Gardena Clerk Leans Toward Recount

Gardena City Clerk May Doi said Friday that she is leaning toward a recount of last week’s city election results, which have drawn fire from one City Council candidate who narrowly lost a bid to unseat an incumbent.

After a routine recount of ballots from one of the city’s 27 precincts, Doi said, a discrepancy in the vote totals persuaded her that a recount of all the ballots may be necessary. “Because of what happened this morning, I need to seriously study” that possibility, she said.

A decision will be made by Tuesday’s council meeting, she said.

Unofficial results released last week showed that incumbent Councilmen James W. Cragin and Paul Y. Tsukahara were returned to office, with third-place finisher Steven Bradford coming within 43 votes of unseating Tsukahara.

But that margin shrank to 37 as of Friday after late absentee ballots were tabulated and the votes at one precinct were reviewed, Doi said.

Since the election, Bradford has been demanding a recount of the ballots and a special election June 2 because of what he and his supporters claim were improprieties in the way city workers handled ballots and, at one precinct, instructed a voter on how many candidates to select.

The possibility of a recount was viewed enthusiastically by Bradford, an environmental coordinator bidding to become the city’s first black councilman.

“I’m ecstatic about it,” he said Friday.

In the event of a recount, it could take as long as a week to get results if the ballots are counted by hand, city officials said.

“It was sloppiness,” Bradford said Friday at a news conference outside City Hall in which he and his backers demanded a new election.