The March Primary isn't over yet

Judge orders county registrar to recount ballots in AD20; Berkeley grabs Emeryville's city manager; San Leandro picks permanent police chief; Oakland officials question Coliseum deal

ELECTION 2024

20TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT

—JOE SAYS IT’S SO—A Sacramento County Superior Court judge has ordered the Alameda County Registrar of Voters to reopen the certified March Primary election in order to determined if a write-in candidate in the 20th Assembly District finished in the top two.

—In February, Republican Joe Grcar filed to run as an official write-in candidate in the 9th State Senate District and the 20th Assembly District. But the state secretary of state’s office said no candidate can run for two statewide offices.

—Grcar was allowed to qualify as a write-in candidate for the 9th State Senate race in March, but denied a place in the 20th Assembly District. Grcar finished fourth in the March Primary with 398 votes.

—But the legal grounds for prohibiting a candidate from running for two offices suffered a major blow in early April in the high-profile case of Vince Fong, the state assemblymember who filed to concurrently run for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s congressional seat.

—An appeals court determined that no prohibition against running for two offices exists in state law. The ruling led Grcar to file his own complaint against the secretary of state’s office.

—Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang agreed. In a stipulated judgment filed on May 21, the judge ordered the Alameda County Registrar of Voters to count votes cast for Grcar in the 20th Assembly District and later re-certify the March Primary election results.

—“I just asked the authorities to count my votes and they seemed okay with it,” Grcar said.

—The registrar’s count is expected to occur on Monday.

—Only two candidates received votes in the 20th District March Primary—Assemblymember Liz Ortega and another write-in candidate named Sangeetha Shanbhogue, who received 284 votes.

—In the March Primary, 2,255 undervotes were recorded in the 20th Assembly District race. Among this set of ballots, Grcar is hoping at least 285 have his name on them in order to vault into second place.

—Grcar said that prior to receiving news that he was barred from running in the 20th Assembly District, he had been knocking on doors in the district.

—Among Republican voters in the 20th Assembly District, Grcar has some name-recognition. He advanced to the 2018 20th Assembly District General Election by finishing second in the primary as a write-in candidate.

—Grcar said he’s hopeful about his chances, although he believes the secretary of state’s initial prohibition likely minimized the number of votes he would have received in AD20.

—“Maybe down here I have a chance even though they tipped the scales against me,” he said.

—Ortega is a prohibitive favorite to defeat either write-in candidate this November, but there is value in finishing second for a Republican.

—That’s because the benefit of gaining a spot in the top two is a candidates ability to increase the number of delegates they can appoint to the California Republican Party convention.

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