Merced County election update: Superintendent runoff appears set
.png "From left, Richard Lopez, Paula Heupel and Ana Boyenga")
Merced County election officials made their latest vote count update Thursday night, and the last up-for-grabs race appears to have been decided.
The county processed more than 3,000 ballots since the latest batch was made public Tuesday evening. After Tuesday’s update, there are only 417 unprocessed ballots.
That means that Ana Boyenga has clinched the second spot in the November runoff to become the next Merced County superintendent of schools.
Richard Lopez has secured one runoff spot. He leads three others candidates with 12,680 votes (31.24%).
Boyenga has clinched the second spot with 11,996 votes (29.56%). Paula Heupel finished third with 11,200 votes (27.60%). Alberto Velarde finished fourth with 4,565 votes (11.25%).
Lopez will face Boyenga in the November runoff election. Lopez is superintendent of Merced River School District. Boyenga is the assistant superintendent of the Atwater Elementary School District.
The county superintendent is responsible for oversight of school district budgets, approval of Local Control and Accountability Plans and the supervision of education for incarcerated students. Additionally, while each school district has its own board of trustees and superintendent, the county superintendent is tasked with creating a network to support all 20 school districts in Merced County.
Merced County Superintendent of Schools Steve Tietjen announced in November that he would retire at the end of his current term, which ends in December.
Merced County said it will report its next ballot update no later than 5 p.m. Tuesday. The election is not yet official.
