Lynch Gains, but Garcetti Keeps Lead

With the bulk of absentee ballots counted, challenger John Lynch inched closer to Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti but Garcetti still holds a slim lead, election officials said Monday.

As 85,546 more ballots were counted Monday afternoon, Lynch gained 2,117 votes on Garcetti, Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said.

However, with nearly 2.2 million votes counted, Garcetti maintains a lead of 3,165 votes, McCormack said.

The results Monday mean Lynch has cut by more than half the 6,836-vote lead that Garcetti held after election night. But roughly four of five absentee ballots have now been counted.

“My math is we’ve lost 50% of our margin but they’ve counted 80% of the votes,” said Garcetti’s campaign manager, Matt Middlebrook. “By that math, we win.”

Political analysts concurred. “Mathematically, if this continues, it sounds like a very narrow win for Gil,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the Claremont Graduate School.

But she added: “We don’t know what the rest of the ballots look like, where they came from, who cast them. So it’s still a crapshoot.”

Middlebrook stressed that he was not ready to declare victory, only “cautiously optimistic about the outcome.” And Lynch’s campaign manager, Rick Taylor, was hardly ready to concede.

“I’m always happy when we’re moving up,” Taylor said.

The campaign served primarily as a referendum on Garcetti and the failed prosecution of the O.J. Simpson murder case. The key to the election has proved to be the heaps of absentee votes.

The count Monday focused on a third enormous batch of absentee ballots. A fourth pile of about 67,000 ballots still remains, though--for technical reasons relating to so-called provisional ballots--only about 38,500 of those ballots are expected to figure in the final tally.

The first batch of absentee votes--213,346 that had arrived at the county registrar’s office by Nov. 4, the day before the election--were the first returns posted on election night.

Lynch won that batch decisively, 55% to 45%.

The second batch, 74,535 ballots, was made up mostly of those that arrived by mail on election day.

Because Lynch won the first batch of mail-in ballots, the second batch was expected to be favorable to the challenger. And, indeed, he won--but not by the same 10-point margin.

Instead, in counting conducted last Friday, he got 51.15%, or 34,431 votes. Garcetti got 48.85%,or 32,877. Lynch edged 1,554 votes closer, but Garcetti maintained a 5,282-vote lead.

The third batch, those counted Monday, was made up mostly of ballots dropped off at polling places on election day. Those “walk-in” ballots were expected to be favorable to Garcetti because he prevailed in ballots cast at voting booths by 50.7% to 49.3%.

Lynch, however, got 51.42%, or 38,460 votes. Garcetti got 48.58%, or 36,343 votes.

As with the other two batches of absentee votes, the numbers don’t add up to 85,546 because not all ballots include a vote for district attorney.

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Including the Monday count, the total now adds up like this: Garcetti, 1,098,223 votes, or 50.07%. Lynch, 1,095,058 votes, or 49.93%.

Of the 67,000 ballots still on hand at the registrar’s Norwalk offices, 10,000 are absentee and 57,000 are provisional ballots, McCormack said.

An absentee ballot is counted once the signature on the ballot matches the signature on a voter registration card.

By contrast, a provisional ballot, one given at a polling place to someone who insists they have a right to vote but no proof of registration, is counted only when election officials confirm that proof.

About half of the 57,000 provisional ballots on hand at the registrar’s Norwalk offices probably will not end up counting, McCormack said.

Given those figures, about 38,500 ballots actually remain outstanding. To win, political analysts calculated Monday, Lynch needs to surge to take about 54% of the remaining ballots.

The hurdle Lynch faces, analysts said, is that he has won only 51.3% of the absentee ballots counted since election night--that is, those counted last Friday and on Monday.

“It just doesn’t look good for [Lynch],” said Dick Rosengarten, editor of California Political Week. “That’s the bottom line.”

Because each provisional ballot must be checked against voter registration records, the process is slow going, McCormack said.

Officials have until Nov. 26 to complete the count. The next report is due Friday.