Lynn Compton in clear lead over Jimmy Paulding with few ballots left to count

Lynn Compton is ahead of Jimmy Paulding by 62 votes with few votes left to count as of Friday afternoon, likely giving her the win in the race for San Luis Obispo County District 4 supervisor.

Compton did not declare victory Friday, sticking to her previous statement: "It's not over until it's over."

"Is my upset stomach a little less upset? Yeah, maybe," Compton said. "But you never know what's going to happen."

Paulding said Friday that it's important that all the ballots are counted.

"There are still votes to be counted, and I want to allow that process to happen," he said. "Win, lose or draw, I feel it’s important that everyone’s vote is counted. I would like to convey my deepest appreciation for all of the incredibly hard working volunteers and supporters that I had the pleasure of working with."

A razor-thin margin between the two has been reported with each vote count released since the evening of Election Day; the split was never more than 100.

Compton is now winning with 50.17 percent of the vote to Paulding's 49.83 with 18,288 District 4 votes counted.

The latest vote count was not impacted by legal action Compton took against the county Friday morning.

There are less than 150 ballots remaining, including 49 vote-by-mail and 65 provisional, most of which Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong said probably won't be counted either because the voter wasn't registered in the county or some other issue with validation.

"I don't like to call a contest. It's rather unlikely that a large amount of those will be counted," Gong said.

Still in play are 18 conditional voter registration ballots, no more than a handful of provisional ballots that can be counted, and some 35 with mismatched signatures that remain unresolved. Gong's office will continue processing those ballots at 9 a.m. on Monday.

Gong is allowing voters whose ballots had mismatched signatures to cure the problem through next week, despite Compton's attorneys demanding that he not.

In a lawsuit filed earlier Friday, her attorneys asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to stop Gong from continuing to receive corrections and counting the 35 District 4 ballots with mismatched signatures.

Those voters have not remedied their ballots, so Gong has not opened their ballot envelop or counted their votes.

This story was originally published June 15, 2018 at 5:45 PM with the headline "Lynn Compton in clear lead over Jimmy Paulding with few ballots left to count."