The tie is broken.
As of press time Wednesday, Sweetwater Union High School District board President John McCann pulled into a four-vote lead over former mayor Steve Padilla in the race for seat No. 1 in the Chula Vista City Council race.
As of Tuesday evening, a total of 36,898 votes were cast with McCann owning 18,451 votes or 50.01 percent and Padilla trailing at 18,447 votes, 49.99 percent.
The latest results were updated Tuesday evening as part of the registrar of voters’ reconciliation process.
Michael Vu, with the registrar of voters, said his office reconciled all the polling precincts in Chula Vista and had to rerun seven ballots.
Mail ballots will go through the reconciliation process on Wednesday, Vu said.
Last week the election was tied and the City Clerk’s Office was all but ready to decide the election.
If the registar of voters did not find any discrepancies during the reconciliation process then the election would have been decided by a random method, according to the city of Chula Vista’s charter.
“The reconciliation process could break the tie at this time, or it could remain a tie,” Vu said.
The reconciliation process is a state law where the registrar of voters double checks the work to make sure the numbers add up for every precinct in every election in the county. And to make sure that every ballot is properly filled out.
The reconciliation process started Tuesday.
City Charter Section 300 H states: “ties at such special run-off election shall be resolved by lot.”
The word “lot” is not defined anywhere in the charter, but what it generally means is that a winner would be decided by a random method, said Donna Norris, city clerk.
She said a random method woould have included a coin flip, a drawing of straws, or any other random but fair method.
“We would want to make sure that whatever method we chose would be transparent, would be done in public, would be fair and that both candidates agree that the method is fair,” Norris said.
Padilla said he does not expect a random method will be used to determine a winner.
“Before all this is said and done there is a good likelihood that this won’t be a tie one way or another,” he said.
Padilla was undecided if he liked a random method to decide the election.
“I want to thank the nearly nineteen thousand Chula Vistans for voting for me. A flood of citizens have contacted me last night praying that our lead will hold,” McCann wrote in an email.
The city’s general election was held last June, with McCann and Padilla advancing to the city’s special election in November.
Norris said there isn’t an immediate timeline as to when a random selection method must take place.
She said it would occur not long after the registar of voters certifies the election Dec. 2.
“My goal is to make (the random method) as timely as we can,” she said.
The city clerk said logistics would also need to be worked out, such as who would call heads or tails, who would flip the coin, who would draw the first straw.
Norris said a revote wouldn’t be necessary because in a special run off election, the law reverts to the city’s charter, which voters approved in 1992.
