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Riverside County Auditor-Controller Paul Angulo continued to trail challenger Ben Benoit in results posted early Wednesday, Nov. 9, on the county Registrar of Voters’ website.
As of 2 a.m. Wednesday, Benoit, who is Wildomar’s mayor, had 51.5% of the vote compared to 48.5% for Angulo with more than 165,000 votes tallied, a margin similar to results posted after 8 p.m. Tuesday. The county has 1.3 million registered voters.
RELATED: Election 2022: Ben Benoit leads Paul Angulo in Riverside County auditor-controller race
A notice on the registrar’s website announced that election night vote counting “is complete but not final” and that countywide, about 325,000 vote-by-mail and 10,000 provisional ballots remained to be processed. The next update is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Angulo did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Reached via text, Benoit said: “I’m happy to be ahead in the early returns, but there’s a lot more ballots that need to be processed.”
The race for a four-year term to be the county’s top fiscal watchdog was unusual in that there was actually a race for the office. Angulo, who was first elected in 2010, ran unopposed in 2018.
See the latest election results.
It was a heated and at times personal contest between Angulo and Benoit, who called attention to lawsuits alleging retaliation by former auditor’s employees that were settled for six figures.
Benoit used Angulo’s expense reports to portray Angulo as a frivolous spender of taxpayer dollars. He also referenced a grand jury report that found Angulo’s office lacking “in critical areas.”
Angulo, who denounced the jury’s report as “defamatory, naïve and ignorant,” defended his expenses on training, saying it was essential to ensure the public gets top-level service.
He said Benoit lacked the required training and experience to be auditor and questioned whether Benoit could be an independent check on county government given his support, financial and otherwise, from the county’s political establishment, including all five supervisors.
At a recent discussion of overtime costs at a Board of Supervisors meeting, Angulo said Benoit had hands “like a little girl,” prompting a rebuke from supervisors.
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