Morrisset Edges Weiss by 1 Vote, Earns Spot in Runoff : Election: He will face appointed Auditor-Controller Thomas O. Mahon in November. Counting of absentee ballots changed the order of finish.

By a single vote, Oxnard accountant Richard Morrisset edged out rival Scott Weiss for the right to challenge Thomas O. Mahon for the countywide office of auditor-controller in November’s election, final tallies released Tuesday show.

It marks the first time in Ventura County that a city or countywide election has been decided by a single vote, elections chief Bruce Bradley said. More than 90,000 votes were cast in the auditor’s race.

The final absentee ballots also changed the order of finish, pushing Morrisset to second place after he trailed Weiss by 75 votes on election night.

Because Mahon, the appointed auditor-controller, failed to get 51% of the vote, he must now face the second-place finisher--Morrisset--in a November runoff. The final tally gives Mahon 35,561 votes, or 39.4%; Morrisset 17,195, or 19.1%, and Weiss 17,194, or 19.1%. Two other candidates shared the remaining votes.

Mahon spent about $30,000 on his primary campaign, while Morrisset spent only $650. Weiss spent about $1,000.

“The way to campaign is not by spending money,” Morrisset said. “It is by using your time and commitment and using volunteers to get the word out.”

The outcome stayed the same for all the other races in the June primary after the absentee ballots were counted, Bradley said. The Board of Supervisors is expected to certify the results Tuesday.

Weiss, a Ventura accountant, said he was not surprised by the outcome. In the past two weeks, as absentee ballots were slowly counted, Morrisset’s total consistently trekked upward, he said.

“Basically, what it boils down to is he did better on the absentee ballots, and I did better at the precincts,” Weiss said. “There is no other logic to it as far as I can see.”

Morrisset said he just “got lucky.”

“When you win by a single vote, I don’t think you can attribute it to anything else,” he said.

Weiss said it was disappointing to come so close and lose. But he will not ask for a recount because of the expense, he said. An electronic recount would cost him $5,000; if the votes were recounted by hand, his out-of-pocket cost would be about $9,000, Weiss said.

The county would reimburse Weiss only if a recount proved that an error had been made and that Weiss was the true second-place finisher, Bradley said. That is unlikely, he added.

“If you have a good computer and it’s been tested, it’s going to count the ballots consistently time after time,” he said. “Each vote is counted the same way.”

Although other minor races in the county have resulted in single-vote margins or even ties, this is the first time that a city or countywide primary has been won by one vote, Bradley said.

In the mid-1980s, there was a tie for a seat on the tiny Channel Islands Community Services District governing board, Bradley said. And in 1992, the race for a seat on the Bell Canyon Community Services District also resulted in a tie.

In both cases, the winners were chosen by the flip of a coin, Bradley said, adding that the districts were too small to justify the expense of a runoff.

Although such results are rare, they point out that even one person can make a difference by voting, Bradley said.

“One vote does count,” he said. “That’s the lesson here.”

Voter turnout for the June primary was the lowest ever, at 33.6%, Bradley said.

As Morrisset looks toward November, he said his strategy will be to send cadres of volunteers onto the streets to emphasize his campaign message: that Mahon is not a certified public accountant and was handed his job by his predecessor.

All three losing candidates, including Weiss, have pledged to help him in his quest to unseat Mahon, Morrisset said.

Mahon said he is not concerned.

“I ran against all of them to start with and I came out on top,” he said. “And I fully expect to come out on top in the next one.”

Mahon said he will spend about $50,000 to walk precincts, send mailers and meet with people in the next five months.

Besides performing audits, his office is responsible for keeping the county’s financial records, monitoring its budget, and overseeing payroll and accounts payable.

His years of experience in various posts in the auditor-controller’s office will help him serve as a chief financial officer as well as auditor, Mahon said.

As for Morrisset’s challenge, he said: “I’m running on my record. I’m not running against him.”