Absentees Alter Simi, Rio School Board Outcomes

After a week of laboriously counting 33,000 absentee ballots, county election officials Tuesday issued an updated vote count that altered outcomes in the Simi Valley and Rio school board elections but left all other races unchanged.

The new tallies offered no hope to Oxnard City Councilman Andres Herrera and former Moorpark Councilwoman Eloise Brown, who slipped further behind the front-runners in their tight city council elections.

Boosted by strong support among absentee voters, Janice DiFatta has swapped places with incumbent Debbie Sandland to win a third open seat on the Simi Valley Unified school board.

Caesar O. Julian and Diane Collins remained in first and second, respectively, to take the other two seats.

In the Rio School District, Anthony M. Ramos has overtaken Eleanor Torres in second place to pick up one of the two seats that were up for grabs in the Nov. 5 election. Ernest J. Almanza remained the top vote-getter in the tiny elementary school district adjacent to Oxnard.

County election chief Bruce Bradley said he anticipates no additional changes in the lineup of winners, even though county officials have yet to sort through 4,800 provisional ballots cast at polls across Ventura County.

If history is a guide, only about half of those ballots will be certified as valid, Bradley said. A provisional ballot is cast when a voter’s absentee ballot form is lost in the mail or there is a mix-up in the voter’s proper polling place or registration.

“There are about 2,400 votes floating around out there,” Bradley said. That’s enough, he said, to change the outcome in the Simi Valley Unified School District, where DiFatta is leading Sandland by only 88 votes. A change, however, is not expected.

“It’s a comfortable enough margin at this point,” DiFatta said. “I’m beside myself and I’m thrilled.”

The PTA activist attributed her success to offering voters a conservative alternative to Sandland. “I think that is what got me elected. And that I’ve been involved [in local schools] for so many years.”

Sandland could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Election officials said a change in winners is not mathematically possible in most of the other tight races, such as the hotly contested Oxnard City Council race.

“For all intents and purposes, I think that race is over,” Bradley said of the Oxnard contest where incumbent Herrera is now trailing Councilman Bedford Pinkard by 415 votes.

Herrera conceded the race Tuesday to Pinkard and newcomer John C. Zaragoza, a real estate broker and the top vote-getter.

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“Life goes on,” Herrera said. “Things happen. The people who vote have the right to vote for whomever they want and I don’t quibble with that.”

Herrera, who is a business consultant, said the election defeat does not mean the end of his political career. “Not being a council member won’t stop me from doing what I think needs to be done.”

Pinkard said he was relieved at the updated count, saying it put to rest another “agonizing day” of waiting. “I’ve never been in anything this close.”

Pinkard, a retired Oxnard recreation supervisor, had kind words for his departing colleague, as well as hopeful words for Herrera’s replacement.

“I look at it this way,” Pinkard said. “Andy [Herrera] went through my youth program as did John Zaragoza. I’m sure I will get the same cooperation from him as I did from Andy.”

In Moorpark, Debbie Rodgers Teasley appears to have unseated incumbent Eloise Brown, widening her lead to 103 votes.

Brown, who served on the council from 1986 to 1990 and returned during March’s special election, said she will await the final outcome of the race.

“I never concede,” Brown said. “If it happens, it happens.”

If bounced from the council, she expects to resume her practice of monitoring City Council meetings as a citizen-activist. “I think this council will be very entertaining,” Brown said.

Teasley was also cautious.

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“I’m not going to declare anything until the county declares it,” she said. “I’m up, and I’m really happy about that. I just wish it were final.” Results from the Nov. 5 election were delayed because county officials were swamped by a record number of late-arriving absentee ballots.

About one in four of the county’s voters who participated in the presidential election decided to cast absentee votes, representing a record 63,636 absentee ballots. More than half of the absentee ballots arrived on Monday or election day, burying clerks who perform the tedious task of verifying signatures and other chores before the ballots can be counted by machine.

Overall, Bradley said the turnout Nov. 5 was 65.4% of registered voters--the lowest percentage turnout in a presidential election since the county began keeping records in 1920.

County election officials expect to wrap up provisional ballots within a week and submit complete ballot results for certification by the county Board of Supervisors on Nov. 26.

Bradley said election workers made mistakes at two polling sites in Oxnard, where some of the precinct’s voters are in the Oxnard Elementary School District and others in the Rio School District, which covers the communities of El Rio, Nyeland Acres and a small portion of Oxnard.

By his calculations, between 30 and 35 people were incorrectly given ballots to vote in the Rio School District--a problem pointed out by Ramos, an attorney and school board candidate who was out of the money in third place.

But now that absentees have bumped Ramos into second place with a 35-vote lead, Bradley does not know whether to expect a court challenge.

In this case, a candidate’s only remedy is to prove that the mix-up altered the election’s outcome and persuade a judge to order a new one. Ramos declined to comment until the election results are certified as valid. “Nothing is final until then,” he said.

Torres, now in third place, could not be reached for comment.

Times correspondent David R. Baker contributed to this story.