Election Update: Ornelas gains edge over Knox in Merced Council race. Pedrozo’s lead grows
Races throughout Merced County continued to shape up Friday night as the Merced County Registrar’s Office updated election results with an additional 3,537 tabulated ballots.
Ballots will continue to be tabulated and another update to elections results is anticipated late Saturday afternoon, a Friday news release from Merced County Registrar of Voters Barbara Levey said.
Based on ballots counted so far, voter turnout is estimated around 77%.
Where the races stand
In one of the tightest races, the Los Banos mayor’s race, Tom Faria had earlier led Paul Llanez by just 13 votes. But that lead grew Friday night to 34 votes, with Faria receiving 4,903 votes compared to Llanez’s 4,869.
The close race in Merced City Council District 1 flipped on Friday night. As of Thursday, Joel Knox held his lead over Jesse F. Ornelas — but only by six votes.
That switched Friday with Ornelas’s 1,135 votes outnumbering Knox’s 1,109 — a difference of 26 ballots cast in Ornelas’s favor.
In District 3, Bertha A. Perez still led Allen Brooks. On Thursday, Perez was up by 22 votes. by just nine votes. Friday night’s update showed Perez ahead by 44 votes with 1,435 compared to Brooks’ 1,391.
In Merced City Council District 5, Sarah Boyle leads with 1,891 (53.27%) over Jeremy Martinez 1,648 (46.42%).
In the Merced mayor’s race, veteran prosecutor Matt Serratto still maintained his significant lead on Friday night with 10,985 votes, which accounts for 52.14%. Michael Belluomini’s is second in the four-person race with 4,332 (20.56%) votes. Anthony Martinez and Monica Kay Villa trail far behind in the race, with 2,934 and 2,764 votes respectively.
In the runoff for Merced County Supervisor District 2, Josh Pedrozo gained more ground against Lee Lor, putting him ahead of the incumbent supervisor by 750 votes. Pedrozo now has 52.20% (8,904 votes) compared to Lor’s 47.80% (8,154 votes).
In the Livingston mayor’s race, Juan Aguilar Jr. leads incumbent Gurpal S. Samra 1,793 votes to 1,079.
All eligible voters this year were sent mail-in ballots in an effort to promote physical distancing while voting amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Ballots that were postmarked by Election Day are still valid.
When processing ballots, each signature must be verified. If the signature doesn’t match the signature on file, the voter is notified. Voter participation history is updated for every voter who turned in a ballot. Every mail-in envelope is opened, the ballot is extracted and flattened. Each ballot is fed through the high speed ballot scanning equipment to tabulate them.
California law provides that vote-by-mail ballots may be accepted through Friday, November 20th provided that they are postmarked on or before November 3, 2020.
