Correa Switches Focus to Voting Place Irregularities to Keep Hope Alive for Supervisor Election

Former state Sen. Lou Correa told elections officials today to stop a recount of ballots cast in a special election for the Orange County Board of Supervisors and instead focus on reviewing materials used at polling places on Election Day.

Officials recounted 6,250 ballots today with no change on the totals in the race which Andrew Do won by 43 votes, said Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley.

On Tuesday, officials will review ballot envelopes, supplies and any other material used on election day, Kelley said. Correa also wants to see the names of volunteers who worked at polling places, Kelley said.

Correa spent $2,400 today on the recount. Analyzing the election materials will cost $589, Kelley said.

Correa told City News Service last week that he is not focusing on trying to change the vote count, but rather to determine if there were any problem votes that could lead to overturning the results.

Correa needs to gather enough evidence of voting problems to take his case before a judge to try to get the election results overturned.

When all the precincts were counted for the Jan. 27 special election, Do had a two-vote lead. The margin expanded by 237 in a count of vote-by-mail ballots dropped off at polling places on Election Day. The count of provisional ballots carved deeply into Do’s lead until Correa fell 43 votes short.

• City News Service
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