Every vote counts
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Challenger Lauren Barnes had 1,502 votes at the end of election night, putting her painfully close to incumbent Gail Lyons, who had 1,558 in the two-woman race for Area 5 of the Brea Olinda school board in California.
The absentee ballots benefited Barnes, though, and when all were counted, she appeared to have pulled off an upset, being declared the winner 1,805 to 1,804. Yes, by one vote.
It wasn’t over, though. “A ballot that a machine count thought was blank,” the
Orange Juice Blog reported, “turned out to have a faint but discernible 'x' mark for incumbent Gail Lyons.”