Auditor’s Candidate Defeated--By 1 Vote

Despite one candidate’s demand for a recount, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday formally certified the 113,866 ballots cast in the June 7 election.

That leaves Ventura accountant Scott Weiss one vote shy of making the runoff for the county auditor-controller. And it leaves him five days to decide whether to put up $10,000 of his own money for a recount.

Weiss said he could also choose to sue the county. “I’m not going to do anything but take the Independence Day weekend and think about it,” Weiss said Tuesday.

In a final appeal to supervisors, Weiss’ campaign treasurer argued that legal precedent bound the county to look at 274 “overvotes”--ballots where voters punched more than one hole for the auditor-controller race.

In cases where the second hole is punched for a write-in candidate, but no name is written, these ballots have been considered valid in other elections, argued campaign treasurer Mark L. Goldenson. He cited a 1987 court decision and a 1984 case when Ventura County did a recount of the overvotes.

County Counsel James McBride said the law neither requires nor forbids the counting of overvotes. But the county voter registrar, as a policy, does not count the ballots and the county’s computer program is not set up to handle them.

Thus, finding the 274 faulty cards would require culling through all the ballots cast in the county races, said Assistant Registrar Bruce Bradley. County officials would then have to proceed with a full recount, costing $6,700 to $10,000.