SACRAMENTO — After an unusually rancorous election to lead the California Democratic Party, Kimberly Ellis, a political organizer from Richmond, announced Sunday she would not concede the race to longtime party activist and insider Eric Bauman until the party had conducted an “audit” of the nearly 3,000 ballots cast by delegates the day before.

Bauman won by just 62 votes, according to the official results. And party officials quickly agreed to do the audit.

“I said I will not — when they asked me — I will not concede this race until we have validated the vote,” Ellis, backed by the powerful nurses’ union and other Bernie Sanders supporters, told a crowd Sunday at a Sacramento park.

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Letters: Model partnership | HSR’s role | Thwarting vote fraud | More ‘ruining’ The vote count — 1,493 to 1,431 — showed just how split the party is over its future, with many “Berniecrats” trying to change the status quo and move the party to the left.

Some Ellis supporters called for a recount after the results were announced late Saturday night, and Ellis posted a statement on Facebook on Sunday morning saying she was working with party officials to “ensure the election was conducted fairly and with transparency.”

“We have some concerns about the way some of those votes were cast,” she wrote.

Later Sunday she went further, saying she plans to review “each and every ballot cast” against registration forms and other information.

The delegates’ votes are not secret: Their names appear on their ballots.

The outgoing state party chairman, former state Sen. John Burton of San Francisco, announced on the floor of the convention Sunday that party officials would review the ballots with Ellis and her team. It was not immediately clear, however, how long the audit will take.

The election for the party chairmanship — normally a fairly dull event — brought a wave of energy and suspense to the party’s annual state convention in Sacramento, where a who’s who of elected leaders and candidates for governor tried to rally the crowd around a common goal: defying the Trump administration. But protesters organized by the California Nurses Association, which backed Ellis, criticized the party — and Bauman — as being too beholden to corporate interests.

The 84-year-old Burton shouted them down several times with his trademark profanity.

Each camp gathered separately Saturday night to await the news — and when it came, “absolute pandemonium” broke out in the Sheraton Hotel lobby where supporters of Bauman had gathered, said Sean Kiernan, a Bauman volunteer from Los Angeles.

“So many volunteers have been working so hard for years,” he said. “We did it.”

In a convention center ballroom, the nurses’ union had been poised to declare victory for Ellis, having heard that their candidate was leading in the vote count. The celebratory mood, however, turned somber as the news came in. The union’s executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro, acknowledged that the outcome was “a blow,” but told volunteers they were the reason the race was as close as it was.

Congratulations to the new California Democratic Party Chair Eric C. Bauman! @EricBauman #CADEM17 #CaliforniaLeads — CA Democratic Party (@CA_Dem) May 21, 2017

If the results hold up, Bauman would become the California Democratic Party’s first openly gay chair. A political consultant from Los Angeles who now serves as the state party’s vice-chairman, Baumann addressed the party divide in a news release he issued late Saturday night about Ellis and a third candidate, Lenore Albert Sheridan:

“Kimberly Ellis and Lenore Albert Sheridan are fierce and worthy competitors,” Bauman said. “They gave voice to a vast and growing segment of the party that hasn’t always felt listened to or valued. And to their supporters, I want to say directly that you will have a seat at the table in the California Democratic Party. My fellow officers and I are committed to working with you to make our party representative of our grass-roots base and ensure we stand up for those most in need.

“Regardless of the outcome of today’s election, and regardless of the fact that we have proven that California is the one place in the nation that knows how to do it right – there is no denying that there is a problem when so many of our hardworking activists feel that they are not welcome within our party and that they have been slighted and shut out of the process. We cannot win the vital elections in 2018 and beyond without the energy, commitment and participation of every part of our Democratic family.”

In an interview with this newspaper earlier on Saturday, Bauman said, “Every time we’ve had a movement election, there’s an influx of new people in the party, and they feel they’re on the outside,” he said. “If we’re smart, we bring them in, and they infuse the party with new ideas and new strength. I welcome that, because I want people to come in with new ideas.”

Among those who had gathered in the convention ballroom for Ellis was Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb. He is running to succeed Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, a candidate for state schools superintendent in 2018.

“The most important thing now is that we unify,” Kalb said. “Because if we don’t, we’re doing just what the Republicans want us to do.”

Staff writer Casey Tolan contributed to this story.