Nine days after the polls closed, the titanic 4th Congressional District race is getting most of the attention, but it is not the only election that remains too close to call in Placer County.
County elections chief Jim McCauley said Wednesday that the outcome of neck-and-neck races for the Roseville City school board and a Placer County Water Agency director's slot probably won't be known for a couple of weeks.
None of the Placer election results will be official until more than 20,000 remaining assorted ballots are certified and tallied. But the school and water board races, along with Placer's share of the congressional contest, are the only ones that look to hinge on the uncounted ballots.
Placer's official vote count has not changed since Election Day.
Appointed school board incumbent Brett McFadden leads retired police Officer Scott Leavitt by 89 votes – 11,355 to 11,266 – for the two-year seat.
It is unclear how many votes in the race have not been tallied, McCauley said, but the district has 42,159 voters.
The water district race is even closer: Twenty-year Division 5 incumbent Otis Wollan leads Colfax business owner Ben Mavy by 52 votes – 8,294 to 8,242. There could be more than 2,000 votes left to count, said Ryan Ronco, the county's assistant registrar and recorder.
Those counts will not change until all the remaining ballots – a mishmash of vote-by-mail ballots, provisional ballots and several smaller categories – are certified by the elections department, Ronco said. "Some counties update the count as they go, but we count all at one time," he said.
The state gives counties 28 days to certify their results, but McCauley and Ronco expect to complete the tally in about two weeks.
"Our goal is to be finished before Thanksgiving," Ronco said.
Most of the uncounted ballots – more than 16,000 of them – are mail-in forms that arrived on Election Day and could not be counted that day, Ronco said.
Another 4,400-plus are provisional ballots cast at polling places on Election Day.
They include ballots from permanent vote-by-mail voters who misplaced their ballots or people who moved within the county and did not re-register.
The primary goal in checking provisional ballots is to make sure people did not vote twice, Ronco said.
Not all of the provisional ballots will be certified, he said.
And because every voter does not vote on every race and measure, it is impossible to gauge how many votes still are uncounted.
Meanwhile, both Roseville school candidates are holding up well during the waiting game.
"I'm just glad it's over and out of my hands now," said McFadden, a legislative consultant for the Association of California School Administrators. He was appointed in March to replace Helen K. Duran, a veteran of the district who died in February.
"I'm leaving on a surf trip to El Salvador in about a week and coming back Dec. 1," he said. "You guys will find out before I do."
Marilyn Garnett, campaign manager for Leavitt, said the retired Roseville police officer "is keeping positive thoughts."
"He is anxious to serve," she said. "No matter how it turns out, he'll be campaigning again in two years."
Which explains why the Leavitt team is saving his campaign signs. And why they don't refer to '08.
Call The Bee's Bob Walter, (916) 773-7388.
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