The San Francisco Elections Department counted more than 25,000 ballots today and just posted new ranked choice voting tallies that continue to indicate Ross Mirkarimi has been elected sheriff, widening his margin of victory from yesterday’s count. Mayor Ed Lee and District Attorney George Gascon saw their margins shrink slightly, but they are also the clear winners.
With only about 7,000 provisional ballots still be counted, it’s unlikely that these results will change. Lee’s share of first place votes dipped by about a half percentage point to 31 percent, while second place John Avalos, third Dennis Herrera, fourth David Chiu, and fifth place Leland Yee each gained a bit of ground.
It took 12 rounds of reallocating votes, one more than yesterday’s tally, but the latest count shows Lee winning with 60 percent of the vote to Avalos’s 40 percent.
In the sheriff’s race, the only variable after yesterday’s count was whether Paul Miyamota might be eliminated before Chris Cunnie – raising the question of whether Mirkarimi would get a big enough chunk of Miyamoto’s votes to put him over to top. But with Mirkarimi gaining ground in first place votes to 38 percent, and with 1,117 votes separating Cunnie and Miyamoto in the second round, it would be almost impossible for the winner to change.
In the DA’s race, Gascon dropped and David Onek rose by about a half percentage point, but with more of Sharmin Bock’s votes going to Gascon, he wins in the third round with 63 percent of the vote.