Recount for Fresno irrigation district race to be restarted Friday

A recount of votes in the hotly contested race for a board seat on the Laguna Irrigation District will be restarted Friday morning after it was abruptly halted with one ballot outstanding on Tuesday.

Friday’s recommenced recount will begin at 9 a.m. in the Fresno County Election Warehouse at 4525 E. Hamilton, according to a notice posted on the Elections Department website.

The public is welcome to view the recount process.

The race ended in a 101-101 tie between well driller Wes Harmon and incumbent Frank Zonneveld. Harmon called for the recount, which may cost him about $2,000.

The recount began Tuesday morning. In the afternoon, elections staff found one ballot that may have been counted twice.

After both sides were alerted about the ballot, Harmon’s representatives called a halt to the recount.

That started a 24-hour clock for another voter in the district to ask for the recount to be restarted, which Frank Zonneveld’s son, Andrew Zonneveld, did that afternoon.

If the race remains tied after the recount, election law states it will be up to the district to break the tie by a drawing of lots, according to Fresno County Registrar of Voters James Kus.

That’s what happened in the northern Central Valley city of Galt earlier this week where a tied City Council race was decided by drawing straws.

Though water district board seats are typically very sleepy races, this one has been a bit more spicy.

Harmon and his supporters have said they felt Laguna board members favored larger growers and weren’t operating with enough transparency.

Zonneveld told SJV Water the real issue is some growers are dissatisfied with how the district has divvied up recharged groundwater supplies.