An election won by one vote and other tight races mark final Stanislaus vote tally
A few very tight races in Modesto and Turlock appear settled, if not officially stamped. In one case, a single vote separates two candidates.
The canvass of the Nov. 8 election in Stanislaus County is complete and certification will be done Wednesday, Nov. 23, according to Donna Linder, county clerk recorder and registrar of voters.
Modesto City Schools’ $198 million bond measure to fund high school facilities improvements needed 55% of the vote to pass. After early results had it hanging on with just 55.05%, it ended up with 56.4% support.
“We are very pleased at the results, and want to thank our local community partners and MTA (Modesto Teachers Association) for their support through this process,” Superintendent Sara Noguchi told The Bee in an email Tuesday evening. “This is a big win for our students, and our community, as we will work to expand our Career Technical Education programming, science labs, leaking roofs, and much more.
“We do recognize that a large portion of our community did not support measure L. We will work hard to show the entire community how the High School Bond Measure program will greatly benefit all our students, and ultimately the Modesto City community at large.”
The election also gives the Modesto City Schools Board of Education a new member. Jolene Daly, after trailing incumbent trustee Charlene West by just eight votes in a recent results update, won by 100 votes. Tuesday’s update has Daley with 4,270 votes, or 50.6%, to West’s 4,170 votes, or 49.4%.
The Turlock Unified School District also had a couple of tight board races.
The final update gives Area 4 incumbent Mary Jackson 2,308 votes, or 50.6%, to challenger Jeff Nichols’ 2,254 votes, or 49.4%.
And the tightest race in the county is in Turlock Unified’s Area 6. Incumbent Jeffrey Cortinas had led Rupinder Singh Jagpal ever so slightly in previous updates, but Tuesday’s put the challenger in the lead by one vote.
Jagpal has 1,242 votes, or 50.02%, to Cortinas’ 1,241, or 49.98%.
Another contest involving a local candidate isn’t close in Stanislaus County but remains razor thin in overall results. That’s the race between farmer John Duarte, a Modesto Republican, and Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, in California’s 13th Congressional District.
The district takes in all of Merced County and parts of Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Madera and Fresno counties.
In one of the nation’s last uncalled midterm races for the U.S. House of Representatives, Duarte had 50.3% of the votes with about 96% of them counted as of Tuesday. That’s a 700-vote lead.
But in Stanislaus County, Gray got 52% to Duarte’s 48%.
The county election office counted 132,142 ballots. Stanislaus County had 282,393 registered voters as of the Nov. 8 election, which means voter turnout countywide was 46.8%.
The unofficial updated tally results have been posted on the election website, www.stanvote.com.
This story was originally published November 22, 2022 at 7:18 PM.
