A Northern California county Board of Supervisors candidate who died in August is on track to win his election, a result that would hand the incoming governor the job of picking someone for the seat. Bruce Giudici, a candidate for the District 5 seat in Calaveras County, had 2,002 votes, or 57.1 percent, in the county's latest unofficial count, released Tuesday afternoon. Former Supervisor Clyde Clapp had 1,505, or 42.9 percent, which put Giudici 497 votes ahead.
The county's elections office lists 168 ballots still unprocessed countywide and 340 more that voters can still "cure" because the signatures were missing or didn't match the ones on file. It's unclear how many come from District 5, one of five supervisor districts in the county. Like the rest of California, the county counts slowly, and its next update is due at 5 p.m. local time Friday.
Results must be certified by December 3. "There are a few hundred ballots left to process, but it is unlikely that the outcome of the race will change," Carrie Biggs-Adams, a volunteer with Giudici's campaign, told KCRA in Sacramento. Newsweek reached out to the Giudici campaign for comment on Friday.
Giudici, 68, was knocking on doors in Valley Springs on August 30 when he fell on a steep driveway and a homeowner called 911. Giudici suffered a serious head injury and died the next day at San Joaquin General Hospital. By then it was too late to take his name off the ballot.
Under California law, a candidate who dies after the 68th day before an election stays on the ballot, and the votes cast for that person are counted. Texas has a similar rule, which this year kept a Brazoria County justice of the peace who died in September on the ballot. "Bruce may be gone, but his mission continues," the campaign wrote on social media the day he died.
"It was a very complicated decision to decide to keep going and an emotional one, and we felt very strongly that Bruce had wanted to do this," Biggs-Adams said. Giudici worked as a fiscal officer for the Amador Tuolumne Community Action Agency, a nonprofit, and ran on government spending, wildfire preparedness, public safety and the state of the county's roads. He earned bachelor's and graduate degrees from UC Davis.
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