The lead that incumbent Lathrop City Councilman Steve Dresser held over challenger Jennifer Torres-O’Callaghan has gotten slimmer.
According to an update from the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters posted Monday evening, Dresser — who is running for an unexpired term for the second time in as many elections — now only holds a 25-vote lead over Planning Commissioner Torres-O’Callaghan.
While that number has shrunk with nearly every update that has been posted by the registrar’s office since election night, there not be very many votes left to be counted to give Torres-O’Callaghan a chance to take the lead.
Last week San Joaquin County’s department of elections posted that all of the vote-by-mail ballots that were outstanding in the county — there were more than 70,000 of them that had not been tabulated when all precinct votes were counted at the end of election night — have been accounted for and included in the vote totals that were updated on Monday.
That leaves just the provisional and conditional ballots left to be counted, with the process expected to culminate formally next week.
The registrar’s office is scheduled to release an update to the vote totals today at 5 p.m. — the last before the unofficial final results are announced for all races in San Joaquin County prior to the certification of the election on Dec. 6.
In the race for the two full terms that are available this election cycle, incumbent Paul Akinjo has extended his lead as the top vote getter to 191 votes — giving him 31.89 percent of all votes cast in the four-way race. Planning Commissioner Diane Lazard, who led early in returns on election night before surrendering the lead to Akinjo, is now 263 votes ahead of the third-place candidate, Minnie “Cotton” Diallo. With 29.35 percent of the vote to Diallo’s 25.84 percent, it appears unlikely that Lazard will slip out of second place over the course of the next week.
If her lead over the rest of the field holds, Lazard would be the second fresh face on the council in as many elections after Ruben Salcedo edged out incumbent Mark Elliott in 2016 but passed away tragically shortly after assuming the oath of office. The council voted to appoint Elliott to serve the first half of the term, and rather than run for the remainder of the unexpired term opted to make himself available as a candidate for the Lathrop Manteca Fire District’s Board of Directors.
Running unopposed in the race, Elliott was appointed to the four-year term.
As of Monday evening, 7,503 votes had been cast for the Lathrop City Council and the four candidates that qualified for the ballot. In the 2016 Presidential race, in which there were five candidates, there were 9,571 votes that were cast.
For additional information about the election results, or to view the updated information when it posts, visit the San Joaquin Registrar of Voters website at www.sjrov.org.
To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.