LA County Sheriff Race: Luna Maintains Lead Over Villanueva

LOS ANGELES COUNTY -- Former Long Beach police Chief Robert Luna maintained and even slightly extended his lead today over incumbent Alex Villanueva in the race for Los Angeles County sheriff.

Updated totals from the Tuesday election showed Luna with nearly 58% of the vote, and Villanueva with just over 42%. Semi-official results released early Wednesday morning had Luna with 57% and Villanueva with 43%.

The updated total released Thursday had Luna with a total of 770,084 votes and Villanueva with 563,482.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office on Wednesday estimated that roughly 1 million ballots still remained to be counted -- 985,000 vote-by-mail ballots, 21,000 conditional voter-registration ballots and 300 provisional, or questioned, ballots.

The update released Thursday included a tally of 134,099 of those outstanding ballots, according to the county. Another update is expected to be released Friday, then every Tuesday and Friday until all ballots are counted -- a process that could last until the end of the month.

-- City News Service