Challenger holds lead

Lan Diep gains a single vote as District 4 recount enters its second week

SAN JOSE — In an agonizingly close election for a North San Jose City Council seat, challenger Lan Diep gained a single vote over Councilman Manh Nguyen on Monday, bringing his lead to a dozen out of more than 17,000 cast.

Diep’s latest vote came via a mail-in ballot out of Precinct 1455 that was heavily scrutinized at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters office where the San Jose City Council District 4 recount entered its second week.

There’d been a surname change and the signature didn’t match the one on the voter’s registration card. But in a moment of discovery, it was compared to a previous year’s entry and that, said assistant registrar Matt Moreles, showed it to be a valid challenge to the previous decision to disqualify it.

“It appears to match, and we should accept this one,” announced Moreles, making it the only one out of about 50 reviewed Monday to be set aside and opened.

So went the latest drip-by-drip episode in the ongoing bout to decide who will represent the area, which includes Berryessa, Alviso and the city’s tech-heavy “Innovation Triangle.” Councilman Manh Nguyen beat challenger Lan Diep by 13 votes in a special election last year to complete the term of State Assembly-bound Kansen Chu.

In this go-round, Diep initially appeared to have won by 28 votes and saw that lead at first climb as write-ins were tallied then drop to 12 in a mandated county-run recount.

Nguyen opted to foot the bill for a second recount that started last week and, after 276 ballots were reviewed, nicked Diep’s lead down to 11 going into Monday.

That is when that sole ballot out of Precinct 1455 — in the city’s most northeastern territory around Morrill Middle School — came into play, and

even that didn’t go without a fight.

“I withdraw my challenge,” said Nguyen after looking at the ballot. He also objected to the opening of the ballot on the grounds of the voter’s privacy.

Why he changed his mind is unclear — his opponent speculated it could have been based on name, or address, or precinct — and Nguyen declined to comment Monday afternoon

But nothing doing, said Moreles. Once determined to be valid, the ballot will be counted. And it counted against Nguyen and Diep saw his lead return to a dozen votes — 8,698 to 8,686.

So ended the count of challenged mail-in signatures. But the recount goes on. Registrar workers — with Nguyen closely watching and photographing each ballot envelope — are now comparing ballots that needed to have a duplicate made because of damages.

Moreles said Nguyen wanted to take another look at those. And then there are provisional ballots, some 200 of which were challenged, he said. As long as Nguyen wants to pay the $2,500-per-day cost to continue the recount, they can keep revisiting the ballots, said registrar spokesman Philip Chantri.

Diep said he was “exhausted” by the ongoing ballot counting that started immediately after the election.

“I think as long as he keeps kicking the ball in the air, it’s still afoot,” Diep said. “If he stops, the win will be official and he’s doubling down. If he keeps going, he hasn’t lost the race and that’s what’s going on.”

Chantri said it’s a close race but not particularly surprising, and expects to see county-mandated recounts fairly frequently down the line. Santa Clara County earlier this year adopted a policy that requires a recount in any election in which the margin of victory is less than half a percentage point or 25 votes.

“With all the school board and council races, it’s not unusual to see something this close,” Chantri said. “I’ve seen races where they’re separated by one vote.”