Retired Imperial County Court Judge refused to halt the vote count in the San Diego mayor’s race, a victory for a maverick city councilwoman who has mounted a surprisingly strong write-in campaign.

The retired Imperial County judge took over the case after all 124 members of the San Diego Superior Court bench were recused because incumbent Mayor Dick Murphy is a former judge. He issued the ruling to a packed courtroom at 3 p.m today.

The decision came as the vote tally showed the race tightening between Councilwoman Donna Frye, a 52-year-old surf shop owner, and Murphy.

Monday’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by Frye’s opponents on the grounds that the election must be a runoff between the top two finishers in the primary — in this case, Murphy and county Supervisor Ron Roberts. The challenge was brought six days after the election.

Jones stopped short of dismissing the lawsuit, but said that Frye’s opponents had waited too long to challenge her campaign. When Frye entered the race five weeks before the Nov. 2 election, there were “no protests, no cries of illegality, no lawsuits.”

Attorney John Howard, who brought the legal challenge, said he planned to appeal. The incumbent mayor has also indicated he plans a legal challenge if the final vote count goes against him.

The registrar’s office released the latest tally at 8 a.m. Monday. The write-in-candidate — presumably Frye — is leading the contest with 151,759 votes, followed by Murphy, who has 149,928 votes.

It’s worth noting, however, that only 146,737 votes have been verified for Frye. An estimated 50,000 absentee and provisional ballots have still not been factored into the final numbers.

The registrar’s office has until the end of the month to certify the election.

Maricopa Superior Court Judge John Buttrick won approval for retention of his seat with 73% of the vote.

Buttrick is a well-known Libertarian Party activist who was appointed to the bench in 2001. This was his first election after his appointment. He had been challenged by several lawyers coming before his as “biased” for his libertarian beliefs. These challenges went all the way to the state Supreme Court but were all defeated.

Butrick ran as the LP candidate for Governor in 1994 and for the state legislature in 1998.

Also, the LP elected at least 20 candidates for a city councils and other offices around the country.

The Green Party’s David Cobb and Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik jointly announced their intentions to file a formal demand for a statewide recount in Ohio today. The two defeated third-party candidates also called upon Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who chaired President Bush’s campaign in the Buckeye State, to recuse himself from the recount process. Cobb and Badnarik hope to raise $110,000 to pay for the recall. Earlier today, Ralph Nader, who was forced to wage a write-in campaign in Ohio after his name was stricken from the ballot, also called for a statewide recount in the presidential race. The longtime consumer activist, who is also demanding a recount in New Hampshire, also blasted the Ohio Secretary of State, saying he should resign in disgrace. “When people are standing in line for four or five hours and they are told they’ve got to stand in line for another five hours and they leave because they’ve got to go to work or they got to pick up their child at day care, that’s a constitutional crime,” Nader asserted. Unofficial results in Ohio show Bush leading Democrat John F. Kerry by more than 136,000 votes with more than 155,000 provisional ballots and an undetermined number of absentee ballots yet to be counted.

(from Darcy Richardson)