Charges fly in Inglewood city elections

Bad blood between Inglewood’s mayor and its elected city clerk boiled over during the city’s municipal elections Tuesday, with each accusing the other of interfering with the process.

City Clerk Yvonne Horton and an election volunteer said Mayor Roosevelt F. Dorn instructed a photographer to take pictures of workers verifying absentee ballots. He also accused them of pulling a “switcheroo” with the results, they said.

“Personally, I think that he’s trying to overturn this election if his candidates don’t win,” Horton said Tuesday night, before the results were known. She said she reported the incident to the district attorney’s office.

The election day dispute highlighted the fractious nature of Inglewood politics, with supporters of Dorn on one side and supporters of state Sen. Ed Vincent (D-Inglewood), Dorn’s predecessor, and former Assemblyman Jerome Horton, Yvonne Horton’s husband, on the other.

Up for grabs Tuesday were three City Council and three school board seats and the posts of city clerk and treasurer.

Incumbent Councilmen Eloy Morales Jr. and Ralph Franklin, who are not aligned with Dorn, won reelection, as did Treasurer Wanda Brown, a Dorn ally, and Yvonne Horton. George Dotson and Daniel Tabor, a Dorn foe, will face each other in a June runoff.

Winning seats on the Inglewood Unified School District board were incumbent Johnny J. Young and Carol Raines-Brown, both backed by Dorn, and Trina Williams.

But the drama that surrounded the election threatened to overshadow the results.

On Wednesday, Dorn acknowledged visiting the ballot workers but denied arranging for a photographer or questioning the workers’ integrity, allegations he called an “out and out lie.”

But Dorn said that Horton had “friends,” one of whom recorded a campaign phone message for her, count ballots. He also said it was improper for Horton to oversee an election in which she was running.

“She should have had nothing to do with the election whatsoever because she was running for office,” Dorn said.

For years, there has been no love lost between Dorn and Horton.

Dorn and his allies tried unsuccessfully four years ago to have Horton barred from overseeing a municipal election in which her husband had endorsed candidates.

But the mayor’s complaints prompted then-Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to send election monitors to the city and magnified the rift between Dorn’s supporters and his foes.

The most recent spat began Tuesday morning at Daniel Freeman Elementary School when a candidate told Horton that Joyce Dorn, the mayor’s wife, was “electioneering,” telling voters whom to support, Horton said. Horton did not identify the candidate.

Joyce Dorn said she was “sitting, watching the polls” at the elementary school “off and on” as a poll watcher, but denied purposefully talking to voters about their choices. California election code prohibits the soliciting of voters within 100 feet of a polling place.

“Do you know who I am? Everybody speaks to me. Everybody hugs and speaks to me. I don’t have to do that,” she said. “They can say anything they like about me, but I have a right to be a poll watcher, and so does anyone else in the city of Inglewood.”

Later that morning at the city clerk’s office, the mayor entered a room where volunteers and city employees were sorting unopened absentee ballots, said Cindy Giardina, one of the volunteers. He then instructed a photographer to monitor the workers, she said.

“He said, ‘I want you to take pictures of this. This is where the switcheroo goes down right here, and I’ve got an attorney on the way. I’m going to challenge every one of these ballots,’ ” Giardina recalled the mayor saying.

Giardina said the photographer snapped pictures for a couple of hours “almost paparazzi style.”

Dorn said he visited the clerk’s office about 11 a.m. after he heard that workers were counting ballots, which would have been illegal. He said he asked the observers to ensure ballots had not been tampered with and said he left after a couple minutes.

Ronald C. Banks, a Dorn-backed council candidate who lost, said he planned to meet with others to “compare notes” on the election to see if there may have been improprieties.

Horton chalked it up to disgruntled losing candidates.

ashley.surdin@latimes.com

charles.proctor@latimes.com