Runner-up in California Senate race decided by .000095 percentage points gives up

A day after being asked to concede, Republican challenger David Shepard threw in the towel in one of the closest state Legislature races in history.

A recount in Fresno, Kern, Tulare and Kings counties whittled only nine votes from incumbent Melissa Hurtado, D-Bakersfield, in the 16th state Senate District race.

Wednesday, the 29-year-old Porterville farmer signaled he was ending a recount that began on Dec. 17.

Shepard declared a victory of sorts by saying that “nine voters who initially were prevented from voting in this election had their votes tallied.”

Shepard said the recount revealed various problems in the election process. He once held a nearly 3,000-vote lead the week after Election Day but saw that vanish into a Hurtado advantage once the final ballots were counted in Kern County on Dec. 9.

“During the recount, we uncovered blatant mismanagement and inconsistencies of vote-counting procedures in multiple counties, which excluded numerous voters from having their votes counted in this election,” said Shepard.

Those violations, he said, “can change election results.”

“We believe that had these voters been allowed to have their ballots counted, the outcome of this election would have been very different,” said Shepard, who questioned the roles that county registrar of voters played in ruling which ballot signatures were not legit.

The California Elections Code, he said, “empowers each county registrar to independently interpret election laws as they see fit and without regard to how other counties are interpreting the same statutes in the same election for the same office.”

The Shepard campaign had asked the Kings County Board of Supervisors to intercede when election registrar Lupe Villa ruled that 29 challenged ballot signatures were not legit.

Shepard said he will release a detailed summary “to explicate the failures of the Election Code and of several county officials and their election offices.”

Shepard did congratulate the 34-year-old Hurtado.

“Congratulations to Senator Hurtado. I hope that District 16 will be advocated for in the state Senate and that you will use your position to address the pressing issues we face here in the Central Valley,” he said.

Hurtado twice declared victory

The Bakersfield Democrat twice claimed victory in the closely contested race against Porterville rancher David Shepard: On Dec. 10 after Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties had certified their counts to the California Secretary of State; and, on Jan. 6 after those counties had finished recounting ballots in precincts requested by the Shepard campaign.

Tuesday, the Hurtado campaign asked Shepard to concede.

Kern County added a handful of overlooked ballots to give Hurtado a 22-vote lead before the recount began on Dec. 19.

The recount whittled that lead by only nine votes.

“It’s time for David Shepard to admit the race is over,” said Lisa Gasperoni, Hurtado’s campaign. “Shepard’s ongoing attempts to undermine the will of the voters and change the outcome of the election to his personal benefit are becoming more and more desperate.”

The Shepard campaign asked the Kings County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 10 to look into 29 ballots that the county registrar of voters ruled invalid. The campaign claims Villa did not properly review the invalid signatures.

“We will review this as an opportunity to really quelch any proceedings going forward that could go into pending litigation,” Shepard told the board at its Jan. 10 meeting.

Shepard won big in Tulare, Kings and Fresno counties. However, the recount produced a net gain of only three votes in Fresno, three in Tulare, two in Kings and one in Kern.

Gasperoni said the Shepard campaign’s request for the Kings County supervisors to overrule its registrar of voters and require vote-by-mail ballots to be reviewed for a third time is wrong.

“Shepard is asking for political favors to help him win, and he’s threatening lawsuits because he didn’t get the results he wanted,” said Gasperoni. “Not only is this desperate, it’s dangerous for our Democracy.”

Kern County, which accounts for the biggest chunk of voters in the district, on Tuesday concluded its recount of 150 precincts requested by Hurtado. There were no votes added or subtracted.

The current vote shows Hurtado with 68,461 votes to Shepard’s 68,448.

Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 18 de enero de 2023, 3:26 p. m..