We Don’t Know How Many California Votes Are Not Yet Counted—But They Are in the Millions and Could Affect Close Proposition and Candidate Races

Prop 11 Victory Celebration May Be Premature

By Frank D. Russo

I’ve read one too many headlines and articles that don’t match the other—or the reality of the fuzziness of the election returns on the close races we have had in California—and there have been a number of them. Many of us assume that numbers are “hard” facts—almost scientific—that can be taken to the bank. There may be some surprises ahead for those who think that candidates and causes they care about have either won or lost. It isn’t over until December 2, when election results are certified by the Secretary of State.

There are stories that started appearing in the press and on the internet yesterday and that you’ll find today stating that there are either 1.6 million uncounted votes in California or that there are as many as 3 million uncounted. In point of fact, the figures that will soon be placed on the Secretary of State’s Unprocessed Ballot Status page are estimates--based on information provided by the 58 clerks and voter registrar’s offices in each of our state’s counties. In some cases, if past elections are a guide, the numbers will be horribly incomplete. In others, they will be accurate estimates or “WAG’s” (Wild-A.. Guesses).

And to understand how and why these may affect the final election numbers, you have to know where these votes are coming from, which candidates or campaigns had a more aggressive vote by mail campaign, that provisional ballots tend to skew towards Democrats but many are tossed out because they are or may be invalid, and that vote by mail ballots mailed or handed in near election day tend to reflect more the day of election decisions made by voters at the polls than they reflect whatever trends there were in the other VBM ballots where decisions were made earlier. And there are exceptions to just about all these rules of thumb. There is an art, perhaps more than a science, in reading the tea leaves here.

Hannah-Beth Jackson with a 108 vote lead does not “appear to have won a narrow victory” in the 19th Senate District of California as some headlines have suggested. There are tens of thousands of provisional ballots and vote by mail ballots that arrived in the mail the day of the election or were dropped off at the polls that are going to take time to tally—perhaps weeks. I wish I could say she has won, she’s a friend of mine. We’ll see whether her “lead” grows, shrinks, or is reversed when these votes are counted.

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