Over 2.7 Million Ballots Remain Uncounted in California

According to the California Secretary of State, there are over 2,700,000 ballots from the November 4, 2008 election yet to be counted by the counties. Those counties must report results reported to the Secretary of State by December 2, 2008.

There are over 615,000 uncounted ballots in Los Angeles County, more than 250,000 in conservative Orange County, more than 150,000 in Alameda, 29,700 in Marin, over 38,500 in San Francisco, 140,000 in Sacramento, 105,000 in San Bernardino, 225,000 in San Diego....

From the distribution of the uncounted ballots and a review of how those counties voted on various propositions, it would not appear that there would be a large enough swing to change the result of Proposition 8, the marriage equality (gay marriage) initiative. However, the voting tendencies of those who mailed in ballots in the last few days, or who dropped them off at their polling places, or who voted at the wrong polling place cannot be predicted with any specificity. In most years, absentee ballots in California trend conservative / Republican; however this year, the Democrats were pushing absentee / early voting.

It would appear that the outstanding ballots could have an impact on several local races, including the Brown / McClintock race in the 4th Congressional District, (where over 40,000 votes apparently remain to be counted - over 10,000 in Nevada County, 20,000 in Placer, 16,000 in El Durado and an unknown number in the small portion of Sacramento which is in the 4th Congressional District.)

Also impacted will be the Jackson / Strickland race for the 19th Senate District seat, (above map) where Jackson holds a narrow lead thanks to voters in Santa Barbara County; she narrowly trailed Strickland in the portions of the district falling within Ventura and Los Angeles Counties (27% of Santa Clarita.) There are about 36,750 uncounted ballots remaining in Santa Barbara County, 75,900 in Ventura County, though it is unknown what portion of those are within the 19th District (see above map, showing about half of the county, including the county seat of Ventura, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Camarillo within the district. Virtually all of Santa Barbara County, including the City of Santa Barbara, and Isla Vista, home to U.C. Santa Barbara, is in the 19th District.) With the nature of these votes, predicting the outcome of the counting with any degree of accuracy would seem to be extremely difficult.

Statewide, the results of Proposition 11, the redistricting initiative, could quite conceivably be impacted by the yet-to-be-counted ballots.

The full county-by-county list of uncounted ballots, divided into "Vote-By-Mail", "Provisionals", "Other" and a total of "Estimated Remaining, along with information on the most recent update by each county, can be found in a pdf here, courtesy California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

Related posts:

California Election Results - Propositions, Brown/McClintock (4th CD), Jackson/Strickland (19th SD) - Updated November 6, 2006 ;

Key California Congressional, State Senate, Assembly Results (as of 11/5/08);

California Election Results - Propositions (Interim, Updated) (as of 11/4/08.)

(Map: CA 19th State Senate District.)