Jose Ugarte’s lead over Estuardo Mazariegos in the race to represent District 9 on the Los Angeles City Council dropped to 41 votes Friday, as allegations of ballot-tampering fly.
Ugarte leads 50.05%-49.95%, or 19,434-19,393, according to the Friday’s figures from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.
County officials estimate 15,000 outstanding ballots countywide remain to be processed. It was unknown how many ballots were from the district.
Mazariegos and Ugarte, who are vying to succeed City Councilman Curren Price — who is termed out — as the representative for the district, which stretches from downtown Los Angeles to South Los Angeles.
Ugarte is a former deputy chief of staff to Price. Mazariegos is a co-director of the Los Angeles chapter of the nonprofit organization Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
The winner will be the first Latino to represent the district since Edward Roybal resigned in 1962 to take a seat in the House of Representatives. All the council members to represent the district since then have been Black.
On Monday, Mazariegos’ campaign filed a complaint with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder regarding reports of ballot tampering in Council District 9. The campaign said it received multiple reports from CD9 residents that canvassers took away voters’ blank or unfilled ballots and said they would do the voting for them.
County officials have said they sent the complaint to the District Attorney’s Office for review. Under California law, a voter can authorize another person return their mail-in ballot, what is referred to as a “ballot harvesting.”
Mazariegos’ campaign said they received photos of ballots collected by a canvasser, with ballots showing various addresses in CD 9. Some of those ballots are open and filled in with votes for Ugarte, the campaign alleged.
Among a collection of photos provided to reporters was one of Ugarte’s campaigners, USC student Amir King, who was seen returning a stack of ballots at a ballot drop box.
“We were alarmed to receive these reports and have been following up with residents whose ballots appear in the photos. We have subsequently submitted to the County Registrar-Recorder a recording of a conversation with a resident whose ballot appears in the photos,” according to a statement from Mazariegos’ campaign issued Friday.
“They state that canvassers approached them and took their blank ballot as well as the ballots of two other members of their household. According to this resident: the canvassers said they would do the voting for the household. They did not ask the residents who they wanted to vote for or say which candidates they intended to fill in,” the statement continued.
In response, Ugarte’s campaign cited a statement from King on Instagram, in which he described the Mazariegos campaign’s actions as bullying and making false, defamatory attacks.
“Why is he attacking me? For participating in our democracy, as is my right under California state law and for helping others participate in democracy, as is their right under California state law,” King, the political director of Trojan Democrats, said in his statement.