Posts Tagged ‘Jean Quan’

Oakland’s first experiment with ranked-choice voting, the system in which enough second and third-choice votes can propel a trailing candidate to victory, led to Jean Quan’s upset of former state Senator Don Perata. It also led to a robust argument about the system itself.

It was 10 o’ clock in the morning in Beijing when the announcement that Jean Quan had won the Oakland mayoral race came out. About two hours later, readers of sina.com, sohu.com and 163.com—the three largest Chinese portals, where millions of Chinese consume their daily news, could learn about the new mayor of a city 10,000 miles away.

“Miracle: third-generation Chinese American is Oakland’s new mayor” was the headline on the website of Qiaobao, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in the U.S. Its front-page op-ed, using language even more emphatic than any from Quan’s campaign, read, “Jean Quan gloriously rewrites the political history of America.”

At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Oakland City Council approved a major contractor to implement a municipal ID card system, almost a year and half after passing an ordinance allowing the city to issue the cards, and also voted to increase the number of cannabis producer permits in the city from four to eight.

As of Wednesday morning, eight days after Oakland voters went to the polls to select their new mayor from among a field of ten candidates, there is still no new information about the outcome of the city’s first-ranked choice election, according to officials at the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. The final tally remains unknown with no indication of when the results will be certified.

Now that the ash has settled on California’s latest marijuana ballot initiatives, Oakland’s industrial cannabis policy—the nation’s first—can move forward, beginning with the city council’s meeting tonight.

Staff from the Alameda Registrar of Voters office announced that they would not declare an official winner in Oakland’s mayoral race today, as a “few thousand” provisional ballots have yet to be counted.

By 4:00 pm today, the Registrar of Voters expects to announce the complete results and winner of Oakland’s first ranked-choice mayoral election. Registrar of Voters Dave Macdonald said on Friday that the final tally, including the previously uncounted 15,000 mail-in ballots, will likely be released this afternoon. “Who knows what could happen?” Macdonald said.

Oakland mayoral candidate Jean Quan overtook fellow candidate Don Perata this afternoon in the computer-run calculation of second and third-choice votes in Oakland’s new ranked-choice voting system. Although several thousand votes remain uncounted, Quan said she’s “feeling very good” about the latest results.

Despite a clear leader, Oakland’s mayoral race is not over. Don Perata holds a 13 percent lead over his nearest competitor, but he is about 14 percentage points short of a “50 percent plus one” majority, meaning the race will be determined Friday by a ranked choice voting run-off. The run-off scenario leaves hope for…

Polls have officially closed in California. Oakland North has reporters in the field submitting photos and content for up-to-date election coverage. Check back for the most current politics news in Oakland as the election results roll in.

In anticipation of the 2010 election, Oakland North asked the 10 candidates for Oakland mayor two questions: what distinguishes you from the other nine hopefuls and what would your top two priorities be as the city’s next mayor?

The Youth Vote 2010 forum, hosted by All City Council high school student leaders, was designed to give local students an experience with voting and the chance to come face-to-face with Oakland’s candidates. The forum included audience-submitted questions, followed by a vote for the top candidates.

Ten candidates, one mayoral race. As November 2 approaches, which of these candidates is making an impression on the people of Oakland? Twelve days before the 2010 election, Oakland North went to the corner of 51st street and Telegraph to find out.

Two measures on the ballot this November give voters the chance to decide the future of public safety funding in Oakland. If either Measure BB or Measure X passes, the city can again collect funds for a slew of public safety programs that currently have no revenue to support them.

It’s the First Friday in October, and Art Murmur is in full swing. Local ’zines, art depots and thrift shops are peddling their wares in between galleries packed with inebriated merrymakers. The atmosphere is hardly political, and yet mingling with the crowd is Don Macleay, one of Oakland’s ten mayoral candidates. “Let me tell you,” he says, thrusting fliers into the hands of passersby, “say ‘Hi, I’m a politician,’ and people will shy away from you. But say, ‘Hi, I’m with the Green Party,’ and people will take your card.”

Oakland’s Asian Cultural Center forum brought the ten mayoral candidates together to share their views on issues important to Asian American communities including equal language access, crime prevention and business revitalization.