Final Election Tallies Yield No Changes

Finishing the vote count from the Nov. 5 election, weary election officials on Wednesday released final results that showed no changes in the lineup of winners.

Ventura County’s results, which verified the lowest turnout for a presidential election since 1920, will be submitted to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday for official certification.

“There’s some more paperwork to do, but there are no more ballots to count,” said county elections chief Bruce Bradley. “I’m glad it’s finally over.”

The final results showed no changes in the outcome of several tight races scattered across the county, including those that ousted Moorpark Councilwoman Eloise Brown and Oxnard Councilman Andres Herrera.

Brown placed third in a race for two openings. She was 103 votes behind second-place finisher Debbie Rodgers Teasley. Christopher E. Evans finished first by several hundred more votes.

Herrera also lost by placing third in a race for two seats, finishing 354 votes behind Councilman Bedford Pinkard. John C. Zaragoza was the top vote-getter in the race.

In the race for three seats on the Simi Valley Unified school board, Janice DiFatta edged out board member Debbie Sandland for third place by 66 votes. Caesar O. Julian and Diane Collins placed first and second, respectively.

In the race for two school board seats in the tiny Rio School District near Oxnard, attorney Anthony M. Ramos kept his lead of 31 votes over Eleanor Torres. Ernest J. Almanza was the first-place finisher in that race.

Bradley said he is unaware of any brewing challenges to the election results.

“You never can never tell who is going to ask for a recount,” he said. But Bradley said he did not expect any recount would alter the outcome tallied by his office computer counters.

As a check on the system, he said, “We hand-counted five precincts in every race. And there was not one difference between what we counted and the machine counted. It was perfect in every case.”