City of Sunnyvale City Council Councilmember Murali Srinivasan

In the November 2022 election, the Sunnyvale City Council switched over its three remaining at-large seats to representation by district. As can be the case with the smaller voter pools for district voting, the races were tight. One, in fact, was as tight as you can get.

Once the election was certified, Murali Srinivasan claimed his seat with just one more vote than opponent Justin Wang: 2,813 out of 5,625 votes.  Wang asked for a recount, which netted three more votes: two for Wang, one for Srinivasan—a straight-up tie. City officials delved into the rulebooks and determined that the winner would be decided by a draw. Srinivasan ended up the victor.

An engineer, Sirinivasan says he has extensive business experience working in both startups and more established companies. He is the first Indian American elected to the Sunnyvale City Council.

Day job: Founder, Cloud Stealth Startup

Alma maters: Stanford University (master’s degree in engineering management), Virginia Tech (master’s degree in computer science), Bangalore University (bachelor’s degree in engineering)

Other community service: Leadership Sunyvale, Sunnyvale Community Services, Sunnyvale Sustainability Commission

Notable quote: “It’s all theory. From day one of campaigning, you are taught that 50% plus one is the target you are to look for. But this is real life, this happened in real life. It’s no longer a theory. So the key lesson here is that every vote counts. Every vote counts, and every citizen should participate in elections.” (Source: San Jose Spotlight)