8 Asians

Source: Gary Reyes / The San Jose Mercury News. Hundreds of supporters for the recall of Madison Nguyen, San Jose City Council member, gather in San Jose on March 3, 2009 during election night.

This past Tuesday, San Jose held a special recall election of San Jose’s City Council member Madison Nguyen. With most voters having voted absentee ballot, Nguyen successfully defeated the recall efforts:

“In a hard-fought display of political tenacity, San Jose Councilwoman Madison Nguyen on Tuesday was beating back a fervent recall attempt that saw her pitted against the same Vietnamese community that vaulted her into office more than three years ago. The stunning result emerged not long after the polls closed at 8 p.m., when the results of nearly 10,000 votes cast in the weeks before Election Day were released. Voters by a wide margin were favoring keeping Nguyen in office. Those early votes made up the overwhelming majority of ballots cast in the election, with unrelentingly rainy skies Tuesday appearing to keep many voters inside — despite the last-dash push by Nguyen’s foes and supporters alike to bring people to the polls.”

As I have blogged before, I personally don’t have a strong opinion on how effective of a city council member Madison Nguyen has been, especially since I don’t live in San Jose or the district she represents. But I am generally against recall elections unless an elected official has violated the law, so I’m glad that Nguyen beat back her detractors. Let the voters judge and re-elect Nguyen or vote her out in the next scheduled election, which I’m assuming is this Fall.