The process of recounting votes in the tied race between two political heavyweights looking to replace the retiring Anna Eshoo in Congress is about to begin.
As it stands now, Sam Liccardo, Evan Low and Joe Simitian are all set to advance to the November runoff unless the numbers change.
The warehouse at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters office was controlled chaos Monday as about 30 workers prepared to push, sort and examine about 150,000 ballots to get them ready for a machine recount Tuesday.
The buzz of activity is the start of a weeklong process to see if a new count could change the outcome of the rare tie between Low and Simitian. Both finished with the exact same number of votes, putting them in a tie for the second runoff spot in the race for the 16th Congressional district.
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Getting the ballots ready in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties is a painstaking process.
"We batch all the precincts, so we count them precinct by precinct," Registrar of Voters spokesperson Steve Goltiao said. "We’re working on a flow basis. As we’re able to dig up all the ballots for specific precincts and when those precincts are considered complete, we take them over to the counting machines for tallying."
The process started after days of uncertainty because in Santa Clara County there is no automatic trigger for a recount. Somebody had to agree to pay for it.
Two people requested a recount without the public support of either candidate, but ultimately the registrar said Jonathan Padilla committed to paying a deposit for the first day of recounting by machine – about $16,000 a day.
A recount by hand would have been double that amount.
"By law the requester has to pay a deposit every day that we are conducting the recount," Goltiao said. "If the requester does not pay for a specific day, then the recount is considered concluded."
