Lam Widens Lead in Westminster : Elections: Close races in other cities could change with up to 5,000 absentee ballots still to be tallied in Orange County.

Westminster City Council candidate Tony Lam widened his lead against opponent Margie Rice in the absentee ballot count released Monday, while Collene Campbell and incumbent Councilman Jerry V. Harris are still separated by only a handful of votes in the San Juan Capistrano race for City Council.

The Orange County registrar of voters still has 4,000 to 5,000 ballots left to count countywide and will announce final results on Friday.

Lam, who would be one of the first Vietnamese-Americans to hold public office, was ahead of Rice by only 43 votes after Tuesday’s election but has pulled out to a 117-vote lead, with 7,094 votes to her 6,977. Rice has indicated that if she loses her bid for the two-year seat by a slim margin, she will call for a recount.

In the race for two four-year council seats in Westminster, incumbent Councilman Frank Fry maintained a solid lead with 10,495 votes, while challenger Charmayne Bohman, who now has 10,283 votes, increased her second-place lead over incumbent Councilwoman Lyn Gillespie, who has 10,151 votes. Last week before absentees were tallied, Bohman was ahead of Gillespie by only 42 votes.

In San Juan Capistrano, Carolyn Nash, a former city planning commissioner and wife of a former mayor, retained her lead Monday with a total of 5,397 votes and appears to be the top finisher among eight candidates for two open City Council seats.

But the race for the other seat remains close and undecided, even after Monday’s update. Challenger Campbell and incumbent Harris ran nearly a dead heat for the second open seat on Election Day, separated by only one vote--4,136 votes for Campbell and 4,135 for Harris. After Monday’s count, Campbell widened her lead slightly to 11 votes with a total of 4,366 to Harris’ 4,355.

A measure calling for the annexation by Orange of a 48-home unincorporated area off Fairhaven Avenue appears to be failing. Forty-one residents voted against annexation, 31 voted for it. In preliminary counting last week, the measure was deadlocked at 15 each.

In the race for three seats on the Huntington Beach City Council, Jim Silva still led with 32,373 votes, Victor Leipzig was second with 31,025 votes and Dave Sullivan had 27,465 votes.