With very few if any City Council District 7 votes left to be counted, Republican Scott Sherman has enough votes needed to avoid a runoff against Democrat Mat Kostrinsky.
Sherman currently has 50.3 percent of the vote in San Diego's District 7 City Council race. That’s more than the 50 percent plus one vote he needs to win the seat outright.
Sherman has a cushion of 91 votes to keep him above that 50-percent-plus-one-vote threshold. County Registrar of Voters Deborah Seiler said vote counting today focused on District 7 ballots, so she expects to add very few additional District 7 votes in the coming days. A total of 17,700 ballots remain to be counted county-wide.
“I would not guarantee that it will be the final tally,” she said. “But I think after today it will be very small numbers of ballots that go into the count from District 7.”
Seiler said these are provisional ballots that weren’t counted on Election Day for some reason.
If Sherman falls below 50 percent in the final tally, he will find himself in a runoff with Kostrinsky. A Democrat, Kostrinsky now is second in the primary with 40.17 percent of the vote. The outcome of the District 7 race will help determine the balance of power between the Democrats and Republicans on the City Council. The Republican and Democrat candidates in District 1 will compete in a run-off in November.
An updated tally is expected at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Seiler said the registrar has until July 3 to certify the results of the election. She said no results will be official until certification is complete.
