Caragiulo widens lead over Clapp

District 2 City Commission candidate Paul Caragiulo extended his lead slightly over incumbent Commissioner Dick Clapp.

Thirteen provisional ballots, which were not part of the Election Day count, were tallied Thursday afternoon.

Before those ballots were counted, Caragiulo held a lead of just 11 votes out of a total 3,425 ballots cast.
After the provisional ballots were scanned, that lead moved to 14 votes.

Caragiulo picked up eight extra votes to move to 1,726, and Clapp received an extra five votes for a total of 1,712.

But because the margin between the two candidates is still 0.5%, a machine recount will continue as scheduled at 9 a.m. Friday.

If after the recount the candidates are separated by 0.25% or less, then state law mandates a manual recount, which includes weeding out over-votes and under-votes. Over-votes are people voting for both candidates, and under-votes are people voting for neither candidate.

If there are not enough over-votes and under-votes to change the outcome of the election, those ballots will not be counted, and the race will officially be over.

Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent said in a two-person race a large number of over-votes and under-votes is not likely.

Contact Robin Roy at [email protected].