Latest release of Sonoma County election results show little change

The latest round of election results, released Monday , significantly expanded one candidate’s lead in the race for a Sonoma County Superior Court judgeship, but ultimately they did little to definitively identify the winners in several tight races from the June 7 primary.

The latest results are based on 11,755 ballots that were added to the ongoing tally. They were released at about 5:15 p.m. Monday. And the county’s election office has roughly 43,245 ballots left to process.

“The process takes time, we’re making sure that we do things properly,” Registrar of Voters Deva Proto said Monday.

Election officials had counted 84,168 ballots as of Monday evening, bringing voter turnout to 27.69%. With the remaining ballots left to be counted, Proto maintains she expects turnout will reach over 40%.

There are 304,008 registered voters in the county.

The elections office is aiming to process the majority of ballots this week, but Proto said some of those races may not be decided until the office can certify the results. The state allows the county 30 days to certify the results, but Proto said it would not take that long.

As of Monday, the gap widened between two candidates pursuing a Sonoma County Superior Court judgeship.

Oscar Pardo, a civil litigator, had 50.93% of the 73,094 votes counted and Joe Passalacqua, a defense attorney, has 49.07%. The margin between the two candidates is 1,362 ‒ the largest since election night.

In other races, the latest update for the 2nd District Supervisor race shows incumbent David Rabbitt received 57.36% of 15,667 counted votes, and his closes opponent, Blake Hooper, received 37.49%

The 2nd District has 64,325 registered voters, according to Proto.

Rabbit’s margin over Hooper is wide enough that the race would have to see a dramatic change in outstanding returns to force a November head-to-head. However Hooper has not publicly conceded and Rabbitt has not publicly named himself the victor.

The “campaign is letting the process play out,” Josh Simmons, Hooper’s campaign manager, said Friday.

In the race for Sonoma County Sheriff, Eddie Engram, a 48-year-old Sonoma County assistant sheriff, has 50.13% of the 77,215 votes counted.

His closest opponent, Carl Tennenbaum, a 65-year-old retired San Francisco police sergeant, trails with 28.07%, while Dave Edmonds, a 59-year-old former Sheriff’s Office captain, has 13.28%.

Kevin Burke, the former Healdsburg police chief who died suddenly in April after pulling out of the sheriff’s race, received 8.53% of the votes.

The top vote-getters for county superintendent of schools, Amie Carter and Brad Coscarelli, are still on track for a November runoff.

Carter, an assistant superintendent with the Marin County Office of Education, had 44.50% of the 72,202 votes counted, while Coscarelli, the Hidden Valley Elementary principal, had 34.23%.

Ron Meza Calloway, superintendent of the Mark West Union School District and the third candidate in the race, received 21.26%.

In the race for the 12th Assembly District, which includes all of Marin and southern Sonoma County, candidates Sara Aminzadeh and Damon Connolly are headed for a runoff in November.

Aminzadeh, a California coastal commissioner from Kentfield, has 37.55% of 28,128 votes. Connolly, a Marin County supervisor, has 30.81%.

The June 7 primary marked the Sonoma County’s first wide-scale roll-out of its Voters Choice Act election model, which swapped assigned, precinct-based polling stations for centers able to accommodate voters from anywhere in the county.

The centers also opened days early to allow more early-voting options.

Proto said the roll-out “went well.”

“We had people express that they liked being able to vote anywhere,” Proto said. “Definitely had lower turnout on the early days which we expected but those formulas are set by the legislature.”

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.