Measure B Recount Takes Place Wednesday

Members of the Measure B campaign committee have been granted an official recount of ballots for a parcel tax to benefit schools that was just shy of passing in a May 3 special election.

The recount will be held Wednesday at the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office in Oakland from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., according to Registrar Dave MacDonald. It will be a manual recount, he said.

The public is welcome to view the recount, MacDonald said. A representative from each side is allowed to be present during the recount and can challenge any ballot, he said. Because there is no organized opposition, MacDonald said he will allow a member of the general public who is opposed to the measure to be present.

A decision on the recount will be made by the end of the day, MacDonald said.

Campaign manager Richard Valle announced last week that he was seeking a recount after the measure failed by less than one-half of 1 percent.

According to the Registrar of Voters Office, the mail-in measure received 7,851 (66.43 percent) "yes" votes and 3,967 (33.57 percent) "no" votes. It needed a two-thirds (66.7 percent) vote to pass. All votes were counted manually, said Deputy Registrar of Voters Cynthia Cornejo.

Though voting ended May 3, the Registrar of Voters didn’t make election results official until the following week, after meeting with New Haven Unified School District Superintendent Kari McVeigh to discuss the district’s concerns about the possibility of uncounted ballots.

According to MacDonald, Measure B would have passed with 82 more “yes” votes.

“There weren’t enough ballots in question to change the outcome,” said district spokesman Rick La Plante after official results were announced May 9.

However, Valle continues to challenge the vote.

“It’s still worth revisiting,” Valle said Tuesday. “We want to make sure the 82 votes that separate us from passage is for sure 82 votes.”

In addition, Valle said ballots left at Union City's , one of several drop-off locations, were picked up two hours early at 6 p.m. Tuesday, instead of 8 p.m., leaving some ballots dropped in the mailbox and postmarked May 4.

According to MacDonald, the Registrar of Voters Office only received 37 ballots postmarked May 4, which would not change the outcome of the election even if they were counted.

“As much as anyone would like me to count those, I can’t,” MacDonald said. “That’s against the law.”

MacDonald also said that he never agreed for ballots to be picked up from the post office at 8 p.m., but when the office closed at 6 p.m.

Anything received after that point would not be honored, he said.

“Postmarks don’t matter. Ballots have to be in our hands at 8 p.m. on Election Night,” he said.

The recount will likely not change the election, MacDonald said.

“Frankly, if hundreds of people went to drop off their ballots at the post office, we would have received the ballots,” MacDonald said. “That didn’t happen.”