The Santa Cruz County Clerk’s Office took all the time available to make its final tallies for the June 7 primary election. Measure F, a sales tax put before voters in the city of Santa Cruz, was the only race that went down to the wire. A hand count did not change the fact more voters were against the new tax than were for it.
While the big countywide race, Measure D, left nothing to suspense on election night, and many others are also pretty convincing, there are several close races that won’t be conclusive until at least the end of the week. That’s because a surprising surge of election day voting by mail has left the Santa Cruz County Clerk’s office playing catch-up.
The first batch of votes released by the office of Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber shortly after 8 p.m. showed No on the hotly contested rail-and-trail measure outpacing Yes, 16,730 votes to 7,104.