Katz Ends Recount but Not His Court Fight

Democratic state Senate candidate Richard Katz said Friday he has called off the recount of ballots cast in the June 2 primary election, ensuring that his opponent, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, remains the certified winner by 29 votes.

But although Katz is giving up on the recount, he has not yet conceded the race, and said in a brief written statement released Friday that he will keep up the fight in the courts.

Katz, who fought the election results from the outset, has filed a lawsuit against Alarcon in Los Angeles County Superior Court challenging the results and alleging voting irregularities.

But by ending the recount, which had dragged on for five days through tens of thousands of ballots, Katz effectively handed the nomination to fellow Democrat Alarcon--unless a judge sees fit to undo the results. It stands as one of a handful of the closest legislative races in California in the last 50 years.

Katz spent an estimated $28,000 on the recount of the estimated 113,000 ballots cast. The money was raised by supporters, said his campaign consultant, Harvey Englander.

Katz is a one-time Sacramento powerhouse who had sought to reenter legislative politics after losing his seat to term limits. Alarcon rode a wave of Latino voter participation, plus a reputation of service to his Valley district, to the victory.

But for his trouble in pursuing the recount, Katz only managed to produce extra votes for Alarcon.

With all 20,000 absentee ballots recounted, and a third to a half of all regular ballots recounted, Alarcon picked up a net of seven votes, putting him 36 votes ahead of Katz, said county Registrar/Recorder Conny McCormack.

But because the recount was called off before all the votes were recounted, the official election results remain those of the first count, with Alarcon winning by 29, McCormack said.

“I’m very pleased the recount is over,” Alarcon said. “The results not only didn’t change much, they changed in my favor. I was surprised they changed so much in my favor.”

Alarcon said that he is pressing forward with his campaign and trying to focus on the November election for the state Senate seat, left vacant by the retirement due to term limits of Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles). The district has a solid majority of democratic voters.

But Alarcon must also fight the lawsuit. Englander said Katz is hoping to get a court hearing by mid- to late August. The Katz campaign will present “all kinds of discrepancies, all kinds of problems,” with the vote count identified by Katz volunteers at the registrar’s office following the election, Englander said.

Englander repeated assertions Katz had made that as many as 51 empty provisional ballot envelops found after the election raise questions.

Provisional ballots are filled out by voters whose names don’t appear on the list at the precincts, often because they registered to vote late. The ballots are supposed to be placed in envelopes and counted separately, and the empty envelopes may indicate that they were improperly counted with the rest, he said.

“We have reason to believe that a significant number” of these ballots were cast by voters who “may not have been people who should have voted”--voters who hadn’t registered, for example, he said.

Englander also said that the Katz campaign is questioning numerous uncounted absentee ballots invalidated by the registrar. For example, some may have been tossed out mistakenly because signatures didn’t quite match, he said.

Such matters could be probed through the discovery process that accompanies the lawsuit, but were not addressed in the recount. “The question is, are there 29 or 30 of these kinds of errors?” Englander said.

McCormack said only six ballots in the 20th District were invalidated because signatures didn’t match. “We are not saying it’s perfect, but we feel confident that our work has been thorough,” she said.

Alarcon’s attorney has been dismissive of Katz’s contention of election irregularities.

“Katz has a right to pursue his lawsuit,” said Alarcon, “but frankly, we think the county did a good job.”

Katz was not available for comment Friday, according to Englander.

He called off the recount because “we have counted enough ballots, and we have seen what changes there are . . . and we are satisfied that, while there are discrepancies in the count, those by themselves would not change [the] outcome of [the] election,” Englander said.

He said Katz’s supporters have continued to provide donations to fund the challenge.

Asked about Katz’s state of mind, Englander said the candidate is “tired.”

“Everyone is,” he said. “We are now six weeks past the election date; we had all expected to do different things right now. . . . It’s a very grueling process.”