Updated count gives Republicans firm lead in 12th Assembly District race

Two Republicans firmly held their leads in the 12th Assembly District primary as more than 31,000 additional votes were counted in Stanislaus County.

Heath Flora, in second place, is ahead of Democrat Virginia Madueno of Riverbank by 1,078 votes in the incomplete count. Flora and fellow Republican Ken Vogel of Linden are on their way to competing in the November election because of California’s open primary, which favors the top two vote-getters regardless of party affiliation.

Vogel leads the field with 24 percent of the votes; Flora has 23 percent; Madueno has 22 percent; Harinder Grewal 19 percent; and Cindy Marks 12 percent. The winner in November will replace Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Riverbank, whose district includes eastern Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties, north and east Modesto, Turlock, Riverbank, Oakdale, Ripon, Escalon and Manteca. Olsen is leaving office because of term limits.

Stanislaus County Supervisor Jim DeMartini still leads the District 5 supervisor’s race with 52 percent to 30 percent for Patterson Mayor Luis Molina and 17 percent for Eileen Wyatt Stokman. DeMartini can win a fourth term, without a runoff in November, if he has more than 50 percent in the final results.

County Registrar of Voters Lee Lundrigan said Monday that several thousand ballots still need to be processed and tabulated, including 6,000 provisionals, hundreds of mail ballots received after Election Day and mail ballots inside envelopes that were not signed.

Lundrigan said processing the remaining ballots will be time-consuming because of new election laws in California.

This story was originally published June 13, 2016 at 3:49 PM with the headline "Updated count gives Republicans firm lead in 12th Assembly District race."