COUNTYWIDE : Assembly Race Loser Abandons Recount
With virtually no change in the outcome of the 70th Assembly District race after two days of recounting votes, Republican primary candidate Thomas G. Reinecke on Friday dropped his challenge of the election results.
“There’s been no substantial gain (in votes), so we are not going to proceed,” said Jim Bieber, a Reinecke campaign staffer who monitored the two-day recount at the registrar of voters office in Santa Ana.
Before the recount began, Reinecke trailed Marilyn C. Brewer, the winner in the 70th District GOP primary, by 172 votes out of a total of 44,778 votes cast.
The Brewer camp predicted at the outset that the outcome would not change, but Reinecke agreed to pay the $358-per-day fee to double-check the vote totals.
Only a partial recount of absentee ballots was done before Reinecke workers called off the review. Over the two days, Brewer picked up 10 votes and Reinecke’s total went up by two.
Brewer will face Democrat Jim Toledano in the Nov. 8 general election.
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