Five days after the polls closed, the county Registrar of Voters finished tallying vote-by-mail ballots in the San Jose mayor's race. Working throughout the weekend, the ROV finished its count Sunday night and Sam Liccardo maintained a 3,668-vote lead over Dave Cortese.
The San Jose council member has held steady with more than 51 percent of the vote since Election Night. Roughly 14,000 provisional ballots must still be counted, and Cortese has refused to concede until all votes are included.
Since Election Day, however, questions and conspiracy theories have been raised about the accuracy of the vote totals, mainly due to the unusual departure of Joseph Le, the ROV's former IT Director. Le walked off the job the day before the election. Shannon Bushey, head of the ROV, insists the counting of votes was unaffected by his resignation, but she sent a letter to the Secretary of State's office on Friday requesting a review of the election results.
"I wanted to assure the public that there are no issues with our vote count, so I thought, ‘Let someone independent come in,’" Bushey told San Jose Inside.
With all that in mind, how confident are you in the reported results for the San Jose mayor's race? Should there be a recount? Supporters for both Liccardo and Cortese have been camped out at the ROV for the last week observing the counting of ballots.
Election is over. Sam won.
SAM JOSE!
Normally I’m against recounts, but the margin is so small, it requires a recount for peace of mind.
2 percent is not, nor ever has been recount territory…not even 1 percent…if its 0.5 percent which is about 600 votes…i say have at it…but 3600 is ridiculous when the count of the last 50,000 votes has fluctuated a whole 26 votes! Peace of mind for whom – the people who supported someone who narrowly loat the election who think Liccardo is the devil incarnate??? Theyll never be satusfied – if you dont believe me read aome of these posts on this site and his own facebook page.
Ironic that many of those same labor rich Cortese supporters wanted the public to accept it, move on and not investigate or waste resources when Magdalena Carrasco lost the first council race to Xavier Campos and their vote gap was around 500 votes. Later it was discovered the Campos mentor & crony Gorgeous George Shirakawa has cheated with illegal fliers for Campos and is still facing criminal felony charges on that matter as we speak.
Funny how those same folks that seem to not want to accept the fact that Liccardo won the election are the same folks that want to excuse cheating when it is proven against the candidates of their choice. It shows their lack of integrity when they can’t condemn criminal and despicable behavior regardless of who does it.
Cortese could very well have lost this election because of that. His endorsement of Xavier Campos in his failed reelection bid despite all his criminal investigations and close relationships with felons calls into questions Cortese’s judgement. He lost by a few thousand votes it is reasonable that that many people in a city of a million residents would question that decision. Backing Campos and those shady affiliates hurt you Mr Cortese let’s hope you realize that and don’t make that mistake again.
Cortese will end up losing by around 2%….this is not Florida 2000 (where the difference was .0001%. Close elections happen all the time, and every time the losing candidate asks for a recount and it’s ridiculous and a waste of time in most cases including this one.
> Working throughout the weekend, the ROV finished its count Sunday night and Sam Liccardo maintained a 3,668-vote lead over Dave Cortese.
Can anyone identify 3,668 potentially illegal or fraudulent votes or voters. Like, — oh, say — illegal aliens, or votes from people at an address that has been vacant for ten years, or votes from people using a PG&E bill for identification, or votes from people using NOTHING for identification, or votes from people delivering 250 vote-by-mail ballots to a polling station?
I think ALL votes in ALL races and measures need to be redone for this election. I don’t have faith in this Office any more. At this point, there have been too many mistakes by the Registrar of Voter’s Office for me to have any confidence in them.
A lot of people on Facebook tracking their ballots are claiming that their vote hasn’t been counted as of today! Whatever is wrong with this Office and the way they prepare ballots, and do vote counting needs to be fixed ASAP!
> A lot of people on Facebook tracking their ballots are claiming that their vote hasn’t been counted as of today!
How does a person track his or her ballot using Facebook?
They aren’t tracking their ballots on FB. They are posting that they are tracking them and that they haven’t been counted.
The Registrar has been issuing regular updates on the progress of their ballot counting. The only reason why a ballot would not have been counted by today would be that it was cast provisionally on election day, which are always the last ballots to be counted. They’ve already counted all non-provisional ballots.
“The Registrar has been issuing regular updates on the progress of their ballot counting. The only reason why a ballot would not have been counted by today would be that it was cast provisionally on election day, which are always the last ballots to be counted. They’ve already counted all non-provisional ballots.”
Not according to these folks~
Interesting how the commentators who normally mistrust government the most are now the quickest to support it. I say recount everything for every ballot question. After all, if my taxman quit on April 15 I’d do a refilling.
hahahahahaha , right on
No.
Mr. Le, the IT Manager, quit, and Ms. Bushey assured us all that the other IT person was still there working. Only in government do you have a manager who manages just one person. Santa Clara County is the heart of Silicon Valley, yet its returns were the slowest to be completed of the metropolitan counties in the state and second lowest of all counties statewide. That is a disgrace. Combined with at least two foulups this election alone with ballot materials, little investigation is needed. It’s time to clean house, and to get SCC ROV some current technology to “manage”.
we are the heart of the silicon valley, but the tech companies aren’t paying the local governments to buy higher tech equipment, so the point is invalid.
By the way, anyone can re-vote for this little survey. I just did it three times, so to say that people think votes should be recounted is BS! Survey isn’t reliable, AMEN to that. GO LICCARDO!!!!!!!!
Thank Dave for his every vote counts. Look at the District 7 race. GO MAYA!
It says something when Santa Clara County is worse at something than Alameda County.
I think we should have a recount. Not because I believe in conspiracy theories. I believe when there are obvious signs of incompetence, it’s usually a good idea to check all the work.
“…it’s usually a good idea to check all the work.” It’s a better idea to hire people who get it right the first time.
Agree completely. I went to the Alameda County website for results on cross county races (Honda Khanna) as well as state races because Santa Clara County wasn’t posting at all or was hours behind in results! Alamdeda County with way less money does it better than we do!
Just so everybody is clear, Mike did not show up for work at Congress this week. Would someone wake him up and send him to work already?
Recount?
Let’s put our thinking caps on.
If there is NO recount, a progressive democrat candidate wins and the dominant progressive democrat establishment is happy, and the voters sleep on.
If there IS a recount, there is no telling what creepy crawly surprises might wriggle out of the plumbing.
Illegal alien voting. Voting cemeteries. Hanging chads. Precincts with more votes than registered voters. Obsolete voter rolls. Registrar of Voters incompetence. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Those who like laws and sausages, should never watch either being made. And it’s probably not a good idea to look too closely at local elections either.
Just looked at the photo more closely. The ROV office is positively early 20th century, except for the blue Ebola gloves everyone is wearing. They need an IT manager to manage one person in such a low tech office? OMG!!!
I registered to vote but never received my sample ballot and my letter telling me where to vote arrived the day after the elections. I’m curious to know how many other people in San Jose have gone through the same ordeal. I’m not the type to start screaming about conspiracy theories, but this article and my own personal experiences certainly have me questioning the ROV’s integrity.
You can always vote with a provisional ballot. Next time go to a polling place and ask for a provisional ballot. They will hold on to your ballot until they verify that you haven’t voted. At that point it gets counted.
If more than 1 voter wants it, do it again. We’re funding these elections, so do it again.
You want it, you pay for it, not I.