Candidates for Gilroy Mayor—incumbent Marie Blankley and Greg Bozzo—remain reluctant to declare a final result in the Nov. 5 election as officials continue to count ballots cast by local voters.
Bozzo, who owns a local landscaping company, currently holds the lead in the ballot count, with 11,222 votes to Blankley’s 11,018. Those are the latest results (at press time) from the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters’ office, updated as of 5pm Nov. 19.
With about 8,000 Santa Clara County ballots left to count in all Nov. 5 election races, potentially hundreds of those could include votes from Gilroyans—enough that the lead for mayor could tip again before all the ballots are tallied.
Blankley declined to comment on the current election results before they are certified in early December.
Bozzo also held off on projecting a final result in the election.
“We are hopeful that they will get through these final ballots ASAP so that a winner can officially be confirmed. Until then, our campaign will not declare anything,” Bozzo said.
Bozzo is running for his first term in political office.
Blankley is running for her second term as mayor of Gilroy. An accountant and business owner, Blankley served on the Gilroy City Council before running for her first mayoral term in 2020.
The election for mayor is the closest race for any office on the Nov. 5 ballot for Gilroy’s voters. The results for three seats on the city council were clear early on in the ballot count, with incumbent Zach Hilton, Terence Fugazzi and Kelly Ramirez holding the top three spots since election night.
Ramirez, in third place in the ballot count, leads the closest candidate—incumbent Fred Tovar—by almost 400 votes, according to the results posted by the registrar Nov. 19.
Measure C—Gilroy’s request for a quarter-cent sales tax for public safety—remains short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. About 61% of voters counted so far cast their ballots for “yes” on Measure C.
As of Nov. 19, the registrar’s office has counted a turnout of just over 72% in the Nov. 5 election, with 761,621 ballots cast and counted so far.
Election officials still have about 8,000 unprocessed ballots left to count, including 5,000 conditional voter registration ballots, 1,000 provisional ballots and 2,000 challenged ballots.
