This report was updated at 2pm Jan. 2.

Assistant Santa Clara County Assessor Neysa Fligor's landslide victory margin in the Dec. 30 election for county assessor continued to grow in the New Year, as the county Registrar of Voters wraps up ballot counting in the special runoff election.

Fligor led Kumar by nearly 66,000 votes — a nearly two-to-one margin — in unofficial returns reported in the latest count reported at 9am today.

The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters reported at 9am Jan. 2 that Fligor had 141,577 votes – 65.2% – and Kumar with 75,614 votes – 34.4%. The elections office reported just 2,188 ballots remained to be counted.

Fligor had announced her victory shortly after midnight on Dec. 31, which coincided with a concession statement by her runoff election rival, former Saratoga Councilmember Rishi Kumar.

“Thank you so much to everyone who voted and who helped with this campaign,” Fligor said in a social media post to her supporters. “Your support means so much to me and my team. I look forward to being your next Santa Clara County Assessor!”

“We lost,” said Kumar on social media shortly before Fligor's post. “The people of Santa Clara County have spoken, and I respect the outcome. I have conveyed my congratulations to Neysa on a solid victory.”

Fligor's initial margin proved insurmountable. By 5pm today, she led Kumar by approximately 10,000 more votes than the 43,000 remaining mail ballots, according to elections office estimates.

As the top two vote-getters among four candidates in the Nov. 4 general election, Fligor and Kumar were the only names in the runoff election for assessor. Most county voters chose to pass on the chance to cast a vote for a post that hasn’t been up for grabs in three decades.

Fligor will fill the seat vacated by the June announcement by Assessor Larry Stone that he would retire after more than 30 years and leave before his term expired.

Fligor is a native Jamaican who earned a law degree from Georgetown University who had stressed her expertise and experience in the assessor’s office. She is a member of the Los Altos City Council and serves as the city’s vice mayor.

Voter participation in the unusual holiday voting was expected to be low — and it was.

Since the close of ballot counting on Election Day, when 165,939 votes were tallied, the total increased by Jan. 2 to 218,204, 20.4% of the county’s 1,071,024 registered voters, according to the Registrar of Voters. Any mail ballots received by Jan. 6 will be included in the final, official total.

In the final Nov. 4 vote, Fligor had led Kumar by more than 63,000 votes.

“This election was unique in many respects, not least of which was the challenge of conducting an election during the holiday season. This was the first time in our county's history that voting locations were open for voting on Christmas Day,” said Matt Moreles, Registrar of Voters.

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.