The outcome of the race for 1st District supervisor in Santa Barbara County remains still uncertain with a significant but unspecified number of mail-in ballots still left to be counted.
As of last count, Carpinteria City Councilmember Roy Lee still enjoyed a lead over incumbent Das Williams, but it had narrowed from 637 votes to 510. According to Lee’s campaign manager Wade Cowper, it’s not clear how many ballots remain to be counted countywide and of those how many were in the 1st District.
Those hoping for a tidy resolution by the time the weekend rolled around will have to hold their collective breaths. The ballots still to be counted are those mail-in ballots dropped in the mailbox and postmarked March 5, the day of the election.
Without knowing how many 1st District ballots remain to be counted, it’s hard for prognosticators and number crunchers to render a reliable calculation as to the relative odds that Williams, a two-term incumbent supervisor with 20 years of experience under his belt as an elected official of multiple jurisdictions, might catch up with Lee, a relative political novice and Carpinteria restaurant owner.
