Frugoli’s lead over Pletcher in race for Marin DA continues to dwindle

The size of Lori Frugoli’s lead over Anna Pletcher in the race to determine who will be Marin County’s next district attorney is continuing to melt.

With an additional 12,774 ballots counted since Wednesday, Frugoli, a longtime Marin County deputy district attorney, now leads Pletcher, who spent a decade working as prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice in San Francisco, by 1,092 votes.

Frugoli’s lead has become steadily smaller with each new update. It has now dwindled to about 1 percentage point; the day after the election Frugoli led by 2,560 votes, about 4 percentage points.

The next update will come at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Marin Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts estimates there are 13,000 ballots left to count. Roberts said about 7,000 of those are provisional ballots and most of the rest are vote-by-mail ballots.

“We’re working again this weekend to keep everything moving along,” Roberts said.

By law, the elections department has until Dec. 6 to certify and report final election results to the Secretary of State.

There are several other local races with candidates competing for three open slots where fortunes have shifted as late votes have come in.

The Sausalito Marin City School District board race has seen a seesaw between Bonnie Rose Hough and Jennifer Conway for third place. Conway is now back in the lead by 25 votes.

In the other tight races, none of the leaders have changed since Wednesday.

Kevin Saavedra leads Barbara McVeigh by 1,495 votes in the contest for the third open seat on the Tamalpais Union High School District board.

In the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District board race, Rabi Elias now leads Russ Greenfield by 45 votes in the battle for the third open seat on the board.

In the Bolinas-Stinson Union School District board race, Jennifer Pfeiffer and Stephen Marcotte are now tied with 586 votes. Stephen O’Neal trails both of them by 56 votes in his bid for third place and a seat on the board.

And in the race between three candidates for two open seats on the Sanitary District No. 5 board, Omar Arias-Montez trails second-place finisher Tod Moody by 36 votes.

None of the high-profile local measures on the Nov. 6 ballot — such as Measure W, which will increase the transient occupancy tax for hotels and short-term rentals from 10 percent to 14 percent — finished close enough to be in doubt. With the new votes added, Measure W, which requires two-thirds support to pass, now has 73.44 percent of the vote.

Measure AA, which would renew the county’s existing half-cent sales tax for 30 years to pay for transportation-related expenses, also requires two-thirds support to pass. It now has 76.24 percent of the vote. Measure J, Tamalpais Union High School District’s parcel tax proposal, which requires two-thirds support, now has 73.64 percent of the vote.