ELECTIONS : Close Gardena Vote Prompts Recount Bid

The third-place finisher in a close Gardena City Council race is challenging this week’s election results, claiming the city prematurely declared two incumbents as winners before completing the ballot count.

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election show that council candidate Steven Bradford, 33, who was bidding to become the city’s first African-American councilman, finished just 41 votes behind Councilman Paul Y. Tsukahara. Councilman James W. Cragin placed first in what was the city’s closest council race in at least 15 years, officials said.

But Bradford said Thursday that 81 votes are yet to be counted. He also charged that city workers may have improperly handled ballots and that they improperly instructed at least one voter about how many candidates to select.

Although agreeing to consider a recount request by Bradford, Gardena officials said Thursday that they found no irregularities in Tuesday’s election. City officials also said their tabulation of votes shows that only about 30 absentee and other ballots remain to be counted--less than the number needed to change the election results.

Some of the uncounted ballots, Bradford said, were cast by voters whose names did not appear on registration rolls but who were eligible to vote. The remainder were cast by absentee voters who hand-delivered their ballots Tuesday, instead of mailing them in.

“First and foremost, those votes have to be counted,” said Bradford, recycling coordinator for the Los Angeles Conservation Corps.

In addition, Bradford said he is asking for a recount because some city election workers used pens or pencils to poke holes in ballots that were not clearly marked by voters. And at one precinct, Bradford added, a city election worker improperly instructed at least one voter to cast a ballot for only one, not two, of the three council candidates.

“The bottom line is that there are votes still to be counted . . . and I am asking for a recount before the election is certified,” said Bradford, whose challenge of the election is also being reviewed by the Southern California Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund.

But City Atty. Michael Karger said the state Election Code requires the city to certify the election results before a recount. After that certification, scheduled for next Tuesday’s council meeting, city officials will proceed with a recount, if it is still requested by Bradford. He would then have to pay the cost of the recount, estimated at less than $1,000, city officials said.

The city attorney and City Clerk May Y. Doi both added that their review of Tuesday’s elections found no improprieties.

Although 81 absentee and provisional ballots were cast Tuesday, Doi said, all but about 30 already have been counted. Moreover, she said, the city was following an accepted Election Code practice when workers poked holes in some ballots to allow them to be counted. Otherwise, she said, the tabs hanging from partially punched holes in ballots would have prevented their being counted.

Finally, Doi said, she and other election supervisors found only one case of a voter being given improper instructions. After that incident was reported, Doi said, she personally visited all 27 Gardena precincts and found no other problems with voter instructions.

Karger, meanwhile, said his review of the election revealed no actions that would warrant further inquiry.

“I understand (Bradford’s) frustration” at the close results, Karger said. “But there is nothing we think that was done wrong on election night . . . and nothing else we can do but certify the election. Whatever happens after that is up to him.”