Beilenson Claims Slim Win Over Sybert : Politics: GOP challenger calls fraud and says he may ask Congress to deny a seat to the nine-term Democratic representative. He also threatens a lawsuit.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) declared victory Friday over Republican candidate Rich Sybert, but Sybert said he may ask Congress to deny Beilenson his seat on grounds of election fraud.

With some ballots still uncounted, Beilenson campaign manager Craig Miller said he expects the nine-term congressman to maintain or increase his lead of 3,206 votes--just five more than when election officials finished the first tally of ballots on election night.

“The race is clearly over. We clearly have won,” Miller said.

Sybert acknowledged that the vote totals so far favor Beilenson but refused to concede the election. Sybert said he and his campaign staff are examining the possibility of filing a lawsuit against Beilenson or petitioning the GOP-controlled House of Representatives to refuse to seat him.

“I do not want to be guilty of sour grapes,” said Sybert, an attorney and former top aide to Gov. Pete Wilson. “If the final result is that he won, I’ll wish him well. . . . However, I think there are some serious questions about whether his tactics were honest.”

Sybert, 42, spent more than $1 million on his struggle to dump Beilenson, 62, a fixture in California politics for 30 years.

The battle in the 24th Congressional District attracted national attention as several GOP heavyweights raised campaign cash for Sybert, including U. S. Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas) and Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). The district covers the western San Fernando Valley and nearby coastal areas, running from Sherman Oaks and Malibu in Los Angeles County to Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Valley in Ventura County.

On Friday, Ventura County election officials announced that Sybert had won in that portion of the district, tallying 27,440 votes to Beilenson’s 15,386.

But Sybert’s Ventura victory was not enough to offset Beilenson’s lead in the far more populous Los Angeles County segment of the district. As of Friday, Beilenson had 92,733 votes in both counties, and Sybert had 89,527.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County voter registrar said 69,000 votes remain to be counted countywide, but she did not know how many of those were in the 24th District. A final count should be available next week, she said.

Miller, Beilenson’s campaign manager, said, however, that in two previous vote-count updates in Los Angeles County, Beilenson had increased his lead.

“I think we can only go up at this point,” Miller said.

Sybert said poll-watchers for his campaign reported that ballot boxes were left unlocked at some Encino polling places and absentee-voter lists were not maintained, raising the possibility that some voters cast two ballots in an area he described as a Beilenson stronghold.

Sybert also charged that brochures distorting his positions had been mailed to Republican voters the day before the election by two nonexistent GOP groups.

In one brochure, he said, Beilenson--a veteran liberal--was pictured next to former Sen. Barry Goldwater, a well-known GOP conservative, with a slogan proclaiming, “The Tradition Continues.”

Sybert said another brochure sent to GOP voters described him as being “in league with right-wing extremists” on abortion.

He said it falsely stated he favored the gag rule, which prohibited employees of 4,000 federally funded family-planning clinics from giving clients information about abortion services. The rule, imposed in 1988 under former President Ronald Reagan, was reversed by President Clinton last year.

“We had last-minute lies,” said Sybert. “They were not distortions. They were not gross distortions. They were flat-out fabrications.”

Miller said he was unaware of any irregularities at county-run polling places and, if any occurred, they were not the fault of the Beilenson campaign.

He said he had no knowledge of the alleged Goldwater mailer, but acknowledged that the Beilenson campaign had sent out the brochure attacking Sybert on abortion, which Miller defended as accurate.

Miller said the charge that Sybert supported the gag rule was based on his signing of the “Contract for America,” a declaration of conservative values promoted by the national Republican Party.

Miller said one provision in the contract backed the gag rule, and suggested Sybert may not have thoroughly read the document.

“Rich Sybert felt he could buy the election with his personal wealth,” said Miller. “Obviously, he’s very disappointed that he couldn’t. Now he’s trying to find something that explains his defeat.”

Sybert said his campaign staff is exploring the possibility of filing a lawsuit against Beilenson or asking the House of Representatives to refuse to seat him.

He cited as precedent the House’s refusal to admit former Rep. Adam Clayton Powell in 1967. The House shut its doors to the flamboyant Harlem Democrat because he had misused public funds. The U. S. Supreme Court later ruled that the House could not exclude Powell.

Miller responded that Sybert’s campaign mailers had distorted Beilenson’s positions on the death penalty and immigration issues. He said Beilenson had engaged in no fraud and predicted that the House would not “reverse how the voters in a particular district voted.”