This article was updated at 5:05pm April 3.
It’s all tied up. Evan Low and Joe Simitian each garnered 30,249 votes for the runner-up spot on the November ballot, for California’s 16th Congressional District.
That’s the report from the California Secretary of State from the final day of counting of “cured” ballots in the March 5, primary election, in the nailbiter of a race for the runner-up spot.
An agency spokesperson reported that if the results stand, State law requires a three-person runoff in November:
“If only one candidate receives the highest number of votes cast but there is a tie vote among two or more candidates receiving the second highest number of votes cast, each of those second-place candidates shall be a candidate at the ensuing general election along with the candidate receiving the highest number of votes cast, regardless of whether there are more candidates at the general election than prescribed by this article,” he said. “In no case shall the tie be determined by lot.”
One final signature recorded in the final hour of ballot counting in San Mateo County on Tuesday erased Low’s one-vote lead.
Barring the discovery of a rare counting error by the Secretary of State in the next 10 days—or changes discovered in a manual recount sought and paid for by Low or Simitian—voters will choose from among three candidates for the coveted Silicon Valley congressional seat: former San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo, Simitian or Low.
California county election officials are to send their “certified official results” from the primary to Sacramento by 5pm Thursday, April 4. The State has until April 15 to make it all official.
“Sometimes it takes a while for democracy to work,” Simitian said in a statement released by his campaign today when he trailed by one vote. “This is one of those times. That means counting and verifying all of the votes. Every single one of them.”
Liccardo held a comfortable 8,239-vote lead for the top spot on the November ballot, and has already begun piling up new endorsements and campaign cash in preparation for an eight-month campaign.
He led his two top opponents by 4.5 percentage points, but nearly 60% of the district’s registered voters stayed home. The presidential election turnout is likely to be more than twice the primary vote.
Simitian had led by varying handfuls of votes in the final harrowing week leading up to today’s count. That flipped on the final day of counting, then rebounded into the tie.
The totals updated daily reflected the acceptance of signatures collected after the election on ballots that had been submitted but not signed four weeks ago. About half of the unsigned ballots were eventually signed—or “cured” in electoral parlance—after the voters were contacted by election officials.
The Santa Clara final report was released on Tuesday, 24 minutes after the 5pm deadline for submitting signatures. But the San Mateo County Clerk/Assessor reported its totals a full hour before the 5pm deadline, leaving open the possibility of signatures arriving between 4pm and 5pm that could change Tuesday’s outcome—and one did.
The deadline for the decision whether to seek a recount is April 9. A recount could cost the requesting candidate (not taxpayers) as much as $500,000.
California law includes no provision for automatic recounts.
