With early voting well underway, more than 125,000 Santa Clara County voters — about 11% of more than 1 million registered — have cast ballots in the county assessor runoff.
The runoff features the top two finishers from November’s special election, neither of whom secured a majority: Neysa Fligor, Los Altos vice mayor and current assistant assessor, who received the most votes; and Rishi Kumar, a Saratoga-based mechanical engineer, tech executive, and former city councilmember.
The special election was triggered by longtime Assessor Larry Stone’s decision to step down in July, ahead of the end of his term in December 2026. Stone, 84, first took office in 1994, making him the county’s longest-serving elected official. Greg Monteverde, the former assistant assessor, is serving in the role on an interim basis.
The assessor oversees an $8 billion public enterprise and values more than 500,000 properties in Santa Clara County, home to several billion-dollar tech companies. Property taxes fund schools, roads, police and fire services, and other county programs.
Dozens of vote centers will be open through Christmas ahead of the Dec. 30 voting deadline.
The centers are opening on a staggered schedule. The first 19 locations opened Dec. 20 and will remain open daily through Election Day, including Christmas Day. Beginning Dec. 27, an additional 19 four-day vote centers will open, bringing the total to at least 38 locations.
Most vote centers are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily during the early voting period, though library locations in Gilroy, Milpitas and Saratoga operate from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. All 38 centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day, Dec. 30.
Centers are spread throughout the county – including San Jose, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale – and are located in libraries, community centers and churches, among other spaces.
Voters can return their ballots by mail, provided they are postmarked on or before Election Day. Alternatively, ballots can be hand-delivered to any vote center or one of the county’s 109 official drop boxes. These drop boxes are accessible 24 hours a day and remain open until 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Voters can check vote center and drop box locations and hours on the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters website. Same-day voter registration will be available through Election Day, spokesperson Michael Borja said.
Registrar of Voters Matt Moreles previously said turnout for the Dec. 30 election is expected to be “impacted by the timing of the election, given the overlap with the holiday season.”
Borja said Tuesday, however, that early voting has been encouraging.
“We’ve been doing our regular advertising and on social media, just making sure people know that we are open and we’ll be working on Election Day,” he told this news organization.
First results will be posted online starting at around 8:05 p.m. on Election Day.
In November, final turnout was recorded at 553,637 ballots, or about 51% of registered voters. That ballot included Proposition 50, California’s redistricting measure, and Measure A, a proposed local sales tax increase aimed at offsetting federal funding cuts.
Ryan Macasero
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