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Oakland Council Hopeful Won’t Appear on Ballot After Signature Errors, Judge Rules

Tonya Love, chief of staff for Councilmember Carroll Fife, had already qualified for the City Council’s at-large seat but made a last-minute bid to jump into the District 7 race.
Katie DeBenedetti
Oakland City Hall in downtown Oakland on Aug. 2, 2023. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)

Oakland City Council hopeful Tonya Love will not appear on the November ballot after an Alameda County judge late Thursday denied her petition.

Love, who is chief of staff for Councilmember Carroll Fife, had sought a writ of mandate instructing the city clerk and county registrar to certify her candidacy for the District 7 race after she fell three signatures short of making the ballot. That petition, filed last week, was denied, she said on Instagram.

“Unfortunately, the Alameda Court did not rule in favor of my writ petition, and I will not be running for Oakland City Council District 7. While we are disappointed by the court’s decision not to place us on the ballot in November, I remain undeterred in my commitment to serving Oakland and our communities,” she said in the post.

Judge Michael Markman denied Love’s petition, which pointed to three signatories on her nomination forms who were disqualified for “technical errors” but were registered to vote in the district. In his order, Markman wrote that a peremptory writ of mandate would have required proof of an “error, omission or neglect” on the part of the registrar, but the record showed that it performed its duty in this case.

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“The court empathizes with the difficulties presented by the short timeline for obtaining signatures for the District 7 seat,” Markman wrote in discussion. But it “lacks authority that would allow it to consider evidence not available to the Registrar during the signature verification process, like the voter declarations submitted with the Petition here.”

Love was among a handful of candidates who made last-minute bids to jump into the race for Councilmember Treva Reid’s District 7 seat after Reid announced that she would not be seeking reelection on Aug. 9, the filing deadline for the race. Love had already qualified as a candidate for the council’s at-large seat but said that after Reid’s announcement, community members asked her to “step up” to the District 7 race, which had its filing deadline extended five days.

According to Markman’s order, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters maintains that it correctly determined that Love’s petition was short of the needed 50 signatures. The Oakland city clerk reported receiving “complaints from other candidates who qualified under the same conditions as Petitioner in the District 7 race about the fairness” of Love’s litigation as well as inquiries from other candidates who did not qualify asking if they should also file petitions.

“My dedication to our city does not begin nor end with a campaign,” Love said on Instagram on Thursday. “There are many ways to effect change and ensure our voices are heard. I will continue to work alongside each of you, advocating for public health, safety, and equitable development in Oakland.”

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