10th candidate added to November ballot in Oakland Mayor's race

OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland’s City Attorney has given the approval to add a 10th person to the November ballot for Mayor. As a result, there will also be a 2nd random drawing to determine the order of the names on the ballot.  

The city says Allyssa Victory will be added to the list of candidates running for Oakland Mayor. On Tuesday, the City Clerk’s Office will hold the 2nd ballot name drawing to be fair to everyone running, but not everyone is happy about that decision.  

"I hate to hear that some people feel that things are continuing to be unfair. I think we have to still be unified together," Victory said. 

After a mix-up involving the signatures required to run for Mayor, Allyssa Victory is now on the November 8th ballot.

"They made an error. Everything I had submitted by the timely deadline was sufficient. I was able to announce this morning that I am qualified and will appear on the November 8th ballot," Victory said. 

Candidate Seneca Scott is currently listed first on the ballot, but that may change on Tuesday.  

"I do understand the sense of fairness, but there’s also fairness to candidates who did our job, made the ballot, and here we are now having to do another ballot drawing," said Scott. "The order is very important, extremely important in elections where there’s no incumbent running. This could force as much as a five percent point differential."    

Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker initially decided to keep Victory off the ballot because the city mistook her nomination signatures for endorser signatures. After announcing she is now a candidate for Mayor, Victory says she has no concerns about where her name will be on the ballot.  

"I don’t control this redraw. This is ordered by the City Clerk’s Office. I can’t just decide which position I want to take." Victory said. "We all have to still move according to the city clerk’s direction for the rest of this election season."   

Victory says she will be listed on the ballot for Oakland Mayor as Allyssa Victory Villanueva.  

There were three other candidates disqualified from the ballot because they didn’t file their paperwork by the August 12 deadline: Monesha "MJ" Carter, Derek Soo and Julius Eric Robinson. Those candidates say the clerk’s office gave them the wrong date, but the City has decided to keep them off the ballot.