The final count of the remaining votes are in and the winner of the third seat for City Council is Frank Ferry.

City Manager Ken Pulskamp made the announcement at 12:20 this afternoon after the remaining ballots were counted by both machine and hand.

The final tally has Ferry with 6,510 votes and Gauny with 6,478 votes, separating the winner by only 32 votes.

The final election results put Marsha McLean in first place, Laurene Weste in second and Frank Ferry in third.

The delay in choosing the third winner was because of a process that requires vote-by-mail and provisional ballots to be verified.

During Wednesdays count only 608 ballots were counted, which were adjusted down from the originally reported 641.

In the City Clerk’s election canvassing process, a total of 33 ballots were determined to be invalid. Specifically, 17 provisional ballots were determined to have been returned by voters residing outside of the incorporated City limits. The remaining ballots were invalidated for a variety of reasons including non-registered voters, missing signatures, non-matching signatures or voters that had already returned a vote by mail ballot.

Copies of some of the ballots were sent to the County of Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder for verification while the original ballots were kept locked away in City Hall.

The verification process was completed Monday and 208 provisional ballots, which when added to vote-by-mail ballots, make up the 641 uncounted ballots, were returned to City Hall.