Community Groups Push to Adjust U.S. Census for Minority Undercount (in National News) Help Rico: Eight-year-old Leukemia Patient Needs Bone Marrow Donor (in Bay Area News) Forecasting Asia's Economy in 2001 (in Business) The Wonderful World of Jason Shiga (in A&E) Emil Amok: Bush's First Days (in Opinion)

District 7 Recount On, Off, and On Again

Supervisor election recount scheduled to begin again

By Joseph Hong

The recount for the District 7 Board of Supervisors seat resumes today. The recount effort was halted Monday, Jan. 15, five days into the process, with one third of the votes counted at a cost of $12,000. At that point, results had shown little difference from the original vote count, which placed Tony Hall ahead of Mabel Teng by 39 votes.

Jeffrey Chen filed for the recount on behalf of himself and the S.F. Neighbors Association, a grassroots political organization of mostly Chinese American homeowners. Chen said he and the S.F. Neighbors Association wanted to halt the recount to review the outcome thus far, and to determine whether it was worth continuing.

According to Chris Hayashi of the Department of Elections, it costs the party that files the recount $2,080 per day. This is significantly less than the original esimated price of $3,000 per day. However, the total expenses remain high because it is taking much longer to finish the recount than was expected.

“The cost is incredible,” Chen said. “We never thought it would cost this much money.”

According to Chen, the original funding came entirely from Warren Hellman, a civil rights and voter rights supporter. “His initial commitment was just one week of recount because that was the estimated time it would take to count all 18,000 votes in the district, but so far they’ve only counted 6,000,” Chen explained.

After discussing the matter, the S.F. Neighbors Association has decided to continue the recount. John Barry, also a member of the S.F. Neighbors Association, has filed to restart the recount. The monetary burden now rests on the S.F. Neighbors Association, which, Chen said, only has funding for 3 to 4 days. “We are seeking contributions now,” Chen added.

According to Chris Hayashi, the process has gone fairly smoothly thus far. “The recount board is functioning well and I believe the parties involved are satisfied with the procedure in general.”

She added: “What we’ve seen in the recount has made no difference so far.”