Election Day
turned into Groundhog Day in the waterfront city of Vallejo,
Calif.
First, Gary
Cloutier was declared the winner by five votes and became
Vallejo's first gay mayor. Then, a recount gave rival Osby
Davis a two-vote edge, making him Vallejo's first
black mayor.
Now, Cloutier is
arguing the recount was tainted by sloppy tallying and
fraud, and he wants to know how a vote for him ended up in
the trash.
And that's just
what happened after Cloutier was arrested in Palm Springs
and accused of public drunkenness.
''Yeah, it's a
wild finish. That's just going to make it more
thrilling,'' said Al Cusseaux, a Vallejo voter and Davis
supporter who showed up to see the court challenge
argued Tuesday. ''The right man was voted in.''
The race for
mayor of Vallejo, a blue-collar city of 117,000 about 30
miles from San Francisco, was interesting from the start.
Both Cloutier and Davis were trying to become
trailblazers.
Cloutier, 45, a
former city councilman, and Davis, 62, a former county
supervisor, had ended Election Day in a dead heat, and
officials spent days counting absentee and provisional
ballots before declaring a winner.
While that was
going on, Cloutier was arrested November 18 on suspicion
of public intoxication after stumbling from a Palm Springs
bar and getting into a Cadillac, according to police.
Cloutier called
the incident ''a mistake that I deeply regret'' and
promised it wouldn't happen again.
A few days later
he was sworn in, only to have Davis request the recount.
Cloutier says the
recount was riddled with problems. At one point Davis
led by three until an absentee ballot for Cloutier was found
in a pile of plastic bags.
Cloutier calls
that evidence of fraud and went to court Tuesday,
unsuccessfully seeking a court order stopping Davis from
taking over as mayor.
County officials
deny that there was any fraud or that a vote was tossed
in the trash. County spokesman Stephen Pierce said the
ballot had been erroneously set aside and both
candidates were immediately informed of the find.
The seesaw
results have divided the community, said Hank A. Howard, who
was among those watching Cloutier's court challenge. But
Howard, who voted for another of the four mayoral
candidates, said there is one outcome everyone can
agree on: Your vote counts.
Cloutier can
still contest the results in a trial and has said the issue
is ''far from over.''
After Davis was
sworn in Tuesday night, Cloutier left the council
chambers, but not before echoing actor and Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
''I'll be back,''
he said. (AP)