A hand-tallied recount in a Sunnyvale city council race decided by a single vote began Monday under the watchful eyes of candidates, supporters and election officials.

Justin Wang, who lost the District 3 election to Murali Srinivasan, asked that two four-member recount boards perform the new tally. In a memo submitted to the Sunnyvale City Clerk’s office on Dec. 12, he also asked to review other election-related materials, including vote by mail envelopes, provisional ballot envelopes, voter registration records and materials used to verify voter signatures.

“It is absolutely just about making sure every vote is properly counted and very standard in any recount,” Wang said.

Srinivasan criticized Wang’s requests to review additional materials at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters’ office, saying they went beyond the issue of whether the election was conducted fairly and completely.

Steve Goltiao, an associate communications officer with the registrar’s office, however, said Wang’s requests were not out of the ordinary and were compliant with county election code.

Despite his criticisms, Srinivasan said he doesn’t expect that the process will yield different results than the original vote count — or the automatic recount that was performed after the original vote ended with a difference of less than 25 votes.

“I always believed, and still believe, that (the registrar) does a very good job,” he said. “So far, no surprises.”