Recount Still Shows Rep. Bates Loser to Cunningham

Resulting in a net shift of only five votes, a recount of last month’s 44th Congressional District was completed Friday, upholding Republican Randall (Duke) Cunningham’s narrow defeat of Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego).

By leaving Cunningham’s victory intact, the recount by the San Diego County voter registrar’s office removed one of Bates’ two last-gasp efforts to retain the seat he has held since 1982.

Bates’ only remaining hope, which even he concedes is a slim one, for overturning his Nov. 6 loss now lies with a lawsuit he filed this week in which he argues that local election officials improperly handled absentee ballots.

Over the past eight days, more than 2 dozen voter registrar officials hand-counted the more than 100,000 ballots cast in the four-candidate contest, votes that originally were tabulated by computer on Election Night and the days immediately following.

When the work was finally completed Friday, Bates had whittled his 1,665-vote deficit by only five votes, as he gained 43 additional ballots, compared to Cunningham’s 38 extra votes. Two minor-party candidates received a combined total of nine additional votes.

For that minor change, Bates paid more than $8,700 to reimburse the registrar for the counters’ salaries--a cost of more than $1,700 per vote gained.

Because the changes did not alter the election’s outcome, they will not be officially recorded, according to Assistant Registrar Ingrid Gonzales. Accordingly, the official result will preserve the tabulations made before the recount, showing that Cunningham received 50,377 votes (46.3%) to Bates’ 48,712 votes (44.8%), with about 9,600 ballots going to the two minor candidates.

Most of the additional recount votes consisted of absentee ballots on which voters had failed to punch a hole completely through their voting card next to their preferred candidate, causing the registrar’s computers to not count them. However, when the ballots are examined by eye, if a partial hole can be seen, signifying an individual’s apparent attempt to vote for a particular candidate, the vote can be counted.

Bates, who said from the outset that he did not expect the recall to alter the result, stressed Friday that he views the lawsuit as “the better chance” to do so.

“But it’s pretty much of a long shot, too,” the four-term congressman conceded. The lawsuit, in which Bates charges that invalid absentee ballots may have been tabulated because of election officials’ lax signature verification procedures, is expected to be heard later this month in Superior Court.

However, Tex Burkett, Cunningham’s campaign manager, dismissed both the recount and lawsuit as indicative of Bates’ “refusal to accept that he lost.”

“To me, this showed his complete disregard for the will of the voters and the interest of taxpayers,” Burkett said, noting that Bates’ fee did not completely cover administrative and overhead costs associated with the recount. “It was a waste of time and money.”