ELECTIONS / ABSENTEE BALLOTS : Lomax Beats Shanahan in Tight Race for School Board

After the last of the absentee votes were counted, the results of last week’s Ventura County elections were unchanged, officials announced Tuesday.

In the race for the Ventura Unified School District board, one of the closest contests in the county, Velma L. Lomax maintained her election-night lead over former Buena High Principal Michael F. Shanahan and captured the third available seat on the panel.

Lomax, head of the Ventura High School Parent-Teacher-Student Assn., received 12,501 votes, just 248 more than the 12,253 for the former principal. Prior to the inclusion of the absentee votes, she had led by a 343-vote margin.

In another close race, J. Paul Fredericks defeated incumbent Barbara Bronson Gray by 81 votes to win a seat on the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council. On election night, Fredericks had led by 55 votes.

The results released Tuesday include all votes in the county except about 750 questionable ballots that are still being checked, county elections chief Bruce Bradley said. Those ballots are not enough to affect any races, he said.

In the Ventura school board election, bilingual educator Cliff Rodrigues remained in first place with 13,433 votes and incumbent John B. Walker maintained the second spot with 13,023 votes to win the first two available seats.

But it was the contest between Lomax and Shanahan for the third spot that had been in doubt until the final absentee votes were tallied.

“I’m so glad it’s over,” Lomax said Tuesday. “I feel great.”

Shanahan, who spent about $4,000 on the campaign compared to Lomax’s $2,000, said he had not expected the absentee votes to change the results of the race.

“I’m disappointed,” Shanahan said. “But I think the voters have spoken and I certainly support the three candidates we have elected.”

The 12,027 absentee ballots that county elections workers have counted since last week’s balloting also tightened margins in the contest for three seats on the Oak Park Unified School District board.

Incumbent Wayne H. Blasman retained first place, increasing his total from 1,118 to 1,220.

But the contest for second place got slightly closer. Newcomer Jeri Fox’s vote total climbed from 927 to 1,008, while incumbent Robert H. Kahn boosted his share from 816 to 891.

Altogether, about 39% of the county’s registered voters cast ballots in the Nov. 2 election, Bradley said.

Of the more than 130,000 votes cast, 33,969 or 26% were absentee, marking a record-high use of the mail-in ballots in Ventura County, Bradley said. The previous record had been in the 1990 gubernatorial election, when absentee votes accounted for 20.6% of the total.