Michelle Shoresman and Emily Francis are likely to serve as city council members for San Luis Obispo for the next four years, based on the current vote count published by the County Clerk-Recorder.
Shoresman received 3,104 votes counted by Tuesday evening, which is 38.6% of the votes counted from the County Clerk-Recorder. Francis is second with 2,828 votes, which is 35.2% of the partially reported results.
Brett Cross, long-time resident and former city planning commission member, follows behind and has received 2,112 votes so far — about 26.3% of the votes counted in initial results.Â
The County Clerk-Recorder has counted at least part of the votes from every precinct in San Luis Obispo County as of 1:47 a.m. on Wednesday.
Francis started as a city council member in 2022, and Shoresman started in 2021.
The election used San Luis Obispo’s new single-wide city voting system, which only allows San Luis Obispo voters to select one city council member despite two seats up for election. Previously, voters could vote for up to two city council members.
The change was seen as a disadvantage to incumbents, since voters could only vote for one incumbent. Cross, the only non-incumbent in the race with Francis and Shoresman, did not win a seat in the election.
READ MORE: Single-vote system to take effect for Nov. 3 city council race
The change began when Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, an organization that advocates on behalf of Latino voters, sent a letter to the San Luis Obispo city council claiming its voting system is discriminatory towards Latino voters. They demanded the city change to district-based voting.
The San Luis Obispo city council negotiated with the advocacy organization and settled on single citywide voting as an alternative to creating voting districts.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Wednesday, Nov. 4 to reflect updated vote counts.
