Oakland NAACP Demands Manual Recount in Mayor’s Race

The Oakland NAACP is demanding a manual recount in the Mayor’s race “due to a razor-thin margin of victory of 677 votes, an unusually high number of disqualified votes, and widespread confusion surrounding ranked-choice voting (RCV).”

This comes on the heels of the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ announcement last week that the ranked-choice voting system used by the County was not properly configured for the Fourth District Oakland Unified School District Board race in November, resulting in a new winner for the race and increased doubts over the county’s voting method, the Globe reported.

The Ranked Choice voting mistakes the Alameda County Registrar of Voters admitted are changing election results, and involve Dominion Voting Machines, one county resident told the Globe.

The NAACP reported:

“The Alameda County Registrar of Voters is refusing to pay for a recount. Instead, it is attempting to charge voters $21,000 per day, with no estimated time to complete the recount,” Cynthia Adams, president-elect of the Oakland NAACP said.

“Adams says one major issue is the lack of transparency with the algorithm used by the Registrar’s office to tally RCV votes. With up to five RCV options and 10 candidate choices, the algorithm is intended to ensure votes are counted correctly.”

“Voter intent is paramount and every attempt under the law must be made by the Alameda County Registrar’s Office to count every vote,” Adams said. “The Registrar has sole discretion to determine the intent of the voter before disqualifying a ballot due to an overvote, with the option of creating a duplicate ballot and counting the ballot toward the final results.”

The NAACP affirms there are several questions about disqualified ballots that can be answered only with a manual recount.

• Nearly 3,100 votes were considered overvotes and not counted (voters selected more than one candidate in the same ranking).
• 1,355 Votes in Alameda County were tossed out due to mismatched signatures. Approximately 300-400 of these ballots belong to Oakland voters.

These ballots, if counted, could potentially overturn the mayor’s race, the NAACP says.

The Oakland NAACP Branch is calling on local elected officials to use their power to direct the Alameda County Registrar’s office to complete a manual recount to ensure that every vote is counted.

“We remain determined in our historic mission to protect the voting rights of Black Americans,” Adams said. “The sheer number of Black elders, among them foundational voters who were among the very first Black people to vote in America, have expressed concerns around ranked-choice voting due to its confusing nature. This means that we must do everything in our power to ensure their vote is counted and renew their faith in the system.”

According to Ballotpedia, a ranked-choice voting system is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. If a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, he or she is declared the winner. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. First-preference votes cast for the failed candidate are eliminated, lifting the next-preference choices indicated on those ballots. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won a majority of the adjusted votes. The process is repeated until a candidate wins an outright majority.