Frontrunners Keep Murrieta Election Leads

The first batch of updated election results in more than 24 hours was released just before 6 p.m. Thursday by the Riverside County Registar of Voters' Office.

Murrieta candidates who were ahead as of election night retained their leads. Measure N also kept its edge with more Yes votes than No votes.

Workers at the registrar's office continue to count 86,000 vote-by-mail ballots and 60,000 provisional, as well as duplicate 18,000 damaged ballots, according to Registrar Kari Verjil.

Damaged ballots are those that may have been torn improperly by voters; become crinkled or jammed in the county's vote scanner machines; were marked with the wrong color pen; were corrected by voters who made mistakes; were not marked in a straight line between arrows; and a host of other causes, Verjil told Patch.

The damaged ballots do not come from any one precinct, she said. Rather, they are accumulated from ballots countywide and do include ballots submitted by mail.

Teams of two are then responsible for duplicating the damaged ballots, she said.

While a number of the duplicated ballots may be included in the latest update as of Wednesday evening, Verjil said more damaged ballots are being discovered as the counting continues.

The county moved to paper ballots in 2007, according to Verjil, under the direction of the California Secretary of State, who at the time did away with electronic voting statewide.

Thursday's updated results for races affecting Murrieta were as follows:

Murrieta City Council:

Randon Lane—36.35 percent (14,603 votes)

Harry Ramos—23.16 percent (9,304 votes)

Paul Clay—18.77 percent (7,540 votes)

Joel Phillips—11.83 percent (4,753 votes)

David Mueting—5.81 percent (2,333 votes)

Dan Strick—4.09 percent (1,643 votes)

Murrieta School Board:

Paul Diffley—22.82 percent (12,744)

Barbara Muir—20.34 percent (11,357)

Ken Dickson—19.60 percent (10,945)

Greg Lee—18.95 percent (10,583)

Margi Wray—18.28 percent (10,210)

Measure N:

Yes—57.14 percent (15,682 votes)

No—42.86 percent (11,763 votes)

MSJC Trustee Area 5:

Tom Ashley—65.25 percent (22,595 votes)

Guy Romero—34.75 percent (12,034 votes)

67th State Assembly District:

Melissa Melendez—51.36 percent (52,239 votes)

Phil Paule—48.64 percent (49,474 votes)

First District County Supervisor (Affects La Cresta and De Luz)

Kevin Jeffries—50.45 percent (44,813 votes)

Bob Buster—49.55 percent (44,006 votes)

The next batch of results are due out by 6 p.m. Friday.