Diana Reddy’s lead has widened over Rick Hunter for third-place in the three open seats in the Redwood City Council race, and her lead may be insurmountable, according to the latest election tallies released yesterday by the San Mateo County Elections office.
There are about 3,000 votes left to be counted countywide, and an unknown but much lower number to be counted in Redwood City. Reddy leads Hunter by 267 votes, up from a lead of 153 from the previous count totals.
Giselle Hale has decidedly won her first term on City Council, receiving the most votes thus far in the seven-candidate race with 12,425, or 18.3 percent of votes cast. Incumbent Diane Howard can also claim victory with 11,623 votes, or 17.1-percent.
The race for the third open seat, however, has been tight. Hunter held a slim lead until the release of election results on Nov. 20, when Reddy pulled ahead by just 51 votes.
The latest results indicate Reddy will emerge victorious, Climate Magazine political columnist Mark Simon said.
“The trend from the last three days is unmistakable,” Simon said, adding it is likely there are too few votes left to count for Hunter to overtake Reddy.
Meanwhile, the latest count shows Measure W, the half-cent sales tax increase to fund transit and transportation projects, is now passing. The measure went over the needed two-thirds threshold for the first time and it is now at 66.7 percent. It has steadily progressed toward passage over the last several days.
County election officials are scheduled to release more results at 4:30 p.m. today.
An estimated total of 286,247 votes were cast in the Nov. 6 all-mail voting pilot in San Mateo County. As the ballots continue to be counted turnout is inching toward 72 percent, a substantial turnout in a mid-term election.
