ELECTION 2022: Mahan Holds Lead over Chavez in Latest Vote Count

Three days after the general election, Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez narrowed the gap slightly in the San Jose mayoral battle with front-runner Matt Mahan, with 62% of ballots counted.

City Councilmember Mahan has been the front runner from the first returns, and his vote lead grew by two votes today, to 4,768, while his percentage lead dropped slightly, from 3.5% to 2.8% in the latest incomplete, unofficial returns posted at 5pm Friday, Nov. 11 by the county Registrar of Voters.

The elections office had predicted the tedious daily ballot count would accelerate today, but that didn't happen: 34,376 new mail-in ballots from San Jose voters were reported at 5pm, about the same rate as Thursday. The counting is to continue through the weekend, with daily totals scheduled to be announced at 5pm Saturday,  Sunday and Monday.

Mahan’s lead grew after Thursday’s count, but while the Friday margin held steady, his percentage of the vote dropped to 51.38%, compared to 48.62% for Chavez.

Chavez, who outspent Mahan by nearly $2 million, would need 52% of the estimated 115,000 uncounted ballots to grab a victory.

The list of Election Day front runners in the county remained unchanged after Friday's count, with Robert Jonsen holding his lead over Kevin Jensen in the Santa Clara County Sheriff race, with a 7,432-vote margin.

City Councilmember Sylvia Arenas continued to widen her lead over former council member Johnny Kamis in the Santa Clara County District 1 supervisor contest to 5,659 votes.

In the city of Santa Clara, incumbent Mayor Lisa Gillmor also continued to widen her lead over Councilmember Anthony Becker, to 391 votes, out of 20,347 cast so far, in the incomplete, unofficial Friday elections report.

In the election between two Democrats for the District 10 California Senate seat, Lily Mei clung to a 390-vote lead over Aisha Wahab after Friday's report by the California Secretary of State.

Three decades of journalism experience, as a writer and editor with Gannett, Knight-Ridder and Lee newspapers, as a business journal editor and publisher and as a weekly newspaper editor in Scotts Valley and Gilroy; with the Weeklys group since 2017. Recipient of several first-place writing and editing awards, California News Publishers Association.

4 Comments

  1. Just an observation,

    Yes there are many votes to be processed. And I am scared that if the votes do end up making Cindy the winner, given what we saw in 2020 election, I think all you know what will break loose in Santa Clara. The recent Arizona win regarding the senate is going in that direction. The lose is claiming that votes are being double counted.

    But as everyone here KNOWS each election form and electronic vote has a serial number assigned to a specific voter. Which means if 2 votes are submitted by the same person, that vote is likely to be tossed, or an attempt to “cure” the vote must be done. In other words, a double vote should be practically impossible.

    The voting system has many methods to detect improper votes, that is why it is required to be certified PRIOR to an election.

    In any event, why not just wait until all votes are counted?

  2. I guess you missed the news about the bag of ballots dumped in the Santa Cruz Mtns. There are many ways for cheaters to cheat. How many dumped bags have not been found? Ballot harvesting needs to end.

  3. It was not a bag of ballots. It was a USPS mail carrier bag, that among other mail pieces contained a few ballots. USPS is looking into this.

  4. Just an observation,

    Santa Cruz Mountains , well, is there any record of any SAN JOSE ballots in that report? Or is this just like all of the manufactured stories regarding the 2020 election that PROVED to be nothing but unsubstantiated allegations. So much that some lawyers got suspended and may even still be disbarred, like Gulliani and Powel, right?

    This goes to show the “WHAT ABOUTISM” is the only tool these people have, trying to avoid accepting reality. This toxic behavior is dangerous. Because these people deny reality to such an extent, they are capable of anything, look at the new laws to allow expulsion of disruptive behaviors at public meetings like city councils, and such.

    The facts are these people will feel justified to perpetrate violence, and I am scared of them.

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