Candidates and voters eagerly awaiting election updates will have to wait until Thursday afternoon for the next count, according to Santa Barbara County elections officials.
Deputy Registrar of Voters Martin Cobos said they will have an estimate on the number of uncounted ballots on Thursday afternoon, and will have updated results around that time.
The office released semi-official election results at 1:48 a.m. Wednesday as the night’s final update, which showed several close races and some candidates within a few hundred ballots of each other for notable contests.
Read about the contested races and local ballot measures.
“We are unpacking ballots dropped off at polls as well as ballots from USPS that are postmarked by Nov. 3,” Cobos said in an email. “We won’t guess, speculate, or have anything on uncounted ballots until tomorrow.”
The results counted so far represent 35.8% voter turnout countywide.
Closer Races for Supervisor, Santa Barbara Mayor
After emerging as the frontrunner in the race for the Fifth District county supervisor in early results, Ricardo Valencia has extended his slight lead over Maribel Aguilera with the election night’s latest update.
The semi-official results show him with 51.7% of the vote, according to the Santa Barbara County Elections Office. Aguilera has 47.7% of votes cast.
Preliminary turnout counts as of election night showed 23.4% of the total votes cast have been counted. A total of 7,497 out of 32,048 votes in the race have been tallied so far, according to results released early Wednesday morning.
Valencia said he is grateful to the community for believing in the campaign, adding that he wants to honor every vote and wait for the final results.
“I’m feeling an immense sense of pride that our campaign ran an ethical campaign where we did not take money from big corporations or special interests,” he told Noozhawk.
The winner will fill an open seat on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. The seat represents Santa Maria’s northern neighborhoods, the city of Guadalupe and the unincorporated Tanglewood subdivision.
Aguilera told Noozhawk on Wednesday that she is grateful to be part of the election process, and thankful for her supporters and the voters. She added that the race is still ongoing.
“We’re patiently waiting for the ballots to be counted,” she said.
The seat currently is held by Steve Lavagnino, who will retire at the end of the year after he announced that he would not seek reelection. Lavagnino was first elected to the board in 2010.
In the Santa Barbara mayor’s race, current council member Eric Friedman stayed ahead in semi-official election results with 46.5% of the vote. Council member Kristen Sneddon was second with 44.7%, which was 374 votes behind.
Wendy Sims-Moten received 5.8% of the vote and Matt Kilrain had 2.6% as of early Wednesday.
Contests Less Than 50 Votes Apart
In the Buellton City Council race, candidates were separated by only nine votes in semi-official election night results.
Billy Silvola leads with 50.8% of the vote over Mark Williams, who had 49.2%, in the contest to represent District 1.
For the Lompoc City Council, incumbent council member Victor Vega was ahead by 49 votes over Sharlameigne Segovia in semi-official results for the District 2 seat.
