Final vote count in tight school board race could take weeks
It could take weeks to determine the outcome of the razor-thin election for La Cañada Unified school board, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County clerk’s office said Wednesday morning.
After the unofficial tally, a 12-vote margin is all that is separating who gets one of two seats in the election, prompting the third-place candidate, 20-year-old Princeton University student Andrew “AJ” Blumenfeld, to call for a recount should the outcome not change.
Ellen Multari and Jeanne Broberg are leading the race with 31.39% and 27.2% of the vote, while Blumenfeld trails slightly behind with 27%, according to unofficial results posted Tuesday night by the Los Angeles County clerk’s office.
But with provisional, mail-in and write-in ballots still being counted, the race is too close to call given the tiny margin keeping Blumenfeld in third place.
“[The vote count] will change, by how much I don’t know, but there are additional ballots to be counted,” said Eileen Shea, spokeswoman with the county clerks’ office.
The final tally will go to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for certification on Nov. 22, Shea said, at which point a candidate or member of the community would have five days to request a recount.
Blumenfeld said shortly after midnight Wednesday that he would probably request a recount if the final rankings didn’t change.
“Our priority is to make sure that every vote is accounted for,” Blumenfeld said. “They run [the ballots] through machines, we just want to make sure it is all right.”
-- Megan O’Neil, Times Community News
Twitter: @megankoneil
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