By Alise Maripuu. Bay City News.
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Hundreds of voters turned out at one of two polling places in East Palo Alto on Tuesday, as city council candidates made final efforts to reach voters until the last minute before polls closed at 8 p.m.
Nine candidates are competing to win one of three at-large seats on the council.
As of Wednesday, three candidates lead the field by just a few dozen votes. Incumbent Carlos Romero has 16.8 percent of the vote, followed by Webster Lincoln with 16.36 percent. Mark Dinan is in third place with 15.75 percent of the vote so far, according to preliminary results.
The next closest contender, Deborah Lewis-Virges, has 13.32 percent, about 200 fewer votes than Dinan.
But Dinan warned that the candidates' standings could change dramatically as the rest of the votes are counted.
“Stay alert,” he said. “In the previous elections, the candidates were winning. Then the final count comes and they fall back.”
As 5 p.m. on Election Day approached and residents began leaving work, the line of people eager to vote grew and stretched across the parking lot of the Lewis and Joan Platt East Palo Alto Family YMCA.
Many voters said they had to wait in line for more than an hour to cast their ballots.
A man yells at East Palo Alto City Council candidate Carlos Romero as Romero stands behind a tree at a polling place in East Palo Alto, Calif., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. City Council candidate Webster Lincoln took the video as the altercation occurred next to his booth. (Webster Lincoln via Bay City News)
Several city council candidates remained in the parking lot throughout the day, handing out flyers as voters headed to the polls. A steady stream of voters continued from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., many candidates said.
“It’s a very social event, people meet up with their friends,” said candidate Dinan. “But it would be better if it was quicker. I didn’t expect there to be a queue at 10 o’clock because it’s the middle of the work day.”
Tensions rose in the afternoon when a resident began shouting angrily at the incumbent candidate, Romero. Another candidate, Lincoln, had set up his booth at the scene of the altercation. He captured video of a man hurling expletives at Romero shortly before 1 p.m., accusing him of not being a “real” Latino.
“Leave my city alone, you are the worst thing that could happen to anyone here,” the man shouted. “You are not even Latino. You pretend to be Latino, but you are a white guy pretending to be Mexican.”
In an attempt to avoid trouble, Romero took shelter behind a tree, according to Lincoln.
Romero's biography on his campaign website says his father emigrated from Mexico and that the family spent time moving back and forth between Mexico and the United States during his upbringing.
Candidates also had to be careful not to campaign within 100 feet of the polling place.
In 2020, Lincoln unsuccessfully sued East Palo Alto Mayor Antonio Lopez, accusing him of campaigning too close to a polling place. Lopez hired a taco stand to park outside a polling place and hand out free tacos on Election Day. The court ultimately cleared Lopez of any wrongdoing.
“We don’t want another ‘tacogate,’” joked Gail Wilkerson, one of the candidates.
Lincoln, who arrived at the polling place at 6:30 a.m., said she noticed a significant increase in voter turnout compared to 2022, when she also ran for city council. She attributed that to the fact that this year’s race coincided with the U.S. presidential election. But she also noted that the decline in polling places in East Palo Alto allowed voters only two locations where they could cast their ballots in person for the city council race.
“In 2022, there was another polling place at Myrtle Place High School,” Lincoln said. “Then there was a polling place here and then a polling place in University Circle. This year there are only two.”
The YMCA polling place was the only one on the east side of the 101 Freeway, making it more convenient for most East Palo Alto residents.
“Most people don’t cross over and wait in traffic to get back here. People come here because this is the only polling place on this side of the highway,” Lincoln said.
In the afternoon, some voters frustrated by the long wait headed to another polling place across the 101 Freeway in University Circle. But when they arrived, they found that other people had had the same idea and ended up having to wait just as long.
Ofelia Bello, a candidate who did not work on the election campaign but is still in the running, is nonetheless in the middle of the pack in preliminary vote counts despite doing little promotion compared to her competitors.
On Tuesday, she showed up at the YMCA polling place and handed out flyers to new voters so they could get to know her better and learn why she is running. She said personal changes at work and health issues in her family had led her to put her campaign plans on the back burner.
“I dropped everything to be with my parents and help my mother with some medical issues that were going on,” she said. “Between the job transition, finding a new job, and my parents’ health care needs, I had to put my campaign on hold. I will drop anything for my parents’ health care needs.”
The San Mateo County Registration and Elections Division reminded people that recounts in each county race in the first few days are not final as there are more ballots that need to be added to the counts.
In this year's contest, the candidates have received a total of 8,066 votes so far. In the 2020 contest, in which there are also three seats up for grabs, the votes totaled 19,048 votes split between the candidates. So the recount appears to have a long way to go.
“There are still many ballots left to be counted,” the county wrote on its website. “Mail-in ballots received Saturday, Nov. 2 through Election Day and the days after have not yet been counted. This means election night results may differ from the final tally.”
You may be interested in: Get the results of the local elections in Redwood City, East Palo Alto and Half Moon Bay
