Extra

Election Update, Friday, November 18

Rob Wrenn

Friday November 18, 2022 - 08:25:00 PM

The Alameda County Registrar of Voters has presumably wrapped up their count of ballots in Berkeley and the rest of the County. There are no last minute changes in who is ahead. Final results, with a breakdown by precinct, will be available when the County posts Statement of Vote, which will hopefully be in a few days. The County has scheduled the 1% manual tally for the election for this Monday and randomly selected a batch of votes today for the manual count. The Statement of Vote will be posted sometime after that tally is completed.

Turnout

Countywide turnout is 52.9%, with all but 4% by Vote by Mail; the rest Election Day votes.There was substantial drop in the number of voters in Berkeley this year compared to the last midterm election in 2018. In 2018. 79,154 people were registered to vote in Berkeley and 58,367 of them voted for a turnout of 73.7%. This year, according to numbers posted today, 72,621 people were registered to voted in Berkeley and only 62% returned their vote by mail ballots. Presumbly Election Day votes have to be added to this total, which would increase the turnout. The number of Election Day votes by City is not posted on the County Registrar Web site, but the Registrar does report today that 44,148 vote my mail ballots were returned. If Berkeley has the same percentage of Election Day voting as the County, then total turnout would be about 66%. The final number will be known when the Statement of Vote is released.

Ballot Measures

Measure L, $650 million bond, requires two thirds to pass

YES - 26,267 59.3%

NO - 18015 40.7%

Measure M, Vacancy Tax, requires a majority to pass

YES - 28,517 64.9%

NO - 15,451 35.1%

Measure N, Authorizing 3000 units of affordable housing

YES - 33,605 76.1%

NO - 10,569 23.9%

Berkeley City Council

Council District 1

Rashi Kesarwani - 3,276 49.6%

Elisa Mikiten - 2,744 41.6%

Tamar Michai Freeman - 584 8.8%

Since Kesarwani fell short of 50%, second choice votes for Freeman were counted. The updated ranked choice count has not been posted (as of 8:00 p.m.), but as of yesterday, when 488 of Freeman’s ballots were allocated, Keserwani got 26.5% of them and 20.6% were “exhausted” - the voter did not make a second choice. Even if 100% of the additional Freeman votes went to Mikiten (not going to happen), it would not be mathematically enough for Mikiten to win.

Council District 4

Kate Harrison - 3,034

Council District 7

Rigel Robinson - 673

This is a record low number of votes for a Council race and for a winning candidate in a Council race.

Council District 8

Mark Humbert - 3,270 63.5%

Mari Mendonca - 1,3335 25.9%

Peter Bruce Dumont - 235 4.6%

Mary-Lee Smith - 186. 3.6%

Jay Wu - 123 2.4%

City Auditor