Pappas Election Contest Takes Two-Week Hold

Steve Pappas’s contest of the November election has been put on hold for two weeks after news that the mother of his opponent’s attorney has passed away.

Doreen Farr, who won the November election by 806 votes, is being represented by Santa Monica-based attorney Fred Woocher, whose mother passed away this week.

Thus, the contest to the election won’t reconvene until March 11 in Judge William McLafferty’s courtroom, where Pappas attorney Jeffrey Lake will continue to call witnesses. So far Lake has called County Elections Office staff to testify as to general procedures, but he is expected to start calling participants in registration drives that took place leading up to the election.

Pappas is contesting the votes in the 18 precincts in UCSB and Isla Vista that held registration drives, Lake has said, that are at the center of the controversy. Lake said he intends to prove that as a result, voter fraud was committed. It will be up to the judge to determine which votes should be counted and which should not, and Pappas has a long way to go to overturn the results of the election.

Farr, meanwhile, is getting comfortable on the fourth floor of the County Administration Building. She just sat through her eighth meeting as a representative of the 3rd District, and she recently reopened an office in Solvang and will be reopening one in Isla Vista that her predecessor, Brooks Firestone, didn’t use.