2020 Berkeley Rent Board Convention Results Announced: Dominique Walker, Mari Mendonca, Xavier Johnson, Leah Simon-Weisberg, and Andy Kelley selected by the largest Rent Board Convention in Berkeley history

On Sunday, July 19, the organizers of the 2020 Rent Board Convention finished tabulating the Convention ballots; following five rounds of voting, Dominique Walker, Mari Mendonca, Xavier Johnson, Leah Simon-Weisberg, and Andy Kelley were declared the winners for the pro-tenant slate. 708 votes were cast, substantially smashing all previous records in the Convention’s decades-long history. 

“This year’s convention celebrated 40 years of rent control in Berkeley and brought together 15 community sponsoring organizations who screened 13 candidates vying for five spots on the pro-tenant slate,” said Convention Chair Paola Laverde. “The quality and diversity of the candidates and the large voter turn reflects the importance of these issues to Berkeley residents.” 

“In order to quickly and accurately tabulate the 708 ballots using ranked-choice-voted, we used the ASUC’s election tabulator,” said Convention Planning Committeemember and Election Manager Matthew Lewis. “We are very grateful that ASUC makes the source code of the tabulator publicly available.” 

The 2020 Convention, which was originally scheduled to take place in-person in late-April, was postponed and moved online due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Convention itself took place on Sunday, July 5. Voting opened on Monday July 6 and concluded on Saturday, July 18 (requests for ballots were due by Friday, July 17). Voting was primarily conducted online using OpaVote to anonymously collect ballots; paper ballots were also made available to Berkeley residents without internet access or who had difficulty casting an electronic ballot. Voting was open to all Berkeley residents – including students, undocumented residents and other non-citizens, residents under 18, and unhoused residents – who fully support rent control. Berkeley residents who had temporarily left due to COVID and/or summer break but intend to return to Berkeley as soon s it is safe and/or feasible to do so were also allowed to cast a ballot.