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A week after an expensive and highly-criticized recount of ballots began in a tied congressional race, the California Secretary of State says the requester will not get his money back.
Santa Clara and San Mateo counties jointly sought guidance from the state about whether the recount requester, Jonathan Padilla, would get reimbursed if the Congressional District 16 recount changes the results of the March 5 primary election. Padilla, a tech CEO and former campaign staffer of ex-San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo — the frontrunner in the race — requested the recount.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian and Assemblymember Evan Low both advanced to the November runoff with Liccardo after securing a rare tie for second place. A recount is expected to break the tie, sending only one of the two politicos to face off with Liccardo in the fall.
But that will not give Padilla his money back. The recount is costing him $12,000 a day in each county, and he paid for it using a “dark money” super PAC that has yet to disclose its donors, but is created by the same people who have supported and worked with Liccardo. The former mayor is now facing a Federal Election Commission complaint alleging he coordinated the recount and schemed illegally with the PAC.
Padilla called the complaint “completely frivolous without an iota of evidence,” and an attempt to distract voters. He maintains that the recount is to make sure every vote is counted.
“I didn’t get into this recount with the aim of getting money back,” Padilla told San Jose Spotlight. “I got into this effort to ensure every vote is counted and every voter has confidence in our democratic institutions.”
Typically, a requester will get their money back if the recount results in an a change of the outcome. But the reason the counties will not issue a reimbursement is that Simitian and Low are already on the November ballot, and the recount can only change by knocking one candidate off the ballot — not by adding one.
“If the current recount results in a change, where only one of the currently tied candidates would move on to the general election after a recount, it would not result in any reimbursement under Elections Code section 15624,” Robbie Anderson, a lawyer with the California Secretary of State, said to the Santa Clara County counsel in an email obtained by San Jose Spotlight.
Padilla said the state should have automatic recounts and not rely on voters to ask governments to check their work.
He shared a letter on social media from his lawyer at Rutan & Tucker that claimed 24 ballots were identified the recount — which began on April 15 — that were not counted in the initial results.
“The only thing ensuring that those votes we’ve identified have a chance of counting is private funding,” Padilla said. “Our Democratic institutions are too sacred to have a price attached to them.”
The letter claims a majority of contested ballots came from voters who received a provisional ballot on Election Day after Santa Clara County failed to recognize them as registered voters.
The voters reportedly did not answer the citizenship question, which resulted in their ballots being rejected. The ballots should’ve counted, the letter argues, because signing the form attests to them being U.S. citizens — and they’re registered voters who didn’t need a provisional ballot.
One ballot was cast by a homeless person, the letter claims, which was supposedly rejected for not having a legitimate address. Election law requires officials to count ballots of unhoused residents.
“This voter has provided a sufficient geographic location as to his residential whereabouts and should likewise not be denied the right to vote for not citing as his residence an officially-designated address,” attorney Matthew Alvarez wrote in the April 18 letter.
Santa Clara County is expected to make an announcement on whether those ballots will be counted by Tuesday afternoon, sources told San Jose Spotlight. The recount is also expected to be completed by the end of the week.
San Mateo County finished counting its mail-in ballots on Monday and will count provisional ballots Tuesday Padilla’s attorneys challenged 28 ballots, of which 16 were rebutted by either Low or Simitian’s attorneys.
Liccardo and Low’s campaigns declined to comment. Simitian’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
What a sleazy campaign is being run by Liccardo!
Padilla isn’t going to get his money back. Of course, I imagine little of the money was “his” to begin with.
Here’s what Section 15634 of the Elections Code says. “The candidate for whom the recount was requested” is Evan Low.
The money deposited shall be returned to the depositor if, upon completion of the recount, the candidate, slate of presidential electors, or the position on the measure (affirmative or negative) for which the declaration is filed is found to have received the plurality of votes cast which it had not received according to the official canvass or, in an election where there are two or more candidates, the recount results in the candidate for whom the recount was requested appearing on the ballot in a subsequent runoff election or general election who would not have so appeared in the absence of the recount. The depositor shall be entitled to the return of any money deposited in excess of the cost of the recount if the candidate, slate, or position on the measure has not received the plurality of the votes cast or, in an election where there are two or more candidates, the recount does not result in the candidate for whom the recount was requested appearing on the ballot in a subsequent runoff or general election as a result of the recount. Money not required to be refunded shall be deposited in the appropriate public treasury.
AH! So 4x San Mateo Co. increase in cost-per-ballot recounted will now result in the San Mateo Co. getting what appears (to me) to be ‘excess money charged’. Or is SMC Registrar just 4 X less productive than our Santa Clara Co. registrar?
( I think I read that SMC increased their fee-per-vote after the first day or two of recounting?)
It’s not just efficiency, since they are two different counties with different systems and different factors in designing their systems. Santa Clara County has 3 times the population of San Mateo. You could expect that San Mateo will take less days to do the recount since it also has a smaller proportion of District 16. Finishing faster doesn’t mean they are more efficient. Could also mean fewer people forgot to check the citizenship box in San Mateo county or fewer registered on the same day of the vote.