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Former Councilwoman Pat Showalter will serve another four years on the Mountain View City Council, after a lengthy recount reaffirmed her narrow victory over candidate Alex Nunez.
The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters announced last week that the agency had completed its recount for the tight race, more than seven weeks after Election Day. Though the final vote tally changed slightly, Showalter held her lead as the presumptive winner.
“I’m very relieved and looking forward to serving on council,” Showalter said.
The small margin of victory in two local contests, the Mountain View City Council and the Los Altos Hills Town Council, triggered recounts under county law following the Dec. 3 certification of the vote. What followed was an exhaustive 16-day tally of all the city’s votes, staffed by 75 people and paid for in full by the county.
Election results in Mountain View showed clear winners for three of the four council seats up for grabs this November, with incumbents Margaret Abe-Koga and Lisa Matichak and former Assemblywoman Sally Lieber each taking a comfortable early lead. Showalter held fourth place with 12,060 votes, just 58 votes over Nunez. Any election where the margin of victory is less than 0.25% is automatically flagged for a recount.
The race in Los Altos Hills was even closer, with candidate Lisa Schmidt leading by just one vote over candidate Jay Sutaria.
Showalter said she was surprised by the prolonged process — recounts don’t even begin until after certification — and the requirement to count the same ballots numerous times as part of the recount process. When she went down to the registrar of voters to observe, she said four workers staffed 12 tables, outfitted with plexiglass structures, to do precinct-by-precinct hand counts.
As time went on and the local surge in COVID-19 cases worsened, Showalter said fewer people were showing up to count, which probably slowed things down.
“There were a number of these temporary workers that said they don’t feel comfortable doing this any longer, so they had fewer people,” Showalter said.
The final recount tally put Showalter ahead of Nunez by 74 votes, but did not alter the single-vote lead that Schmidt held over Sutaria in Los Altos Hills. The announcement reaffirming Showalter’s victory came on Thursday, Dec. 24.
“Santa was so good to me this year,” Showalter said. “He was very generous to me, and I don’t think I’ll ever get a better Christmas present.”
The tight election results resemble a similar nail-biter in 2018, when Showalter had an early lead over Councilwoman Alison Hicks in her bid for re-election. As results trickled in following election day, Showalter’s lead eroded and eventually flipped.
Showalter, who recently retired from her career as a civil engineer, has spent her time off council in the nonprofit world, serving on numerous boards including Alta Housing. She also serves as a commissioner for the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which largely guides restoration efforts along the coastal baylands.
Celebrating a belated victory, Showalter said she is encouraging all residents to stay in touch with her and other incoming council members and make their opinions known. With the coronavirus pandemic keeping people home, it’s harder than ever to gauge how the community feels about pressing issues facing the city.
“We’re all much more isolated than we were before, so it’s even more important for people to reach out directly to their elected officials,” she said. “I am hoping people will contact me about what they care about so I can understand what the temperature of the community is on various issues.”
Council members are expected to be sworn in through a virtual meeting on Jan. 12.
Showalter is not an incumbent, as she’s been out of office for two years.
Well yes. The secondary headline is also incorrect in reporting that Pat Showalter won the 4th seat by the initial margin of 58 votes. The margin ended up being 74 – according to the article itself. Evidently, the headline is often written by someone other than the author of the article.
Maybe there might have to be a BIG change in elections in Mountain View.
Did you see the story “Appeals Rules Against Santa Clara in Voting Rights Act Case” it involves a court order to divide the city of Santa Clara into districts thus having to have those living in them to compete directly and see who gets the majority. You can read the case here (https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2020/h046105.html) and the first story I read about it is here (https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/appeals-rules-against-city-of-santa-clara-in-voting-rights-act-case/)
The ugly truth is that our election system is flawed. Simply choosing City Council winners by ranked elections is not going to hold up if challenged in court. Given the courts have made a decent decision showing it skews elections in the detriment of minority voters.
Maybe the City Council better start working to implement this new idea before a judge orders it?