Silicon Valley's highly contested District 16 recount starts this week

SAN JOSE, Calif. - For the first time, two candidates are tied for second place in U.S. Congressional District 16. 

Now a recount of the votes will begin Monday, and it's expected to take about five days to complete.

The two-way tie is unprecedented in this district, but experts say this isn’t just about counting votes, but about the political process, democracy, and election integrity.  

"Liccardo, Simitian and Low, they’re all really well-known folks in this district. So, they had a lot of people who thought, 'Yeah, this is it. This is his chance," said Melissa Michelson, a Menlo College political science professor.

Michelson says the second-place tie in the District 16 race between Evan Low and Joe Simitian is the talk of the town, and it’s not surprising that a recount has been requested.

"If you think ‘my guy is going to win this three-way race’, there’s no reason to spend this money on a recount," said Michelson. 

One of the two people making a recount request is Jonathan Padilla, a former Liccardo campaign staffer. Padilla posted this message on social media, saying:

"Why other democrats don’t believe in counting votes and ensuring that the will of the people is transparently reflected, confuses me. It’s especially baffling that many of the folks criticizing the recount I’m proposing have themselves advocated for automatic recounts in the past."

"It might be that somebody in Liccardo’s camp thinks, oh no, we might lose if it’s three, but if we knock one of those two out, then we have a shot," said Michelson. 

Santa Clara County’s Registrar of Voters says it’ll begin recounting votes in District 16 for eight hours each day starting Monday. The registrar says it’ll take about five days to complete the recount by machine, and it will cost about $84,000.  

"If we’re just going to just do a machine recount, the outcome is probably not going to change. If it was a hand recount, I think the odds might be a little bit better that we might see a difference," said Michelson. 

San Mateo County makes up a portion of District 16, and it’s not clear yet whether that county will also conduct a recount.