Races Still Squeakers Until Tally

With hundreds, if not thousands, of paper ballots still uncounted, the outcome of a dozen Orange County races remained too close to call Thursday.

City council candidates in Irvine, Orange, Villa Park and Placentia spent a third day nervously awaiting results. A handful of school board and college trustee races could also be affected, said Neal Kelley, the chief deputy registrar of voters.

The final tally for absentee and provisional ballots is not expected until late next week.

Provisional ballots are used when questions arise over the eligibility of people who have shown up to vote. For example, if people’s names are not on the list of registered voters at the precinct but they insist they have registered, they would be given provisional ballots. Election officials would later determine whether the ballots count.

Orange County candidates separated by 2 percentage points of the vote could be affected when the paper ballots are counted, Kelley said.

For example, in the race for Orange City Council, Jon Dumitru was the top vote-getter so far, with 20.1% of the vote.

But voters were asked to fill two seats. After Dumitru, Teresa Smith had received 18.2% of the vote and Fred M. Whitaker 18%.