Friday 16 December 2022

Effort for recount in Oakland mayoral race falls short

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – It looks like the effort to launch a recount in the Oakland mayoral race may be over before any votes were recounted. One reason: the cost. 

"Well, right now there is no recount," said Allie Whitehurst, the chairperson for the Oakland NAACP political action committee.

Earlier this week the Oakland branch of the NAACP announced that the civil rights organization was seeking a recount of the 2022 Oakland mayoral election due to senior voters not having enough education about the ranked-choice voting format. In the video above, you can see photos of the NAACP with members of the community at the Alameda County Voter Registrar’s Office, where they learned the recount was not taking place. 

When the final ranked-choice votes for mayor were counted, city councilmember Sheng Thao beat her council colleague Loren Taylor by less than 700 votes. However, Whitehurst is concerned that there are close to 20,000 votes that were disqualified for various reasons, including some ballots that may have been filled out incorrectly by older voters confused by ranked-choice

"All of these seniors who reached out after learning that their vote might not have been counted because they didn't understand the process," Whitehurst said. 

She says the $100,000 cost of the recount and Friday’s deadline to submit a $21,000 payment also came up at the meeting at the registrar’s office.

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"Basically asked if we had the $21,000. Which, I said ‘No, I don't,’" she said.

At this point, the NAACP wants the county to foot the bill for the recount. KRON4 reached out to Alameda County Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis to give him an opportunity to be a part of this conversation. He said the California election code requires the voter requesting the recount to fund the recount.



from KRON4 https://ift.tt/9thqHpo


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