S.C. prosecutor Liroff’s back in the running

Longtime Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Lane Liroff has knocked Court Commissioner Jesus “Jess” Valencia out of the runoff for the bench, thanks to mail-in votes counted since Tuesday’s election.

As of 3:25 p.m. today, Liroff, previously in third place out of five candidates, had picked up 1,111 more votes than Valencia, who was in second place the day after the election. Civil litigator Diane Ritchie still remains the top vote-getter with 14,776 more than Liroff, and 27.18 percent of the vote.

Earlier in the week, county registrar spokesman Matt Morales told Callaw.com that 90 percent of the mail-in votes would be tallied by today, so it’s unlikely the counts will change much now.

Liroff’s entry into the runoff against Ritchie means a prosecutor is again in the race. In Tuesday’s election, Liroff was running against office-mates Jay Boyarsky and Tim Pitsker, and by Wednesday morning all three had garnered around 18 percent of the vote, which indicated they had split the law-and-order vote pretty cleanly, to all three’s detriment.

Now it seems there’s a good chance law-and-order voters could all fall in behind Liroff in November and give Ritchie quite a run for her money.

—  Jessie Seyfer