In the contest for mayor of Irvine--during which incumbent Larry Agran and challenger Sally Anne Sheridan swapped leads--Sheridan wound up defeating Agran by 672 votes, rather than the 153 votes of the preliminary total.

And in the Democratic primary in the 42nd Congressional District, which straddles Orange and Los Angeles counties, Huntington Beach resident Guy C. Kimbrough was 200 votes ahead of James Cavuto of Torrance after the final, unofficial Orange County tally. Just 14 votes had separated them in the preliminary count.

Kimbrough defeated Cavuto by 910 votes in the official Orange County tally. In Los Angeles County, Cavuto beat Kimbrough by 710 votes in the original count, but the Los Angeles County registrar of voters will not complete its official count until June 26.

If his victory is verified, Kimbrough, a political science teacher at Mt. San Jacinto College, will face Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) in the Nov. 6 general election. In the 1988 general election match-up, Kimbrough lost to Rohrabacher, 64% to 33%.

In Orange County, registrar’s clerk Ann Halford said the county vote totals will be certified Tuesday by the California secretary of state’s office. Halford added that it took her office several days to complete the count because 10,000 to 15,000 absentee ballots had been submitted on Election Day.