Long Beach to Revamp Ballot Counting : Elections: Some procedural changes are being considered in the wake of a recount that reversed the outcome of a City Council race.

The Long Beach City Council is taking steps to improve ballot counting in city elections in the wake of a controversial council race in which the initial outcome was reversed after the city clerk’s office discovered several uncounted ballots.

The council has directed its legislative committee to consider several possible improvements, such as allowing the clerk’s office more time to count absentee votes and examine questionable ballots. Some council members also suggested that automatic recounts be granted in close races.

“Certainly, elections are not perfect,” said Councilman Thomas J. Clark, who introduced the measure. “But we need to do everything we can to make them perfect.”

The council also declared contractor Mike Donelon a winner by two votes over Tonia Reyes Uranga, who had held a 29-vote lead on election night June 7.

The vote counting for the District 7 council seat was widely criticized by civic leaders and some council members.

Uranga, the former president of the Long Beach Children’s Museum, saw her election night lead shrink after some absentee ballots were added. Donelon then called for a recount, and emerged with a one-vote lead after the clerk’s office counted several ballots that had been left out of the original tally.

A Superior Court judge then blocked the council from certifying the results of the recount until Uranga had a chance to review several other ballots that had been rejected for various reasons.

After reviewing the rejected ballots, officials decided that eight of them also should have been counted. Donelon gained an extra vote when those ballots were included, outpolling Uranga, 2,936 to 2,934.

Uranga has said she may challenge the results in court.

“We’re reviewing the materials now, making sure all the votes match up with registered voters,” she said. “Once that’s done, I’ll decide how to proceed.”

Uranga’s attorney, Fredric D. Woocher, said he may ask a judge to invalidate the seven ballots that were added during the recount. Donelon received six of those votes, giving him a one-vote lead. The ballots were added to the vote after the City Council had initially declared Uranga the winner.

“There is definitely potential for a challenge,” he said.

Officials said vote tampering would have been impossible because the ballot boxes were sealed on election night and placed in a locked storage room.

At the council meeting, City Clerk Shelba Powell called the error “a very unfortunate event that damaged the reputation of our department and caused unnecessary stress to the candidates.” She added: “I am responsible for the situation because I insisted the absentee ballots be counted on election night.”

In Los Angeles County elections, Powell said, many absentee ballots are not counted until the day after the voting.

She suggested that the council’s legislative committee consider delaying the deadline for certifying elections to allow her staff more time to review questionable and absentee ballots.

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Powell also suggested that the examination of rejected provisional ballots should be part of any future recount. Donelon had not asked that the rejected ballots be checked, so Uranga was forced to obtain a court order to do so.

“We need more time to audit . . . for controls, checks and balances,” Powell said. “I want to ensure the public that the integrity of our election process is intact.”

The council also could order an automatic recount when an election is close, said Councilman Alan S. Lowenthal.

Lowenthal said he was concerned that Donelon had to pay more than $3,000 for the recount. Although Donelon’s money was refunded after he was found to have won, Lowenthal said that not all candidates might have the funds to spend up front.

Councilman Ray Grabinski, who lost his bid for Mayor to Beverly O’Neill last month, agreed. “If Donelon had decided not to pay the $3,000, we would have had a tragedy. A person would have lost because he didn’t ask for a recount,” Grabinski said. Donelon and Uranga were vying for Grabinski’s 7th District seat.

Councilman Warren Harwood, who lost his 9th District seat to sheriff’s deputy Jerry Shultz, said the committee should review the entire election process in Long Beach, including the types of ballots and counting machines used. “We need to look at the entire set of procedures, not just Band-Aid solutions,” he said. “There are a lot of issues here that need to be addressed.”

According to officials, the election night error probably occurred around 2 a.m. when a clerk was feeding the final absentee ballots into a machine. The clerk apparently handed some ballots to another clerk to expedite the counting, and in the switch, a short stack of ballots was apparently not fed into the machine, officials said.

Workers at the next station, who matched the total votes cast with the total counted, did not catch the mistake.