A curious situation is unfolding in California’s 16th Congressional District, anchored in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
CA-16 is the open House seat where the certified vote count from the March 5th primary election found Democratic former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo clinching the first ballot position for the general election while two other candidates, San Mateo County Supervisor Joe Simitian (D) and state Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), incredibly ended in a deadlock for second place.
Though California employs a top two jungle primary system, the law stipulates that in the case of a tie each affected participant would advance into the general election. Therefore, the official result is that all three men, Messrs. Liccardo, Simitian, and Low, will move to the November 5th general election and become players in the extremely rare situation where the top two system actually produces three finalists.
Because both Simitian and Low were advancing, it made little sense for either to call for a recount of the cast ballots. Under California law, there is no automatic recount based upon the closeness of an electoral contest, and an individual requesting such action is required to finance the process.
While no participating candidate filed for the recount, a former Joe Biden 2020 delegate named Jonathan Padilla did formally request the recount and placed a $12,000 deposit to ensure the machine recount began.
Subsequently, a message released from a new political action committee called Count the Vote says the organization will fund the procedure. While the process could cost the PAC as much as $300,000, it is Mr. Padilla who remains the official requestor.
According to the Daily Kos Elections site, which is reporting this story, Mr. Padilla has a history with the first place finisher, former Mayor Liccardo. Additionally, so does the new PAC. Mr. Padilla worked for the Mayor’s initial 2014 campaign, while the stated PAC address matches that of the law firm which Mr. Liccardo employs.
The ties to Liccardo make sense because he may be the only party that clearly benefits from a recount. If he is behind the move to request further examination of the ballots, then the Liccardo campaign strategists must believe that their candidate is more vulnerable in the three-way race than he is against either Messrs. Simitian or Low, individually.
It is important to understand that a change in the vote count of even one tally would eliminate one of Liccardo’s opponents. While recounts rarely produce enough changed votes to alter the outcome of an election, it is extremely rare when the vote totals are not adjusted at least to a small degree. Therefore, it is probable at the completion of this CA-16 recount, that one of the candidates will be out.
Messrs. Simitian and Low just having to go through the recount process is enough to divert both contenders’ attention and resources away from the general election campaign, at least for a short while. This is the principal way that Mr. Liccardo benefits.
For the candidate who may become eliminated, more legal expenses and time away from campaigning will commence. Count on seeing challenges being made to the recount process, accusations against Mr. Padilla and the PAC for likely colluding with Mr. Liccardo, researching the voter base to find what may be a few illegally cast ballots, challenging certain voters’ registrations, objecting to various provisional ballots, along with other causes of action.
Furthermore, the losing candidate is not the only individual who would incur legal and resource expenses. The new second place contender will need to be just as active in the vote challenging process especially since the margin, if it does change, will be razor thin. Therefore, except for Mr. Liccardo, both of his general election opponents will be necessarily distracted from political fundraising, developing campaign strategy, and spending too much time away from campaigning if embroiled in a recount.
It appears the open 16th District saga is still a long way from concluding, and a rough ride for at least two of the candidates is going to continue for some time. The only person not involved in the budding controversy is the district’s current incumbent, veteran Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Atherton). She is retiring from Congress after serving what will be 32 years at the end of the current session and now sees a convoluted political situation developing in her wake.
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