An Estimated 1.5 Million California Presidential Primary Votes Remain to be Counted

There also are a number of “provisional ballots,” those that may have been cast in the wrong precinct, by voters who may or may not be properly registered, or where there was some doubt as to whether that voter had the right to vote. Many of these provisional ballots, upon investigation are found to be legitimate and are placed in line for processing after elections.

There also are what appears to be a cluster of “double-bubble” voters—nonpartisans who voted in Los Angeles with its unique ballot that requires these voters to fill in an extra bubble indicating they are voting in the Democratic primary, despite the fact that they were entitled to do so under California law and inked the bubble next to a Democratic candidate thus clearly indicating their intention.

If reports in the San Francisco Chronicle are accurate, about 190,000 ballots were cast by these decline-to-state voters in Los Angeles County and about only half of those voters correctly filled in the extra bubble. This would mean approximately 85,000 additional votes that should be counted and do not appear on any of the above figures and may have an impact in delegate races in that county.

Then there are those pesky ballots that were damaged, could not be machine read, or where the ballots were “diverted by optical scanners for further review” according to the Secretary of State’s office.

In many areas of the state because of the unexpected large numbers of voters, polling places ran out of ballots.

The Contra Costa Times reported there were shortages, not only in Alameda County (involving at least 14 polling places according to information I have received), but in Contra Costa County as well. They start off their article, which also discusses the difficulties in counting these ballots with some questions that hit the mark:

“Alameda County's well-publicized Election Day drama begs the question: How does an election office run out of ballots?

“Isn't that akin to an ice cream shop running out of, well, ice cream?”

They reveal that Alameda County has an estimated 30,000 provisional ballots to count in addition to the late VBM ballots and others that could not be processed. There clearly are a lot more votes coming in from Alameda County.

In many counties where ballots ran out, copies were made of ballots that will have to be specially counted by hand or formatted for machine counting.

In addition to counties such as Los Angeles that have not estimated any uncounted ballots, during the 2006 gubernatorial vote count, some of the numbers given by counties—since these are estimates—actually increased a week after the election as they got a better estimate of ballots.

Processing vote by mail ballots takes time. California law requires that the signature on the return envelope of every vote by mail ballot be verified against our signature database. Once verified, folded ballots are separated from the return envelope which is recycled. The folded ballot is opened by a different poll worker and scanned to make sure it can be read by our optical scanner. If not readable, the ballot is reviewed later by other workers who create a duplicate ballot that captures the voter intent and can be read.

Verification and processing takes days when you are dealing with thousands of ballots. Once the ballots are read, California law requires the registrar of voters to perform a manual tally on three different precincts and on each electronic machine. That process also takes several days. Once the manual tally is completed and the machine tally is confirmed, the registrar can certify the election.

Every vote counts and the results of an election are not final until the results are certified. The registrar has 28 days to certify the election.

There has been, as in the past, a good deal of analysis and even some editorials that are dead bang wrong—because they do not take into account these uncounted ballots. Take for example the editorial of the Contra Costa Times a couple of days after the election, “Disappointing Turnout,” which starts out this way:

“With California finally a major factor in both presidential primaries this year, it is disappointing that such a small number of voters participated.

"Only about 7.26 million, or 46 percent, of the state's 15.7 million registered voters cast ballots. Also, the percentage of Californians of voting age who are registered to vote is quite low. Only 67 percent of the 23 million citizens over age 18 have registered."

Wrong.

We've seen this before. We wrote in 2006, when all the votes were finally counted from the General Election in November that:

“While many folks formed their impressions of the election results the day after the election when the winners and losers of all statewide offices were known and reported, a record number of votes were counted after then and trickled in until yesterday. Some post election day accepted wisdom should give way to the reality of these final figures.”

Right after that gubernatorial election, a record low turnout was reported by much of the media and hands were wrung about what this meant for democracy. But as we also wrote later in “California Voter Turnout Was 56.2% in November--Not a Record Low and Higher Than Many Reported”:

“Despite widespread reporting that voter turnout in last month's gubernatorial election here in California was at a record low, the final figures counties have reported to the Secretary of State's office show that it was substantially higher than many had thought. At 56.2%, the turnout was nowhere near the record set in 2002 when Gray Davis ran for re-election and only 50.1% of eligible voters bothered to go to the polls. It just took a long time to count the record number of absentee ballots that arrived at county registrar of voters offices on Election Day or just before then or were dropped off at polling places.”

With huge turnouts, and increasing portions of the vote in California coming in by vote-by-mail ballots, we need to temper our enthusiasm for instant analysis a bit—and wait until all the votes are counted.

In due course, we will know a lot more about the earthquake that happened on February 5, 2008 in California. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see articles such as this one from the San Diego Union- Tribune, “Surprising vote tally in North County” that says the numbers so far may indicate the 50th Congressional District seat held by Republican Brian Billbray may be in danger of being captured by the Democrats in a surge of votes in the Fall. There are anecdotal reports of this in districts all across California. All the evidence so far, from increased youth voting, Latino voting, and the numbers of new voters in the Democratic primary bode well for Democratic victories on many races in November. Now we have to get a decent turnout for June.

More on all of this, later.