Are Alameda County elections actually headed to a recount?

The aftermath of the November elections in Alameda County has left voters confused about everything from the results of certain races to the future of ranked choice voting to the possibility of a recount.

Tensions were already high in December after efforts to recount the extremely close Oakland mayoral race went nowhere. The election was certified Dec. 8, and the deadline for a recount came and went a couple of weeks later.

But when the county registrar of voters revealed just before the new year that the District 4 Oakland Unified school board race should have been won by the candidate who finished in third place, it set off a chorus of outrage and questions about the accuracy of ranked choice voting.

Amid the push to figure out what went wrong — and how it can be fixed — there’s been spurious speculation. Here’s a look at where things really stand for the county’s elections.

Q: Is a recount actually going to take place, and if so, which local races would be affected?

A: It’s true that the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted this week to request a manual recount of the election outcome in the contested school board race, as well as the Oakland mayoral election and a pair of close races in San Leandro.

The board’s request calls on Tim Dupuis, the registrar of voters, to bring in “a qualified individual with experience overseeing ranked choice voting” in another county to initiate a hand count of the results.

But that’s all it is—a request. And despite what other media outlets have reported, there is no clear pathway at the moment for a recount to be conducted, despite many calls from the public — including Oakland’s chapter of the NAACP — for one to take place.

In fact, with the deadline having passed in December, Dupuis suspects the only way for a recount to be allowable under the law would be if a court orders it.

At the moment, only one race in the county has resulted in actual lawsuits: the school board seat won by Nick Resnick that the county has since determined should be occupied by Mike Hutchinson.

It is unclear whether a judge’s eventual ruling in that case would have any bearing on the possible recounts of other close elections, such as the mayoral race. But it does not appear to be likely.

“This is a situation that’s not really addressed clearly in the law,” Dupuis said of the school board snafu. “We’re probably setting new precedent, and so we’ll have to get before a judge and see what the judge does.”

Q: What went wrong with ranked choice voting in the November election?

A: Oakland, Berkeley, Albany and San Leandro, as well as San Francisco, all use ranked choice voting, or an “instant runoff” system, to settle their elections.

Under the format, voters can rank their preferred candidates instead of choosing just one. The lowest vote-getters are eliminated, one by one, and their votes are transferred to their supporters’ next choice until one candidate secures majority support.

The District 4 Oakland Unified school board mess stemmed from 235 ballots where voters left the first-choice column blank — or added an ineligible write-in choice — but filled out their subsequent preferences.

Instead of simply registering those voters’ designated second choice as their top preferred candidate, the registrar’s office “suspended” those ballots until the next round of ranked choice voting. By that point, Hutchinson, who had the fewest first-place votes, was mistakenly eliminated.

As it turned out, he had enough support from those suspended votes to qualify for the second round, where vote transfers from losing candidate Pecolia Manigo would have helped him defeat Resnick, the certified winner.

Oakland’s city charter calls for ballots with a blank column to “immediately be advanced to the next ranking.” After voting advocacy groups alerted Dupuis to the mix-up, he confirmed on Dec. 28 that Hutchinson should have been elected to the board seat.

Q: So who’s actually going to serve in the Oakland school board seat when the dust settles?

Hutchinson has publicly declared himself the winner and filed an “election contest” lawsuit with the Alameda County court to reverse the election error.

Incidentally, Hutchinson is currently the District 5 school board director, and ran for the open board seat only because his home address was redistricted there.

If his election contest doesn’t work out, he still has two years left in his term. He will also serve as the board’s president this year.

Resnick, meanwhile, was sworn in to the District 4 seat on Monday, and has no plans on giving it up. His attorney filed a cross contest in the court alleging that Dupuis had no right to re-run the ranked choice algorithm on his own without notifying anyone.

Jim Sutton, Resnick’s attorney, argues that at least some of the voters who selected a second-choice candidate while leaving the first column blank likely did so with purpose.

He contends that it is unconstitutional to simply slide those votes into the first-choice category, noting a “vagueness” around why that line of the city charter exists at all.

“No one can explain to me why the (city charter) contains that provision,” he said. “What the constitution says is if there’s an election law, the government needs a reason for it.”

Q: How long will it take for the election to be corrected?

Hutchinson and Resnick’s court filings are proper lawsuits, meaning the whole nine yards are still ahead — a preliminary hearing, depositions of the relevant parties, and possibly a full-blown trial.

But it is likely the court will expedite the case, with Sutton saying he told his client to expect a two-month process.

In the meantime, the Oakland school board is full, with Hutchinson and Resnick both occupying seats.

Q: Is ranked choice voting to blame for this whole mess? Can Alameda County ditch the format going forward?

A: In every jurisdiction that uses ranked choice voting, it’s the voters who approved it. That is the case in Oakland, where the format has been utilized in the past three mayoral elections.

Importantly, the school board debacle appears to be the result of an administrative error by Dupuis’ office, not a glitch in the widely adopted Dominion election software or a flaw that pops up often in ranked choice voting formats.

Dupuis, for his part, maintains that the Resnick-Hutchinson race is the only one in the entire county whose outcome was flipped by the error, with all the others resulting in some swapped votes but ultimately the same winner.

He and other officials intend to lobby the state for clearer guidelines on how ranked choice votes are processed, with fewer customizable options available to each individual city or county.