Berkeley mayoral race down to 382 votes

BERKELEY, Calif. - The race for Berkeley mayor is getting tighter as ballots are counted.

The Alameda County Registrar's Office released an update on Monday that showed sitting Councilmember Sophie Hahn had 50.5% of the vote in rank choice voting. Her opponent, Adena Ishii, was closing the lead with 49.4% of the votes, at a difference of only 382 votes.

The general voting numbers show a slightly wider margin, with Hahn leading by 633 votes.

On Election Day, Hahn had a clear lead with 53% of the votes, but as results continued coming in and the margin closed, none of the candidates received over 50% of the votes, so ranked-choice voting was triggered.

Ranked-choice voting eliminated Naomi Pete in Round 1, Logan Bowie in Round 2, and Kate Harrison in Round 3.

Hahn and Ishii are left, both still positive and eager to get the results.

"As the gap keeps shrinking, I think we're excited to see what happens next," said Ishii, former president of the League of Women Voters.

"We're still feeling very positive," said Hahn. "I mean, I started in the lead, and I'm still in the lead."

Hahn is well known in Berkeley politics, and currently represents District 5 on the City Council. She said her experience has prepared her for the role.

Meanwhile, Ishii has never run for public office, but she could edge out Hahn as the new Berkeley mayor and become the first Asian American and woman of color to hold the position.

"I think that our political systems have failed us in many ways, and it's because we've stuck to the status quo," said Ishii. "It's important to try new ideas and try something different and see if that works."

The race is too close to call, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 more ballots in Berkeley left to get through.

Hahn said she respects and appreciates the scrutiny and care taken by the Alameda County Registrar's Office, but wishes results would come sooner.

"When you're a candidate in a race that hasn't been called yet, every minute feels like an hour," she said. "We should be looking at what are best practices and what are other countries doing that is allowing them to report out more quickly than Alameda County has."

Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis said Alameda County's timeline is comparable to other counties in California, which are slow to count because of the state's voting laws about mail-in ballots. Additionally, most voters who drop off their ballots at the boxes wait until Election Day to do so.

Dupuis said speeding up the process would require a bigger facility, more equipment, and more staff, but at its current rate, it will have no problem meeting the certification deadline of December 5.

Dupuis also said his office is currently looking at "harder to process" votes, like conditional votes from people who registered at the last minute, mail-in ballots, damaged ballots, and ballots missing signatures.

"Voters mark their ballots in all different ways. They're supposed to fill in the bubble, but some will put an X or a checkmark or circle the bubble," he said. "We want to make sure that we count those votes correctly. We want to figure out the intent of the voter. Those take more time."

He plans to submit a major update on Friday, but that doesn't mean a race this tight will be called.

"It's probably going to require waiting until we get through the signature clearing process for those vote-by-mail ballots that haven't been signed properly," said Dupuis.

Voters who failed to sign their ballots properly will have until December 3 to cure their ballots. Dupuis suspects these are the straggler votes that could keep this race from being called.

Dupuis said there are still about 187,000 votes countywide left to be counted.