The latest round of semi-official post-election results in San Mateo County were released Thursday night, but there’s still plenty more ballots to count in this pilot all-mail ballot election, leaving several big races undecided.
At a seemingly snail’s pace, elections officials continue to receive and count ballots that were provisional or postmarked on or before Election Day. As of today’s release of results, 111,637 ballots have been counted, which accounts for 27.9-percent of registered voters, far fewer than the 191,864 ballots expected by elections officials. In the two days since Election Night, just under 18,000 new votes have been counted, a slow pace likely to cause frustration.
With a significant number of more ballots to count, several important races remain undecided, including the three seats open on Redwood City council. Giselle Hale leads the council race with 4,307 votes, just seven votes ahead of incumbent Diane Howard, 385 votes ahead of Rick Hunter and 406 votes ahead of Diana Reddy. In fifth position currently is Christina Umhofer, who is 473 votes behind third-place Hunter.
Measure W, the half-cent sales tax increase to fund transit and transportation projects, also remains undecided. It slipped from 66.2-percent approval after yesterday’s count to 65.6-percent after today. The measure requires two-thirds approval to pass.
Also undecided is South San Francisco’s council race, where incumbent Mark Addiego has won but fellow incumbent Pradeep Gupta remains in the hunt for the two remaining council seats, with 159 fewer votes than current second place Mark Nagales, and 154 fewer than current third-place Flor Nicolas.
The next post-election results release is set for Tuesday, Nov. 13, and the next after that will be Friday, Nov. 16.
For full results, click here.
