Two South Bay mayors’ races remained too close to call Monday, almost a week after the Midterm Elections.
Santa Clara County election workers counted thousands more ballots, votes that will ultimately decide the tight San Jose mayoral race between Cindy Chavez and Matt Mahan.
While Mahan continued to lead over the weekend, Chavez narrowed the gap considerably. And as of 6 p.m., they are separated by just 4,256 votes.
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“Absolutely it’s entirely possible for Chavez to catch up and go beyond Mahan and it largely depends on how many of the ballots come from places that are predisposed to vote for her,” said Political Analyst Larry Gerston.
In Santa Clara, there was an even closer mayoral race between Lisa Gillmor and Anthony Becker. Gillmor is ahead by 571 votes.
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Given just how few votes separate the candidates, Shannon Bushey of the county registrar of votes said how close the final count would have to be to warrant an automatic recount.
“Under the county's automatic recount policy it would be less than 25 votes or less than one quarter of one percent of ballots cast in that specific race,” said Bushey.
Even if the race is not close enough for an automatic recount, a candidate can still request a recount but they’d just have to pay for it.
