Ugarte Leads by 41 Votes in L.A.'s Council District 9 Race as a Ballot Complaint Goes to the D.A.

Jose Ugarte's lead over Estuardo Mazariegos in the race to succeed Curren Price keeps shrinking with about 15,000 ballots left countywide, while prosecutors review a complaint that canvassers took voters' blank ballots.

By Herald Staff · Nov. 14, 2026, 11:30 AM ET

Illustration of a navy-blue steel ballot drop box on a concrete pad along a quiet, palm-lined South Los Angeles sidewalk at dusk, beside a stucco bungalow and a low storefront, with the downtown Los Angeles skyline glowing under an orange and violet sky. — Council District 9 stretches from downtown Los Angeles into South L.A. As of Friday, just 41 votes separated Jose Ugarte and Estuardo Mazariegos, with the next ballot count due Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES — Eleven days after the polls closed, the race to succeed Curren Price on the Los Angeles City Council is close enough that a single apartment building could swing it. Jose Ugarte led Estuardo Mazariegos by just 41 votes in Friday's update from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, 19,434 to 19,393, or 50.05% to 49.95%, City News Service reported.

The margin has been shrinking all week. Ugarte was ahead by just under 300 votes early in the week, LAist reported, and by 156 votes, 19,200 to 19,044, after Tuesday night's count, according to the Los Angeles Times. County officials estimate about 15,000 ballots remain to be processed countywide, but it is not known how many of them come from the district.

A Historic Seat

District 9 runs from downtown Los Angeles into South L.A. and includes the Convention Center and USC. Price is leaving because of term limits. He is also facing embezzlement and conflict-of-interest charges, which he denies, the Times reported.

Ugarte is Price's former deputy chief of staff, and Price has endorsed him. His platform includes protecting residents from federal immigration enforcement. Mazariegos is a longtime community organizer and co-director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and he is backed by the city's chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. He has said he wants to make housing more affordable and spend more on basic services other than policing.

Whoever wins will be the first Latino to represent the district since Edward Roybal resigned in 1962 to go to Congress. Every council member who has held the seat since then has been Black, City News Service noted.

The Ballot Complaint

On Monday, Mazariegos' campaign filed a complaint with the registrar alleging ballot tampering. It said several residents reported that canvassers took their blank ballots and said they would vote for them. The campaign also sent reporters photos of ballots, some of them open and marked for Ugarte, and a photo of Ugarte volunteer Amir King, a USC student, putting a stack of ballots into a drop box.

On Friday, the campaign said it had given the registrar a recording of a resident who says canvassers took the blank ballots of three people in one household. "They did not ask the residents who they wanted to vote for or say which candidates they intended to fill in," the campaign said in a statement.

Ugarte has called the allegations "categorically false and defamatory," the Times reported. His campaign pointed to an Instagram post in which King, political director of the Trojan Democrats, said he was being bullied for "helping others participate in democracy, as is their right under California state law."

The registrar's office sent the complaint to the district attorney's office, which told the Times it was looking into the matter. Registrar spokesperson Mike Sanchez said the drop-box photo by itself didn't raise alarms, because California lets voters authorize someone else to return their completed ballot. That practice is often called ballot harvesting. Sanchez also pointed to state election law, which says a ballot can't be thrown out just because the person who returned it didn't sign the envelope.

Loyola Marymount law professor Justin Levitt told LAist's AirTalk there is no limit on how many ballots one person can turn in for others, as long as they aren't paid per ballot. But he said that having a voter sign a ballot and then hand it to someone else to fill out would be illegal, and that is probably what investigators will focus on.

What Comes Next

The registrar posts its next update Tuesday, Nov. 17, between 4 and 5 p.m., with more updates planned Nov. 19 and Nov. 25, according to the county's post-election counting schedule. The county is tentatively set to certify results Friday, Nov. 27. Under its recount schedule, voters can then ask for a recount through Dec. 2. In California, the person who asks for a recount has to pay for it up front, and gets the money back only if the result changes in their favor, according to the Secretary of State.

The other open council seat on the ballot is already decided. Barri Worth Girvan declared victory in the west San Fernando Valley's 3rd District over Tim Gaspar and will replace the termed-out Bob Blumenfield, the Times reported.

Countywide, 3,176,649 ballots had been counted as of Friday, a turnout of 53.8%, according to registrar figures compiled by City Hall Pass. In District 9, the count goes on.

Original reporting by The Los Angeles Herald, drawing on City News Service via NBC Los Angeles, LAist, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, the California Secretary of State and City Hall Pass, as linked above.