A week after polls closed, Jose Ugarte and Estuardo Mazariegos are still locked in a tight race to see who will succeed Curren Price for the Los Angeles City Council’s 9th District seat.
Ugarte was leading Mazariegos by just 156 votes, 19,200 to 19,044, according to the latest tally released by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Tuesday night.
Tuesday was the last day for mail-in ballots to be counted, said Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the office. Sanchez said he couldn’t estimate how many votes remained to be counted.
Because of the Veterans Day holiday Wednesday, the next vote tally will not be released until Friday, he said.
District 9 encompasses South L.A. neighborhoods, the Convention Center and USC.
The current councilmember, Price, must leave office because of term limits and is currently facing charges of embezzlement and conflict of interest and he has denied wrongdoing. Price has endorsed Ugarte, whose platform includes protecting city residents from federal immigration enforcement and the Trump administration. Mazariegos is backed by the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. He has worked as a community organizer for decades and said he’s running to improve quality of life in the city, including by making housing more affordable and spending money on basic services other than policing.
Mazariegos’ campaign made claims this week against the Ugarte campaign and shared images of unsealed and sealed ballots, alleging the ballots were collected during “an Ugarte canvassing operation.”
“Taking people’s ballots, filling them out, and not following legal voter assistance guidelines in a district that has faced so much disenfranchisement is disgusting,” Mazariegos said in a statement.
Among their claims, the campaign shared a photo of a USC student volunteering for Ugarte’s campaign delivering a stack of ballots to a drop box.
The registrar-recorder’s office forwarded the complaint to the district attorney’s office for review, Sanchez said. Sanchez said the photo of the student, which circulated online, didn’t raise alarms because California law allows voters to authorize another person to return their completed ballots.
The district attorney’s office said it was looking into the matter.
Ugarte said in a statement that the allegations made by Mazariegos’ campaign “are categorically false and defamatory.”
The 9th District seat is one of two council races determined in the Nov. 3 election. Barri Worth Girvan declared victory in the west San Fernando Valley’s 3rd District seat Friday night, after the latest vote tally showed her widening her lead over rival Tim Gaspar, with 51% of the vote to Gaspar’s 48%.
“I will bring competence, transparency, follow-through, and ethical leadership to City Hall, which Angelenos deserve and too often do not get,” Worth Girvan said in a statement.
Worth Girvan will replace Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who is leaving office because of term limits. The 3rd District seat includes Woodland Hills, Reseda and Canoga Park.
Before entering the race, Worth Girvan was L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s district director for three years, handling constituent services on the Westside and in the Valley, and has spent nearly 20 years working in public service. Gaspar is a former insurance company owner who had been backed by business groups.