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Politics

Chula Vista City Council Race Officially Ends

John McCann, left, defeated Steve Padilla, right, in a race for a seat on the Chula Vista City Council.
10News
John McCann, left, defeated Steve Padilla, right, in a race for a seat on the Chula Vista City Council.

No one asked for a resumption of a recount in the closest City Council race in Chula Vista history, officially ending a weeklong process that didn't produce a change in the initial result, San Diego County Registrar of Voters Michael Vu said Friday.

Candidate Steve Padilla, who lost to John McCann by two votes out of nearly 37,000 ballots cast, called off the recount Thursday morning.

The action opened a 24-hour window in which someone could have asked for a restart of the recount, which was about one-third complete, Vu said.

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In a statement Thursday, Padilla contended that "many valid ballots" weren't included in the recount, and that he was looking over options of how to proceed.

Vu, however, said around 335 mail-in or provisional ballots were not counted because they were submitted late, were unsigned, or a comparison of signatures with those on registration forms did not match.

The disqualification of 10 provisional ballots had been challenged, according to Vu. He said the law requires voters to provide their residential address, but the ones in question had listed business addresses or post office boxes, or addresses that did not exist.