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The dramatic race to succeed U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo in Congress took another twist this week when two individuals requested a recount, a development that threatens to knock one of the remaining candidates off the November ballot.
The requests were filed separately by Dan Stegink, a former candidate for San Mateo County supervisor, and by Jonathan Padilla, who works at the data company Snickerdoodle Labs and who is supporting former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo in the congressional race. They submitted the requests to the registrars of both San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, portions of which make up the 16th Congressional District.
Liccardo, who finished more than 8,000 votes ahead of any other candidate in the 10-person primary, is in no danger of falling off the November ballot after the recount. The same cannot be said of his two opponents, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian and state Assembly member Evan Low, who ended up tied with 30,249 votes each. A single vote switch could thus cost either of them an opportunity to compete in the general election.
Stegink hopes that this is exactly what happens, he told this publication in an interview. His motivation for requesting the recount was not to aid any candidate but to prevent a three-way race in which a candidate can win by getting just over a third of the votes.
Stegink, who lives in Pacifica, said that he has neither endorsed nor contributed money to any of the three candidates. He has filed the request on behalf of both the Simitian and Low campaigns. He also specified that if the counties were to only deem the request valid if it’s filed on behalf of a single candidate, he is filing it on behalf of Low — purely for alphabetical reasons.
“I’m agnostic on the candidates and my aim is solely to end up with a candidate whom at least 50 percent of the people like,” Stegink said.
Stegink called the result of the primary election “unprecedented” and suggested that the U.S. Constitution never intended for residents to choose leaders that have only received support from about a third of the voters, which could be the case if three candidates advance to the November primary.
Though he is not formally supporting any of the three candidates, Stegink has a clear stake in the outcome. If the recount results in the election results changing in favor of the candidate he is filing on behalf of, he would not have to foot the bill. In Santa Clara County, which makes up the vast majority of the district, the cost can range from about $80,000 for a machine recount to more than $300,000 for a manual recount.
Stegink said he is opting for the machine recount. He has asked both counties to begin their recounts in precincts with the largest number of valid ballots before moving on to those with fewer ballots.
“The No. 1 thing is it should be transparent and reproducible,” Stegink said of the election result. “I’m betting it’s not reproducible.”
The request from Padilla, meanwhile, calls for a manual recount. A letter that Padilla’s attorneys submitted to the registrars of both counties on April 9 states that the request is being made on behalf of Low. It also specifies that Padilla is “not coordinating or communicating with any candidate or candidates’ agents.”
But Padilla’s past affiliation with Liccardo has led to conjectures that the recount request is meant to help Liccardo by knocking out one of his opponents. Padilla had worked on Liccardo’s mayoral campaign in 2014 and he has donated $1,000 to Liccardo for his Congress bid, federal records show.
In his letter, Padilla requested an opportunity to examine unvoted ballots, vote-by-mail envelopes, provisional ballot envelops, audit logs and other data relating to the primary election. He is also requesting a chance to review all voter registration records in District 16 from May 1, 2023, to March 5, 2024.
Matthew Alvarez, an attorney with Rutan & Tucker who is representing Padilla in the recount request, did not respond to questions about the request on Wednesday afternoon.
By law, residents have five days from the certification date to request a recount. In this case, the deadline was April 9. The registrar is then required to start the recount within seven days of the request, said Steve Goltiao, associate communications officer at the Santa Clara County Registrar’s Office. This means the recount would have to begin no later than April 16.
A machine recount is expected to take about five days, Goltiao told this publication, while a hand recount to take about 10 days, possibly longer if there is a need to accommodate broader information requests. The registrar’s office is still reviewing both recount requests, he said, and there remains a possibility that they get switched from manual to machine count or vice versa.
San Mateo County is also gearing up for a manual recount. Jim Irizarry, the county’s chief assistant elections officer, said his office plans to start the recount on April 16.
“That is subject to receiving the necessary deposits to start pulling the ballots,” Irizarry said.
The effort will be conducted by five recount boards, each with four members, he said. They will be charged with reviewing roughly 40,000 ballots, a process that he expects to take about 10 days.
Irizarry noted that under the election code, if more than one person requests a recount and one of them requests that this recount be manual, the manual recount would count as the official recount. Because Padilla requested a manual recount, that’s the process that the county will follow.
The recount effort will get triggered as soon as the individuals requesting the recount submit their deposits, Irizarry said. He expects it to cost between $80,000 and $85,000.
While the registrar’s offices do not conjecture about the motivations of those who request recounts, Goltiao noted that the law allows the process to move ahead even without support or opposition from the candidates involved.
“A candidate doesn’t necessarily have to condone or promote or endorse any recount request by another party that’s not part of their campaign,” Goltiao said. “At the same time, they can’t deny a request either.”
Orrin Evans, Liccardo’s campaign spokesperson, told this publication that the campaign did not coordinate with Padilla and was not behind the recount request. That said, he argued that every vote should be counted, which is why recounts are part of the state’s process to ensure accuracy.
Evans also noted that in Santa Clara County, more than 100 ballots were not included in the final tally because voter signatures could not be verified before the certification or because they had other issues.
“We understand why, under these extraordinary circumstances, there would be an effort to make sure these votes are fully considered,” Evans said.
Low’s campaign told this publication Wednesday that it is unequivocally opposed to the recount request and that it stands firmly behind the certified results. It also released a statement Tuesday suggesting that Liccardo is behind the recount request.
“This is a page right out of Trump’s political playbook using dirty tricks to attack democracy and subvert the will of the voters,” a spokesperson for the campaign said in a statement. “Sam Liccardo, who does not live in the district, did not file a recount himself. Instead, he had his former staffer do it for him. What’s he afraid of?”
He also called Padilla’s declaration that he is requesting a recount on behalf of Low’s campaign “simply disingenuous” and slammed Liccardo for “hiding behind a former staffer who’s mounting an extremely expensive and time-consuming recount for political gain.”
“The apparent coordination raises more questions than it answers,” the Low spokesperson said. “Voters are sick of these cynical games and deserve a representative with integrity.”
The Simitian campaign took a more wait-and-see approach to the recount requests.
“Eventually, this process will work itself out,” Simitian said in a statement. “My job is to stay focused on how I can best represent the folks in our district. And that’s what I’m doing.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of the county’s chief assistant elections officer. It is Jim Irizarry.