San Jose’s political balance rests in the hands of Santa Clara County election workers who are recounting votes in the special race for the District 3 City Council seat.
As political strategists and observers looked on, election workers across six tables meticulously sorted and verified ballots at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters office Thursday. They have four days to manually recount more than 9,000 votes by the April 28 deadline to certify the results. The outcome will determine which two candidates head to the June 24 runoff to replace disgraced former Councilmember Omar Torres.
“We aim to finish today, but it may extend into tomorrow morning,” Steve Goltiao, spokesperson for the registrar of voters, told San José Spotlight. “There’s no real set time we have.”
About 13 observers — members of the public who can ask questions or challenge a ballot during counting — watched the workers while cordoned off by a rope. They attended on behalf of various parties with interest in the special election’s outcome: the city, the campaigns for Anthony Tordillos and Matthew Quevedo, the Santa Clara County Democratic Party and the Kaufman Legal Group.
Prior to the recount, Gabby Chavez-Lopez, executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, held first place with 2,712 votes while Tordillos, chair of the San Jose Planning Commission, held second place with 2,006 votes. Quevedo, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, is trailing in third by just six votes with a total of 2,000. The narrow margins between second and third place have triggered the automatic recount under county elections law.
A spokesperson for Tordillos declined to comment, referring to prior remarks the candidate has made about the need for every vote to be counted.
Quevedo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A total of 9,105 ballots were cast in the special election, with 64 not being counted either because they had more choices marked than allowed or none at all. Elections officials stopped accepting mail ballots postmarked on Election Day on April 15, but are still accepting challenged ballots up to Saturday at 5 p.m.
“They can still be added to the final counts for this race,” Goltiao said.
The cost of the recount remains to be seen. Michael Borja, spokesperson for the registrar, said the office will calculate the actual costs after the recount is over.
It’s the fourth San Jose race to trigger a recount in eight years — highlighting the unique political environment around the nation’s tech capital, which has become a microcosm for American politics in the digital age and heated issues such as homelessness and affordable housing.
The most recent recount last year helped decide San Jose’s newest congressional representative, after a stunning tie in the March 2024 primary. The recount knocked former county Supervisor Joe Simitian out of the November runoff, where former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo bested former Assemblymember Evan Low to represent the region in Congress.
That recount was fraught with accusations of backroom coordination — and ultimately fueled one of the ugliest races last election cycle, riddled with dueling federal complaints.
Before that, San Jose saw recounts for two city council races in 2016. Both races remarkably went through two rounds of recounts, with the first ones conducted by the county and the second ones requested by the losing candidates in each contest.
After the second round decided that year’s District 8 seat between Jimmy Nguyen and Sylvia Arenas, county election officials acknowledged mistakenly counting 31 vote-by-mail ballots in the close race, in which Arenas — now a county supervisor — defeated Nguyen by fewer than 70 votes. Nguyen later publicly challenged the results’ integrity.
The District 4 council race between Manh Nguyen and Lan Diep triggered an automatic recount and came down to little more than a dozen votes, affirming incumbent Manh Nguyen’s loss before he paid for a second count out of pocket. But the second recount still put his opponent Diep in the lead. Manh Nguyen similarly criticized the registrar.
The District 3 recount could impact San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s agenda to end homeless camping and appeal to California’s center-right political sphere if his candidate is knocked out of the race. But his efforts hinge on the city council’s help to pass his policies and some question whether Quevedo’s shaky performance has exposed cracks in that support.
Quevedo is in third place despite having raised the most campaign cash.
Meanwhile, Chavez-Lopez and Tordillos have the backing of Mahan’s critics in the Democratic Party. Some say it signals voters’ repudiation of the mayor’s promises to arrest homeless people and divert affordable housing money toward temporary shelter. Mahan has denied the notion, arguing that his pick fell behind because of Chavez-Lopez’s special interest backing.
This story will be updated.
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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