Los Angeles County registrar certifies final results of Nov. 5 election

Months of campaigning, weeks of balloting and a month of collecting, counting and verifying ballots came to an end Tuesday as Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan certified the final results for the Nov. 5 general election.

Tuesday, officially, was the first day counties were allowed to certify such a vote under the rules set out in the California Elections Code, according to Logan’s office.

The grand total: 3,793,106 ballots were processed and tallied. The makes the final turnout 66.12% of eligible voters casting ballots in the county.

One last step remains before the process is truly final. Members of the county Board of Supervisors are scheduled to declare the election concluded on Tuesday, Dec. 17.

After two weeks of in-person voting as well as mailing and dropping off mail-in ballots, the county’s election canvass began on Nov. 6, 2024. Monday was the final update from the registrar’s office.

While some races’ outcomes were clear in the initial returns released after the polls closed on Election Day, some close races took weeks of ballot counting to arrive at a winner.

That latter scenario was the case in state Senate District 35 where Laura Richardson defeated Michelle Chambers in a competitive Democrat-versus-Democrat race to replace termed out state Sen. Steven Bradford.

Richardson has served on the Long Beach City Council and in the state Assembly and U.S. House of Representatives. Her opponent previously served on the Compton City Council.

Senate District 35 includes parts of South L.A. and the South Bay. This includes Carson, San Pedro, Compton, West Compton, Gardena, Harbor City, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale, Lennox, West Carson, Watts, Willowbrook, and Wilmington, plus parts of Inglewood, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Torrance.

Here are results for other races that went down to the wire in L.A. County:

Baldwin Park: In another at-large race, eight candidates vied for three available seats on the City Council. Emmanuel Estrada, Daniel Damian and Manuel Lozano were the top three vote-getters. Current City Clerk Christopher Saenz finished fourth behind Lozano. The two were separated by a little more than 3 percentage points, or 1,312 votes.

Baldwin Park Unified School District: Three incumbent board members, among a list of eight candidates who ran for three available seats, lost to Ricardo Vazques, Yvonne Juarez and Jose Mata. Incumbent Christina Lucero came closest to retaining the seat but lost to Mata by 2 percentage points, or 744 votes.

Compton: In the City Council District 1 race, incumbent Deidre Duhart defeated Jasper Jay Jackson by a mere 16 votes. Duhart had 3,148 votes (50.13%) while Jackson had 3,132 votes (49.87%). Over the last several updates, Duhart’s lead had swung back and forth between 18 and 19 votes.

Covina-Valley Unified School District: In the Trustee Area 1 race, incumbent Sue Maulucci won over challenger Steve Bennett by 39 votes, or less than 1 percentage point.

Irwindale: The three incumbents – Manuel Garcia, Mark Breceda and Larry Burrola – won reelection. Four candidates ran for three City Council seats in an at-large election. All four candidates were separated by 75 votes. Challenger Marguerite Lopez-Sapien placed fourth behind Burrola with 35 votes separating the two.

Long Beach: City Councilmember Daryl Supernaw will serve the Fourth Council District for his third and final term. Supernaw had 57.6% of the vote while his opponent, Long Beach City College Trustee Herlinda Chico, had 42.2%.

Meanwhile, all three measures that were on Long Beach residents’ ballots passed. This includes Measure JB, which, among other things, will merge Long Beach’s Civil Service and Human Resources departments. Measure JB had 61.93% support.

Mt. San Antonio College Community District: Measure V, a $750 million educational bond measure to fund new facilities at Mt. San Antonio College, passed with 55.6%, or 140,570 votes. The threshold for passage was 55%.

Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District: Measure SOS, which authorizes $297.8 million in bonds for school improvement projects, passed with more than 57.4% voter approval. It needed 55% approval to pass. The measure levies about $29.49 per $100,000 in assessed property value to pay for the bonds.

Pico Rivera: City Council incumbents emerged victorious, with Monica Sanchez, Andrew Lara and Erik Lutz garnering the top votes. Lutz ran a close race with challenger Genaro Moreno, retaining his seat with 21.08% of the vote compared to 17.31% for Moreno. The difference between the two was 1,611 votes.

Rowland Unified School District: In the Trustee Area 4 race, Ellen Park beat Yvette Romo by about 3 percentage points, or 159 votes.

San Marino: John Chou, a financial advisor, won the second and final seat on the City Council. Chou earned nearly 27%, or 2,618 of the votes, defeating Chun-yen Chen, a CEO and public administrator, who received around 22%, or 2,209 of the votes. The two were separated by 409 votes. Chou joins Hunter Chang, a retired engineer and the race’s front-runner, who captured nearly 34%, or 3,309 of the votes.

Santa Fe Springs: In the race for two City Council seats, incumbent John Mora landed on top with 34.86% of the vote, or 3,679 votes. Fellow incumbent Joe Angel Zamora placed second with 30.05%, or 3,171 votes.

South El Monte: For one of the two available seats on the City Council, Larry Rodriguez won by a little less than 2 percentage points, or 115 votes, over incumbent Richard Angel who lost.

SCNG reporters Michael Hixon, Teresa Liu, Christina Merino, Anissa Rivera and David Wilson contributed to this report.