The automatic recount in the race for a San Jose City Council seat is set to begin Thursday and likely to take two days. Election officials in Santa Clara County plan to certify the results in the contest for the District 3 seat next Monday, April 28, the deadline to do so.
At the moment, gay San Jose Planning Commission chair Anthony Tordillos is in second place with 2,006 votes and poised to advance to a summer runoff race against Gabriela "Gabby" Chavez-Lopez, a single mom who is executive director of South Bay nonprofit the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley.
After the latest vote count update Monday afternoon, Chavez-Lopez is now in first place with 2,711 votes. And in third place with 2,000 votes is Matthew Quevedo, deputy chief of staff to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who had sole endorsed him in the race.
There were 17 ballots left to be processed as of Monday morning. Another vote update will come by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Because the vote difference between Tordillos and Quevedo is less than .25% it requires there to be a hand recount of the results. According to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters it will begin at 8 a.m. Thursday, April 24, and go through 4:30 p.m. that day and repeat daily at those times until completed.
A spokesperson for Tordillos had no direct comment about the recount Monday, pointing the Bay Area Reporter to a previous statement regarding the election results that called for making “sure every vote is counted.”
Registrar spokesperson Michael Borja told the San Jose Spotlight news site the recount should wrap by the end of day Friday, allowing the April 8 primary results to be certified a week from today.
The special election to serve out a council term that expires at the end of 2026 will be decided by whomever wins the June 24 runoff. District 3 covers much of downtown San Jose and its Qmunity LGBTQ district. It has been represented since earlier this year by engineering firm owner Carl Salas.
He was selected as a caretaker of the seat by the council following the resignation last fall of gay former councilmember Omar Torres due to his arrest for allegedly molesting a cousin years prior. As the final day of voting was underway to decide who will serve out the remainder of his term, Torres that Tuesday was in a Santa Clara County courtroom pleading no contest to child sex crimes and is now awaiting his sentencing.
Elected in 2022, Torres was the first gay Latino and out person of color to serve on the San Jose City Council, and only its second out councilmember. The governing body had gone 16 years without a member from the LGBTQ community until Torres took his oath of office two years ago.
A candidate needed to capture more than 50% of the vote to win the seat outright this month. The summer runoff coincides with this year’s Pride week celebrations in cities around the Bay Area and across the country.
Last year, a recount of the results in the March 5 primary race for the state's 16th Congressional District saw Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian (D) fail to advance to the November ballot. Initially, it looked like Simitian would do so after tying for second place with gay then-assemblymember Evan Low (D-Cupertino), with both taking on the first-place finisher, former San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo.
But a former aide to Liccardo sought a recount, claiming he was doing so on behalf of Low. While Low had cried foul, accusing Liccardo of working behind the scenes to bump him out of the race, he emerged victorious over Simitian by five votes. In the fall, Low lost to Liccardo and was just hired as president and CEO of the national LGBTQ+ Victory Fund.
As the Spotlight noted, the council race is the fourth San Jose race to trigger a recount in eight years.
"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 the news outlet.
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