San Jose District 3 special election heads to recount

Santa Clara County elections appear to be cursed — they can’t seem to avoid recounts for too-close-to-call races.

The special election to replace the disgraced former District 3 San Jose councilmember Omar Torres  is headed for a recount on April 24. The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters will only have four days to certify the election and confirm the number of votes for the top-two vote getters, with two candidates in a tight race for second place before the June 24 runoff. 

As of 3:37 p.m. Friday, Gabby Chavez-Lopez, executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, still holds first place with 2,710 votes while Planning Commission Chair Anthony Tordillos is in second place with 2,005 votes. Matthew Quevedo, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, is trailing in third by just five votes with a total of 2,000. The narrow margins between second and third place have triggered the automatic recount under county elections law.

Tordillos hasn’t changed his tune and feels good about the outcome.

“Despite being outspent 5:1 by special interests, including Big Oil and PG&E, I’m glad our substantive message resonated with District 3 voters. We must make sure every vote is counted,” Tordillos previously told San Jose Spotlight.

The recount will start on Thursday at the Registrar of Voters office in San Jose and go from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. It’ll happen daily until completed, but Registrar spokesperson Michael Borja said he expects it to be over in two days. He is confident his office will make the April 28 deadline to certify the primary results.

“Having to conduct another automatic recount, experiencing tie votes – it really shows how important it is to vote and how one vote can really count,” Borja told San Jose Spotlight.

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 primary. The recount ultimately knocked former county supervisor Joe Simitian out of the November runoff, where former San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo bested former state assemblymember Evan Low. The recount was fraught with accusations of backroom coordination – and ultimately fueled one of the ugliest races of last year, riddled with dueling federal election complaints.

Before that, San Jose saw recounts for two City Council races in the 2016 election year. 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 deciding 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. 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.

Quevedo said the recount is a reminder of the importance of voter turnout.

“We appreciate the diligent work from everyone working to ensure a fast and accurate count. We appreciate everyone who voted and made their voice heard in this election, whether it was for our campaign for common sense or not,” Quevedo told San Jose Spotlight. “We are seeing in real time how important it is that every vote is cast and counted.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.