Campaign filings reveal Silicon Valley recount donors

Tech CEOs and business leaders were the main sources of funding behind a contentious Silicon Valley congressional recount earlier this year.

That’s according to recent campaign filings from Count the Vote, the super PAC that directly paid for the Congressional District 16 recount that sent Assemblymember Evan Low to a November runoff election with former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo. Donors to the political action committee have been hidden — until now.

The biggest contributor to Count the Vote is another PAC, Neighbors for Results, which gave $102,000. Neighbors for Results has also spent $516,997 to support Liccardo in the election and its biggest donor is billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with whom Liccardo shares some history.

The biggest individual contributor to Count the Vote is Christian Larsen, co-founder of cryptocurrency tech company Ripple Labs, who put $100,000 into the super PAC.

Former NetApp CEO Daniel Warmenhoven put $63,500 into Count the Vote over three installments. He also contributed $50,000 to Neighbors for Results before the primary election.

Two people contributed $2,500 to the super PAC: Permit Power co-founder and Metropolitan Transportation Commission Vice Chair Nick Josefowitz and someone who identified themselves as “K Mcauliffe,” with the listed employer as “pending.”

Jonathan Padilla also contributed $1,000. Padilla, who formerly worked on Liccardo’s mayoral campaign and has been politically active in Silicon Valley’s Democratic circles, originally requested the recount in April. At the time, he wrote he was requesting the recount on behalf of Low, and Low opposed any connection to Padilla or the recount. Low tied with Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian in the March primary election, and the recount turned up a handful more votes for Low, leading Simitian to concede. Liccardo has repeatedly denied any connection to Padilla’s recount request.

A spokesperson for Low’s campaign said the recount was a “dirty trick” by Liccardo — the recount cost Low’s campaign $168,365, mostly in legal fees, since he tried to stop it from proceeding. The campaign also has $77,442 in outstanding debts to the Elias Law Group related to the recount.

“It’s now clear Liccardo’s billionaire donors funded it, which hamstrung our fundraising and gave Trump Republicans a playbook to continue to undermine our democracy,” the spokesperson told San José Spotlight.

Low introduced a bill to the state Assembly in June that would require automatic recounts in any statewide election with a margin of less than 25 votes or 0.25% of the cast ballots, based on the automatic recount rules for Santa Clara County elections. The bill is now headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Liccardo’s campaign shelled out $34,042 in expenses related to the recount, mostly legal fees, and has $36,160 in outstanding debts to the Kaufman Legal Group.

Gil Rubinstein, a spokesperson for Liccardo’s campaign, said Liccardo’s support for state-funded automatic recounts has been clearer than Low’s. He pointed to an op-ed Liccardo wrote in April, when he said he supported automatic recounts in close elections to improve public trust and 24-hour time limits for all donations to PACs, which he said would make the committees more transparent.

“Evan supported recounts when it didn’t affect his race, opposed recounts when it did affect his race, then supported them again once he made it into the general by five votes,” Rubinstein told San José Spotlight. “In a time when too many political opportunists cast doubt on election procedures, having an automatic recount process would help to bolster confidence in this democratic process.”

Based on Count the Vote’s expenditures, recount costs totaled to $219,000 across Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Initial cost estimates from both counties was $12,000 daily, but costs went down over time.

According to San Mateo County Assistant Chief Elections Officer Jim Irizarry, the county charged $12,000 every day starting April 12, but that cost dropped to $2,500 every day on April 26 once the machine recount was done. According to Count the Vote’s expenditures, San Mateo County received $111,000 for the recount and Santa Clara County received $108,000.

Count the Vote also spent $49,000 in legal fees, with checks going to the Sutton Law Firm and Rutan & Tucker. The committee’s treasurer Jim Sutton is a partner at both. Of those fees, $6,000 was given to Matthew Alvarez, who is the treasurer for Neighbors for Results and a partner at Rutan & Tucker.

Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X, formerly known as Twitter.