A Palo Alto City Council election recount which began on Nov. 25, has ended with Planning and Transportation Commission Vice Chair Keith Reckdahl receiving 10 more votes than Planning and Transportation Commission member Doria Summa. This means Reckdahl has secured the fourth and final Council seat.
Reckdahl and Planning and Transportation Commissioner George Lu will replace outgoing council members Greg Tanaka and Lydia Kou when their terms expire on Dec. 31.
The race drew controversy over the electronic ballot, where eight candidates appeared on the first page of the ballot, but voters had to click “More” to find Summa’s name on a different page.
Mayor Greer Stone said he was frustrated by the lack of foresight in this .
“This was a very avoidable situation, if just the Registrar of Voters (had) just put in more common sense policies,” Stone said. “I’m disappointed that the process played out the way it did with the placement on the electronic ballot.”
Vice Mayor Ed Lauing agreed and said the situation was unacceptable.
“To me, that’s just absolutely ridiculous in Silicon Valley because the user interface was invented here for software, and software can be changed by humans,” Lauing said. “That should never have happened, and that has to change.”
Council member Lydia Kou said she tried to bring attention to concerns about the general election process but faced resistance.
“I asked for the council to pull it off the consent calendar in order for us to have a short discussion about putting this forward, to bring the discussion to council about addressing this malfeasance and negligence,” Kou said. “Nobody helped me to pull it off the council consent agenda.”
Reckdahl, though, said it is unclear the effects the ballot design had on the outcome.
“There were anecdotal reports that people were confused,” Reckdahl said. “I don’t know how many votes it cost her.I’m not sure if 10 affected it or not.”
Junior Will Stover, who works under Stone, said the narrow margin shows the importance of civic participation in our democracy.
“An election that close, it really shows how our democracy does work,” Stover said. “That kind of raises a sense of civic duty, the fact that every vote that you do put in does matter, because at the end of the day, yours could be in the vote that breaks a tie and is decisive.”
Reckdahl said his victory over Summa was a mix of emotions.
“I’ve worked with Doria for years, so just defeating her kind of makes it bittersweet,” Reckdahl said. “I really have a lot of respect for her, and I really wish we could have served together.”
And Kou said she encourages the community to continue supporting Summa despite the election outcome.
“I felt that Doria was hidden, so I would encourage everybody who felt cheated to take action and let the county supervisors as well as the register of voters know that this is completely unjust,” Kou said.
Doria Summa and the Santa Clara Registrar of Voters did not respond to The Campanile’s interview request.
