No Election Surprises as Final Ballots Counted

Ending what was tantamount to a weeklong Election Night for some nervous candidates, more than 70,000 absentee ballots were counted in San Diego on Tuesday, with the results leaving the outcomes in all major local races unchanged.

Final unofficial vote figures released by the county registrar of voters confirmed Republican Randall (Duke) Cunningham’s upset of Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) and upheld the victories of two Democratic state Assembly candidates--Deirdre (Dede) Alpert and Mike Gotch--over GOP incumbents Sunny Mojonnier and Jeff Marston, respectively.

The candidates’ finishing order in two close school board races also remained the same, with retired teacher John de Beck gaining a seat on the San Diego Unified School Board and Kara Kobey winning her San Diego Community College Board contest. Tuesday’s votes also ratified voters’ narrow rejection of a $100-million bond measure that would have been used to acquire and upgrade city parks and open space.

Overall, 197,743 voters countywide cast absentee ballots, representing nearly 29% of the total 57.4% turnout, according to Registrar Conny McCormack. The percentage of absentees was the highest ever in San Diego for a general election, eclipsing the 25.2% in 1988.

Only about 200 votes, some of them paper ballots mailed from armed services personnel in the Middle East, remain to be counted, election officials said late Tuesday. Those ballots, however, will not change the outcome in any major race.

Jokingly dubbed “Election Day Part II--The Sequel” by McCormack, the 5 1/2-hour tabulation of the 70,051 absentee and write-in ballots Tuesday left campaign consultants and other supporters of the candidates in some of the county’s closest races with little to do other than pace the registrar’s Kearny Mesa office.

For several incumbents, the remaining ballots--most of which had been mailed or turned in at the polls on Election Day--represented their last hope for resurrecting political careers that appeared to have expired last Tuesday. Challengers clinging to slim leads, meanwhile, anxiously hoped that the ballots would confirm their uphill victories.

In what proved to be the county’s closest major election, former San Diego City Council member Gotch saw his 1,858-vote Election Night lead dwindle Tuesday but held on to defeat Marston by only 628 votes out of more than 91,000 cast in the 78th Assembly District--41,158 votes (45%) to 40,530 (44.3%).

Two minor-party candidates--Libertarian Ed McWilliams and Peace and Freedom Party member Bob Bardell--received nearly 9,800 votes between them in the 78th District.

Gotch’s narrow victory avenged his two losses to Marston in last spring’s special primary and runoff to fill the 78th District vacancy created by Democrat Lucy Killea’s election to the state Senate.

In the 44th Congressional District, Cunningham padded his 982-vote Election Night lead over Bates, defeating the four-term Democrat by 1,659 votes--50,335 votes (46.3%) to 48,676 (44.8%. As in the 78th District contest, the votes received by minor candidates--widely interpreted as protest votes against the two major parties’ nominees--played a pivotal role, with Peace and Freedom Party member Donna White and Libertarian John Wallner drawing a combined total of about 9,600 votes.

Alpert’s victory margin essentially remained unchanged in the 75th Assembly District, as the Solana Beach school board member blocked Mojonnier’s bid for a fifth two-year term by outpolling the Encinitas Republican, 57,702 votes (45.7%) to 51,770 (41%). Nearly 17,000 votes went to two minor candidates, Libertarian John Murphy and Peace and Freedom Party member Vi Phuong Huynh.

In the San Diego city school board race, De Beck narrowly outdistanced Harvey, receiving 98,596 votes (50.4%) to Harvey’s 96,929 (49.6%). And Kobey defeated former city school board member Yvonne Larsen in their Community College District contest, 95,737 votes (51%) to 91,891 (49%).

Proposition E, the proposed $100-million bond issue for city parks and open space, lost by only 1,711 votes out of the more than a quarter of a million ballots that were cast. Votes against the measure totaled 128,898 (50.3%), and in favor were 127,187 (49.7%).