County Democratic party divided on endorsements for county supervisors.

Forget the drama of hanging chads and malfunctioning electronic voting machines. Members of the Monterey County Democratic Central Committee vote for who to endorse the old-fashioned way: by raising their hands. 

A group of 25 voting members of the county Democratic party met on the evening of March 22 to decide which Democrats to endorse in the upcoming county supervisor races.

There are eight Democrats running for three seats: Salinas City Councilman Tony Barrera and Assemblyman Luis Alejo are challenging Supervisor Fernando Armenta; former Salians mayor Dennis Donohue and youth athletic coach are challenging Supervisor Jane Parker; and former United Way CEO Mary Adams is challenging Supervisor Dave Potter. 

Alejo, a member of the Central Committee, had to recuse himself from voting for who to endorse in the election he's running in, but he won the Democratic endorsement handily, with 18 of 21 voting members choosing him. 

(In each of the three endorsement votes, multiple members had to recuse themselves; if they're not running themselves, they're working for candidates, creating a conflict of interest.) 

Armenta has long been supported by labor unions and Democrats, but so has Alejo—with the two former allies running against each other, Alejo has peeled away some longtime Armenta supporters. But in a way, this vote was a no-brainer; Armenta walked out of the Democratic Party's candidate forum mid-way through, and Barrera declined to participate at all. 

In the three-way election for District 4, incumbent Parker won the endorsement with a 21-2 vote; no one cast a vote for Miller, a political newcomer. 

For District 5, where Adams is challenging Potter, the Central Committee did something it's never done before: a dual endorsement. 

Until Tuesday, their endorsement guidelines prevented them from doing so; if no candidate in a multi-Democrat race got more than 60 percent of the vote, no one would a Democratic endorsement. 

But they rewrote those rules earlier in the evening, and then after Adams and Potter split the vote, the committee decided to endorse them both. 

"I would encourage a dual endorsement," said Alan Haffa, a Monterey city councilman who first voted in favor of endorsing Adams. "This is a poster child of why we want one. Do we really want mailers to go out and it looks like we don’t have [a candidate]?

"I think they should both be on it. They are both good Democrats."