So it’s a tie — again. At least for now.
With the recount in the stunning Congressional District 16 race almost complete, the latest results show Assemblymember Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian with the same exact number of votes.
On April 15, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties started recounting the more than 182,000 votes cast in the March primary race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo. Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo locked in first place early on, but after nearly a month of vote-counting, Low and Simitian ended in a tie for second place.
With no automatic recount provision in statewide and federal elections in California, Jonathan Padilla, a 2020 and 2024 Biden delegate and former mayoral campaign staffer for Liccardo, requested a recount and has been paying for it through a Super PAC called Count the Vote.
The first round of preliminary results from Santa Clara County were released Friday with 77 of 199 precincts recounted showing Simitian up by one vote. But on Tuesday afternoon, Low and Simitian found themselves in an all too familiar position: locked in a dead heat once again with the county reporting data in 175 of the 199 precincts. Both candidates have gained six votes through the recount.
The results of the remaining 24 precincts in Santa Clara County could be reported as early as Wednesday — the county indicated on its website that it had finished rescanning ballots in all 199 precincts.
As of Tuesday evening, there were no changes between the original count and the recount for Low or Simitian in San Mateo County. Assistant Chief Elections Officer Jim Irizarry couldn’t be reached for comment on the latest round of results, but said earlier in the day that they were expected to finish rescanning ballots by the end of day Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
San Mateo County is also expected to rule on a number of challenged ballots on Wednesday and whether they can be included in the recount after they were excluded from the original tally. Santa Clara County also has challenged ballots left to be counted that could effectively break the tie.