Luck of the draw: Cesar Zepeda elected to Richmond City Council in unusual tie breaker

RICHMOND — Cesar Zepeda was declared the winner of the District 2 seat on the Richmond City Council after his name was drawn out of a bag Tuesday morning in an unusual end to the Nov. 8 election.

Zepeda joined challenger Andrew Butt inside City Hall’s council chambers, where the city clerk conducted the election draw after each candidate won exactly 1,921 votes.

The final tiebreaker — scheduled 33 days after the election — required each candidate to sign their name on cards that were sealed within unmarked green envelopes and then shaken inside a red Christmas bag.

City Clerk Pamela Christian pulled one of the cards and announced the winner in an event that lasted five minutes.

In the days leading up to the drawing, Butt, the son of outgoing Mayor Tom Butt, said he might consider asking for a recount if his name was not drawn. He has up to five days to do that after the final Contra Costa County election results were certified on Friday.

To ensure the tie was accurate, county election officials manually audited every vote by hand, including nearly a dozen ballots that had errors that were corrected.

The last time a Contra Costa County race ended in a tie was in 2018 when candidate Larry Enos beat Pete Petrovich by the roll of a dice in the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District Director 1 contest.

In the 1992 Martinez school board race, Howard Barto and Bob Repicky also finished tied for the third and final seat. The school district drew lots and Repicky won.