Oakland voters will have to wait at least one more day before they find out who their next mayor is.
Alameda County Registrar of Voters Dave Macdonald said Monday that counting provisional ballots is taking longer than expected and pushed back a 4 p.m. news conference until at least Tuesday. One candidate told reporters it might be as late as Friday before they have a winner.
The race is now between Oakland Councilwoman Jean Quan and former state Senator Don Perata.
Perata had the most first choice votes by double digits, but Quan took the lead Friday when the county took into account ranked choice voting. That's when voters pick a first, second and third choice.
"We are on the verge, we are hoping, of victory," Quan said late Monday.
In ranked choice voting, if none of the candidates manage to secure 50 percent of the vote, then the computers move to a next rounnd. Second choice candidates are counted and last place candidates are eliminated. The end goal is to get a candidate who recieves a majority vote. It took ten rounds of computer tabulations to get to this point and we still don't have a winner.
This is the first time ranked-choice voting has been done in Oakland.
While Quan talked to reporters Monday afternoon, Perata is staying away from the cameras. He has not made a comment on the vote since before last Friday.
