So it's a draw once more. At least for now.
With the recount within the stunning Congressional District 16 almost complete, the most recent results show Rep. Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian have the very same variety of votes.
On April 15, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties began recounting the greater than 182,000 votes forged within the March primary to interchange outgoing U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo. Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo secured the highest spot early, but after nearly a month of vote counting, Low and Simitian led to a tie for second place.
Because state and federal elections in California don’t require automatic recounts, Jonathan Padilla, a 2020 and 2024 Biden delegate and former Liccardo mayoral campaign staffer, requested a recount and paid for it through an excellent PAC called Count the Vote.
The first round of preliminary results from Santa Clara County were released Friday. In 77 of 199 counties recounted, Simitian was ahead by one vote. But on Tuesday afternoon, Low and Simitian found themselves in an all-too-familiar situation: Once again, they found themselves in a dead heat because the county reported data in 175 of the 199 counties. Both candidates gained six votes because of this of the recount.
The results for the remaining 24 precincts in Santa Clara County may very well be announced as early as Wednesday – the county said on its website that it had accomplished the re-verification of ballots in all 199 precincts.
As of Tuesday evening, there have been no changes between the unique count and the recount for Low or Simitian in San Mateo County. Deputy Chief Elections Officer Jim Irizarry couldn’t be reached for comment on the most recent results, but said earlier within the day that the re-verification of ballots was expected to be accomplished by the top of the day on Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
San Mateo County can also be expected to come to a decision Wednesday on plenty of contested ballots and whether or not they might be included within the recount after being excluded from the unique count. Santa Clara County has also challenged ballots yet to be counted that might effectively end the tie.
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