With three days remaining before Oakland’s special election, candidates and community groups are pushing to get out the vote Alyssa Goard reports.
With three days remaining before Oakland's special election, candidates and community groups are pushing to get out the vote.
People in the city will vote for Oakland's new mayor after voters recalled Sheng Thao in November. Oaklanders will also vote on a tax measure. District 2 residents will vote for a new council member after Nikki Fortunato Bas was elected to serve as an Alameda County Supervisor.
On Saturday, Alameda County opened its four-day polling places in Oakland, bringing the total number of vote centers in the city for this election to nine (you can find those locations here).
Workers at one of the eleven-day vote centers that had already been open for a week told NBC Bay Area they began to see more voters coming in on Saturday. The vote center workers said they anticipate receiving a large number of vote-by-mail ballot drop-offs.
The city will once again be using ranked-choice voting for this election.
In the mayoral race, there are ten candidates on the ballot. The two front-runners, former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor and former Congresswoman Barbara Lee were out campaigning on Saturday.
Taylor said he spent the day knocking on doors across the city. He's telling voters that he hears their concerns.
"Residents feel as though they have been left to fend for themselves," Taylor said. "And I’m here to say, ‘no, we deserve a government that actually works for us."
Lee said she attended events around Oakland on Saturday with voters and supporters. She is asking voters to look to her record in politics.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
"It's an indicator of the fact that I want core services and constituent services to serve the people of Oakland," Lee said. "It’s an indicator that I want Oakland to be a clean, livable, green city. "
In the race for the District 2 Council seat, six candidates are running.
District 2 includes neighborhoods like Oakland's Chinatown, Oakland's Little Saigon, Jack London Square, and Rancho San Antonio.
Stewart Chen, president of the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council, said, "day and day out for the last two months, we’ve been encouraging people from [District] 2 to come out and vote."
Chen added that for the residents in Oakland's Chinatown, he's spoken with, the top issue they're paying attention to this election is addressing crime in the community.
Chen acknowledged that because this is a special election, there are some concerns the city may see low voter turnout.
"Every vote counts," he emphasized. "I mean, it sounds so cliché, but it really matters in this race."
Voters have until 8 p.m. on Tuesday to cast their ballots at vote centers.
