No ballot counting today in San Luis Obispo county elections office.
Not until Tuesday.
They are processing ballots today and Monday. About 17,000 remain to be counted. The results after the most recent count were consistent with earlier predictions. Conservatives waited to vote, and now those later arriving ballots are having an impact.
Supervisor Bruce Gibson’s lead in the second district race falls to 49.3%. It looks like he’ll face a run-off in the general election. His opponent is not certain, but Dr. Bruce Jones, the former chairman of the Templeton Advisory Group, leads Geof Auslen by 226 votes. And that lead has been widening as late ballots are counted. Also gaining on Auslen is John Whitworth, the retired marine colonel. He’s just 309 votes behind Geof Auslen, and he’s gaining on him.
The two other supervisors faces are not so close. Supervisor Lynn Compton trails progressive challenger Jimmy Paulding 55-45%. Paulding collected $400,000 in campaign funding for that election, including thousands of dollars from the cannabis industry. The other race is over. Dawn Ortiz-Legg trouncing Stacy Korsgaden in district three. Dawn has about twice as many votes as Stacy.
Elaina Cano is unofficially the new county clerk-recorder. That becomes more ironic as this primary election draws out further and further. A political operative spending a lot of time at the elections office says the delays are not caused by corruption, it’s incompetence.
So, those working in the county clerk’s office are unfolding ballots again today. That will continue Monday. They’re scheduled to count ballots again on Tuesday. They have until July 7th to get the election certified by county supervisors. And they’re running out of time. Bear in mind, next weekend is a 3-day weekend. The fourth of July falling on a Monday this year. There are only seven working days left before July 7th, and they’re not working on weekends.