Recount In Garden Grove Mayor's Race Could Take Up To 7 Days

SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A recount will begin Monday in the Garden Grove mayor's race, which challenger Bao Nguyen won by 15 votes over Mayor Bruce Broadwater, according to semiofficial results.

The recount, which Broadwater must pay for, will be conducted by the Orange County Registrar of Voters. The cost for the recount will depend on how long it takes; however Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley expects it to take up to seven days.

Previously, it would not be surprising for a 15-vote margin to be erased, but with most of the balloting done electronically, that sort of spread is much larger, although not insurmountable, Kelley said.

Over the past decade, Kelley has managed a dozen recounts, including one in Yorba Linda in 2008 with a one-vote difference. The recount didn't change the result, he said.

Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who was just elected to the state Senate, won her post in 2007, even though she initially trailed by seven votes. She ended up winning by seven votes.

"We see much fewer mistakes," Kelley said. "We changed the instructions, tightened them up. We see a lot less craziness on the absentee ballots like scribbling and drawings."

Bao Nguyen's campaign said it is confident the Garden Grove Unified School District trustee will win. A message left for Broadwater was not immediately returned.

Nguyen, 34, will be the first elected Vietnamese-American mayor of a city with a population greater than 100,000 if his election is certified. He was born in a refugee camp and arrived in the United States when he was three months old.

Broadwater was elected to the Garden Grove City Council in 1992, and by 1994 was the city's mayor. He served as mayor through 2004 when he was barred from running for re-election because of term limits.

Broadwater was re-elected to the council in 2006 and again in 2010, and then became mayor again in 2012.

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