Burke Widens Lead Over Watson in Supervisor Race

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke widened her lead over Diane Watson on Monday in their race to become the first African-American elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, as the district attorney’s office opened an investigation into allegations of voting fraud.

In the first update of the absentee ballot count since last Tuesday’s election, former Rep. Burke led state Sen. Watson by 1,597 votes with an estimated 10,000 absentee ballots still to be tabulated in the 2nd District race.

Until Monday, Burke was ahead of Watson by 775 votes out of 400,000 ballots cast to choose a successor for retiring Supervisor Kenneth Hahn in the Koreatown-to-Watts district.

The district attorney’s office Monday opened an investigation “as to whether any irregularities occurred in the balloting in the 2nd Supervisorial District election,” said Gail Ehrlich, a deputy in the special investigations division. “We have allegations that merit investigation,” she said. She declined to be more specific.

A week before the election, the district attorney began looking into allegations of dead people being registered to vote in Hawthorne, which is part of the 2nd District. But Ehrich said that the investigation has been expanded to cover “allegations of voter fraud” in the supervisor’s race.

Watson last week called for an investigation of what she termed irregularities, including reports that her name was missing from ballots at two polling places. Election officials said they examined ballots at the precincts in question and Watson’s name was on every ballot. They noted that Watson won both precincts.

Watson has said she is waiting for the final ballot results before deciding whether to seek a recount.

The next tally update will be provided Thursday, but officials said they do not expect to finish the count until Monday at the earliest.

Officials have until Nov. 23 to certify election results. The loser then will have five days to request a recount.