BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The Kern County Elections Division continues counting and processing ballots from the Nov. 5 general election and announced its latest vote totals late Friday afternoon.
In the Board of Supervisors District 5 race, incumbent Leticia Perez leads Kim Salas by just 67 votes.
The race is extremely close between the two with Perez having a total of 14,532 votes (50.1%) and Salas with 14,465 votes (49.9%).
Perez “regained” the lead after previous updates this week showed Salas with a slight lead.
The elections office said it still has 2,895 ballots to process.
Some ballots that remain to be counted are those that can be cured. Perez’s campaign has reached out to voters by knocking on doors and asking them to cure their ballot. Voters can’t change their vote, but it does ensure that the vote does get counted. The elections office has reached out to voters asking them to cure their ballot by Dec. 1.
Those ballots typically have issues with signatures on the returned envelopes not matching with what’s on file with a voter’s registration.
Kern County elections officials said it will release another round of vote tallies on Nov. 26. The California Secretary of State will certify election results on Dec. 13.