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The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters has finished tallying votes for the November 2020 election, showing record-breaking turnout amid a huge shift to vote-by-mail ballots.
But two Peninsula elections are still too close to call. The race for the Mountain View City Council and the Los Altos Hills town council both have candidates winning by a tiny margin, triggering an automatic recount for both races.
Election officials received a total of nearly 864,000 ballots for the Nov. 3 election, putting total voter turnout at 84.8%. It was even higher in Mountain View, with 35,464 ballots cast out of 40,380 registered voters — a turnout of 87.8%.
Though historic, voters turnout in Mountain View has come close in the past, with 87.7% of voters casting a ballot in the 2016 presidential election.
“We are very excited to see record-breaking voter participation and applaud Santa Clara County voters for their participation in our democracy,” said Shannon Bushey, executive director of the registrar of voters, in a statement Thursday. “Our voters made sure their voices were heard November 3rd.”
In the race for the Mountain View City Council, the top four vote-getters will be elected to the council. Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga held a significant lead in first place with 17,125 votes, followed by former state Assemblywoman Sally Lieber with 14,276 and Councilwoman Lisa Matichak with 12,955.
But the winner of the fourth seat is the subject of a recount this month. Former Councilwoman Pat Showalter is currently set to win the seat with 12,060 votes, holding a razor-thin margin over candidate Alex Nunez, who has 12,002 votes. Showalter has held a small lead over Nunez since election night in a race that has been too close to call.
Showalter found herself in a similar spot in 2018, when she initially held a slim lead over Councilwoman Alison Hicks on election night before eventually falling behind and losing her reelection bid by a few dozen votes.
In the town of Los Altos Hills, the council race could not be closer, literally. Only a single vote separates candidates Lisa Schmidt and Jay Sutaria, according to the registrar of voters.
Any race in Santa Clara County where the margin of victory is smaller than 25 votes or 0.25% of the ballots cast is subject to an automatic recount. Election officials say 115,000 ballots will need to be recounted by hand, the results of which will be tallied and compared to the machine counts. From there, county staff will reconcile the differences before a final audit.
The labor-intensive effort is expected to take a couple of weeks.
“Staff will work on the automatic recounts from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. six days a week, until both recounts have been completed,” the registrar said in a statement last week.
Santa Clara County started doing automatic recounts for close races, paid for fully by the county, in 2016. In previous elections, it was up to candidates and community members to cover the cost, which meant many close races went without a recount due to the significant expense.
In a statement Monday, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian said it should be the county’s goal to conduct recounts in the county’s closest elections, and that he pressured the county to adopt automatic recounts.
“These elections can be incredibly close, and an individual candidate not being able to afford a recount shouldn’t mean that we don’t do everything we can to get it right,” Simitian said. “The Registrar of Voters has one essential job. Count the votes, and count the votes correctly.”
The outcome in other local races was clear on election night. The city’s RV parking restriction ordinance, Measure C, received 18,455 votes in favor (56.6%) and 14,159 votes against (43.41%). City officials are expected to reinstate the ordinance at the Dec. 8 council meeting, and discuss when and how to roll out the RV ban.
For local schools, incumbents and candidates with an education background prevailed. In the Mountain View Whisman School District, former school administrator Laura Ramirez Berman won with a commanding lead, getting 17,454 votes, followed by school board member Laura Blakely with 13,448 and teacher and former school board member Chris Chiang with 13,433. Falling short were Crittenden parent Patrick Neschleba with 7,959 votes and former school employee Manny Velasco at 4,571.
In the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District, incumbents Sanjay Dave and Phil Faillace retained their seats, getting 25,650 votes and 24,562 votes, respectively. Parent and challenger Laura Teksler received 23,168 votes, failing to get a spot on the board.
The Nov. 3 election was the first presidential election since the state’s election modernization law, the Voter’s Choice Act, went into effect earlier this year. The legislation required the county to mail a ballot to every voter, expand in-person early voting and allow voters to cast a ballot at any vote center. These changes rolled out before the coronavirus pandemic struck, which fueled the need for expanded voting opportunities in order to prevent the virus from curbing voter participation.
In the lead-up to the election, the registrar hired hundreds of extra employees, and had election workers on the clock 12 hours a day, including weekends.
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Very proud of the high election turnout in Mtn View!!
I hope Nunez loses, his views are the same as Lenny Siegel just he has a nicer personality, but never the less he is a die hard activist.
I am disappointed that Lieber was elected as she is one and the same as Siegel. She had name recognition that won her the election, but people do not know her views. Example, she and Siegel worked to bring Black Lives Matter to our city.
Pat Showalter is the lesser of 2 evils.
VERY VERY HAPPY that Lenny Siegel was once again was rejected by the voters.
Very impressed by the ROV, who I dealt with personally before when she ran the candidates section of the office and I was a first-time candidate. There were some major problems when she first took office – but she has seemed to grow into a very capable and competent high public administrator.