In the race for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, West Hollywood City Councilmember Lindsey Horvath has more than doubled her lead over State Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a result of additional ballots counted late Saturday, Nov. 12.
Horvath had trailed by two percentage points after the first set of vote-by-mail ballots plus some vote-center ballots were counted shortly after the polls closed on Election Day, Nov. 8, and also after counts on Wednesday and Thursday.
Since then, however, Horvath, 40, has caught up and surpassed Hertzberg, 67, in the race to replace Third District Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who is stepping down.
The West Hollywood Councilmember, who owns her own marketing business, climbed ahead of the veteran lawmaker from Van Nuys by 670 votes after additional ballots were tallied on Friday night. By Saturday night, Horvath had a 1,500-vote lead over Hertzberg out of 326,316 votes counted in this race, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office.
Horvath has a little more than 50%, while Hertzberg has well over 49%, giving her a very slim margin that underscores how the race for an open seat on the powerful board remains a nail-biter and most likely will not produce a winner until the last vote is counted.
Horvath’s campaign on Friday said she will continue to outpace her opponents as ballots cast on Election Day or mail-in ballots received on that day or later now being tallied are overwhelmingly in her favor. These are coming from younger voters who vote in person and last minute. The campaign said Horvath has connected with young voters.
The Registrar-Recorder’s Saturday update included 77,429 ballots processed since Friday’s update, bringing the total election results count to 1,608,639, which is 28.6% of registered voters.
It is not known if these latest tallies are from younger voters.
Sheriff’s race
Meanwhile, the additional votes tallied added to the lead enjoyed by retired Long Beach police Chief Robert Luna over incumbent Alex Villanueva, in the race for sheriff of Los Angeles County.
Luna has about 59% compared to Villanueva’s 41%, an increase of 1 percentage point for Luna, according to the Registrar-Recorder’s Office update.
The challenger has collected 259,184 more votes than Villanueva. That is an increase of 23,516 votes in the last 24 hours.
The race to elect the next sheriff started in the June primary, when Villanueva got about one-third of the votes but failed to win more than 50%, sending it into a two-person race against Luna, the second-place finisher, on Election Day, Nov. 8.
Measure A, which gives the county Board of Supervisors the power to remove the elected sheriff “for cause,” was winning with 70% of the vote.
The unprecedented measure that adds an amendment to the county charter has led throughout the week by very large margins.
If it passes, the elected Board of Supervisors could initiate what some call “an impeachment” of the sheriff by presenting violations, including law-breaking or blocking the investigation of his own department, that the sheriff would then respond to. Removing a sheriff would take four votes of the five-member board.
Working around the ⏰ at our vote by mail and tally facilities 🙌
Processing, verifying, and tallying all eligible votes cast by Election Day.
The next election results update is today (Nov. 12) between 4-5pm. https://t.co/or6EnrUI32 pic.twitter.com/kwo2mV74gv
— Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (@LACountyRRCC) November 12, 2022
The Registrar-Recorder’s vote processing center will be busy again on Monday, Nov. 14 for the next ballot count update, scheduled for release between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.
The estimated number of outstanding ballots to be processed is 739,300, the Registrar-Recorder reported.
The Registrar-Recorder is tentatively scheduled to certify all county elections on Dec. 5.