Extra

After an additional 1700 vote by mail ballots were counted, Cheryl Davila’s lead for second place in the count of first choice votes in the District 2 Council race widened to 96 votes over Nanci Armstrong-Temple. When the Ranked Choice Voting tabulation is done and Nanci’s second choice votes are allocated, Cheryl leads Darryl by 2978 (50.8%) to 2882 (49.2%).

With this result, the current six-three Council majority with Mayor Bates, and council members Capitelli, Maio, Moore, Wengraf and Droste in the majority, will be replaced by a 5-3 majority with newly elected council members Ben Bartlett, Sophie Hahn and Cheryl Davila, joining newly elected Mayor Jesse Arreguin and incumbent council member Kriss Worthington in the majority. There will be a special election for the District 4 Council seat being vacated by Jesse Arreguin. It’s quite likely that a candidate allied with the new majority will win that seat, giving this group of progressive council members six seats out of nine on the Council, reversing the current division of the council.

Davila’s election would mark the first time since 1996 that an incumbent council member has lost. In 1996, incumbent District 2 council member Mary Wainwright was ousted by progressive challenger Margaret Breland. That year, Kriss Worthington also defeated incumbent council member Carla Woodworth. 

So far 6854 votes have been counted in District 2. In the 2012 presidential election, the total number of votes cast in District 2 was 7114. Unless turnout this year was much higher than in 2012, any ballots that remain to be counted, most of which would probably be provisional ballots, would be too small to make it possible for Darryl Moore to overtake Cheryl Davila.  

Incumbent council member Moore got 43% of the early vote by mail ballots reported on election day, but when the votes at the polls were counted, his percentage at the end of election night stood at 40.1% He now has 40.0% with the vast majority of the post-election vote by mail ballots counted. Unless there are many ballots remaining to be counted and unless his percentage of any remaining ballots is well above his percentage of the early vote by mail ballots, which is unlikely, he will not be able to defeat Davila in the ranked choice voting. 

The allocation of Armstong-Temple’s votes are are as follows in the latest RCV count: 1073 (59.3%) to Cheryl Davila; 397 votes (21.9%) to Darryl Moore; and 339 votes (18.8%) no second choice given. Nanci encouraged her supporters to make Cheryl their second choice. 

District 2 First Choice votes as of November 14: 

Darryl Moore 2477 (40.0%) 

Cheryl Davila 1900 (30.7%) 

Nanci Armstrong-Temple 1808 (29.2%) 

District 2 Ranked Choice vote: 

Cheryl Davila 2978 (50.8%) 

Darryl Moore 2882 (49.2%) 

Other Races 

The latest count did not change the outcome of any other City of Berkeley races. A total of 54,601 votes have been counted so far citywide. In 2012, a total of 60,559 votes were counted. Whether turnout was higher or lower this year is not yet known, but the number of votes remaining to be counted is extemely unlikely to be large enough to alter the outcome of any local race. 

Mayor-elect Jesse Arreguin’s percentage of first choice votes now stands at 48.9%. He now reaches 50% when second choice votes of Naomi Pete, Mike Lee and Bernt Wahl are counted. He did not need the second choice votes of incumbent council member and mayoral candidate Kriss Worthington, or of Ben Gould or of Zachary Runningwolf, to get elected. With ranked choice voting, whenever no candidate wins 50% or more of the first choice votes, second choice votes are counted beginning with the lowest vote getter for that office, and continuing until a candidate crosses the 50% threshold. 

In the Rent Board race, the CALI slate has easily defeated the landlord-financed slate. Igor Tregub, currently fourth in the race for four seats, leads Judy Hunt of he landlord slate by 23,367 to 18,647 votes. 

When the County finishes counting, I will post the results in all local races.