San Jose District 3 City Council special election will undergo recount

It s official San Jose s District special voting process will undergo a recount as Anthony Tordillos continues to hold onto a five-vote lead over Matthew Quevedo for a spot in the June runoff with frontrunner Gabby Chavez-Lopez Since poll day the race for second place has been nip and tuck with Tordillos and Quevedo flip-flopping positions multiple times throughout the last week-and-a-half With very sparse votes left to process the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters set the recount for next week as San Jose moves closer to selecting a representative for its downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods We appreciate the diligent work from everyone working to ensure a fast and accurate count Quevedo announced Friday We appreciate everyone who voted and made their voice heard in this ballot whether it was for our campaign for common sense or not We are seeing in real-time how vital it is that every vote is cast and counted Chavez-Lopez the executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley has continued to lead the seven-person field trying to replace disgraced former City Councilmember Omar Torres who resigned in November due to sexual abuse charges that he later pleaded no contest to this month Although the race will drag on until the summer Carl Salas appointed to the District seat in late January will continue to serve in an interim quota until a winner is declared While Chavez-Lopez received of the vote her strong performance was not enough to earn an outright achievement as that status is only reserved for those earning more than of the vote Tordillos a Google engineer by transaction and Quevedo Mayor Matt Mahan s deputy chief have duked it out for second place with both candidates earning just over of the vote Pundits had pegged Chavez-Lopez Tordillos and Quevedo to be among the leading candidates due to their qualifications and strong abilities to fundraise in the race that has seen spending top seven figures largely due to the infusion of special interest money While Tordillos was the only candidate of the three to swear off donations from lobbyists and corporations he and Quevedo have both marketed themselves as candidates trying to break up the status quo The District race could also play a key role on whether Mahan successfully implements his framework agenda over the next year as his bloc in the present holds a slim voting advantage on the dais that could shift if Quevedo does not win the seat Due to his allegiance to Mahan Quevedo s program platform largely mirrored the types of proposals emerging from the mayor s office After Quevedo held a -vote advantage on poll night Tordillos directly cut into his lead before ultimately taking and holding onto second place this week Irene Smith who challenged Torres in the vote placed fourth with of the vote followed by Adam Duran Tyrone Wade and Phil Dolan County plan dictates an automatic review for contests with a margin of success less than or where that margin is less than total votes Michael Borja as associate communication officer at the county commented the recount would begin at a m on April While the count could drag into the next day he noted it was highly likely vote personnel would finish on the th Borja added that before the recount the county would also complete a manual tally in a precinct chosen at random to double-check we did everything right At the time of the last ballot drop the county estimated that unprocessed ballots remained as of Friday morning All of those ballots had been challenged and were pending signature verification Borja explained those affected would have until late next week to cure their ballots and the county intends to update the vote tally on Monday Wednesday and Friday Related Articles San Jose seeks a way to win populace buy-in for parks spending Where will the homeless in Columbus Park go when San Jose s largest encampment is cleared for revitalization project Tordillos slightly widens lead to enter runoff for San Jose City Council seat Latest vote tally shows another swing in the San Jose District City Council race Latest Line A good week for Loren Taylor a bad week for Omar Torres Kurt Frewing a spokesperson for Tordillos campaign referred The Mercury News to past statements when appealed for comment We must count every vote and there is still more to count Frewing mentioned We ve crushed the special interests and pundits expectations and we look forward to this process playing out