Recall of Anaheim Councilwoman Rubalcava officially fails

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page on Wednesday certified the results of the June 4 recall election, confirming preliminary results indicating the effort to unseat Anaheim District 3 Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava has failed.

“No” votes against recalling Rubalcava totaled 3,240, and “yes” votes to remove her from office totaled 2,775, according to the registrar, who will provide the certified results to the Anaheim City Clerk for the City Council to officially declare the election results no later than July 28 as required by law.

Voter turnout for the recall election was 23.3%. Of the ballots counted, 95.1% were vote-by-mail and 4.9% were in-person and cast at county vote centers.

Prior to the Page’s election certification, a 1% “manual tally audit” was completed to verify the results of the election, according to the registrar’s office.

“The legally required audit examined and manually tallied 872 ballots from one precinct chosen at random,” according to a registrar’s office statement. “The hand count results were then compared with the election results that were produced by the County’s voting system.”

Details on the audit are online at ocvote.gov/audit.

Election workers also conducted logic and accuracy testing of Orange County’s voting system equipment and software last week.

“Test ballots were fed through all ballot scanning devices used in the election, and all the votes on the test ballots were accurately counted,” officials said.

Page also confirmed that the county’s state-certified voting software “had not been modified” during the election, according to the registrar’s office.

Union leaders said in their statement for the recall that Rubalcava “sides with the same powerful business interests who have corrupted Anaheim politics.”

Recall supporters also said “she has wasted taxpayer money to help hotel interests” and tied her to Todd Ament, the disgraced ex-Chamber of Commerce CEO who pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges. Recall proponents said Ament’s organization “spent nearly $380,000 to elect her.”

In a document submitted to the registrar’s office, Rubalcava said, “Recall elections are supposed to be reserved for special circumstances when an office holder violates the public trust. This recall is about one L.A.-based organization that hasn’t gotten over losing the last election.”

She said the recall supporters’ claims were “exaggerated or completely untrue.”

The registrar’s office publishes reports on overall voter turnout and turnout by precinct, districts, cities and other classifications that can be found at ocvote.gov/detailed-results.

More information about the recall election is available at ocvote.gov or by calling 714-567-7600.