The State : Pringle Still Leads in Vote

Republican Curt Pringle was still the winner, by a narrow 867-vote margin, in the 72nd Assembly District race after a count of 30,000 absentee ballots, the Orange County registrar of voters said. Before the absentee ballot count, Pringle led opponent Christian Thierbach by 671 votes. Controversy still swirls around the Assembly race because uniformed guards hired by the Orange County GOP and Pringle’s campaign manager patrolled 20 polling places on Nov. 8. The guards were hired as poll observers because it was feared that Democrats would try to bus in illegal aliens to stuff ballot boxes, said Tom Fuentes, the county’s Republican Party chairman.