Saturday Afternoon update: Harris now leads by 14,043 votes.
SOURCE: CA - Secretary of State
Kamala D. Harris (DEM) 4,083,742
Steve Cooley (REP) 4,069,699
LA TIMES(11/13/10): Harris takes slim lead over Cooley in attorney general race
Harris, the Democratic candidate, was buoyed by updated vote counts from several counties where she had outpolled Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, the Republican, on election day, including Los Angeles, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa Clara.
[snip]
Both campaigns said the lead would probably trade hands in future days as more votes are counted across the state.
What is most imperative now, is transparency of the counting process.
A detailed analysis of the race, by Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles City Council President, along with projections from Swingstateproject.com below.
by ArthurPoet]:
NOTE: Explanation of the lengthy process to count the remaining ballots, which consist of:
(A) Mail-in Ballots (mailed)
(B) Mail-in Ballots (handed in at voting booths)
(C) Provisional Ballots (filled out at voting booths)
Counting is afar more laborious than one might realize, because each ballot has to be:
- reviewed for correctness,
- sorted, (a) by precinct, then (b) by name,
- cross-referenced to each respective precinct's list of names to ensure that someone has not already vote,
- last, but not least, then it must be counted.
Unfortunately, this a necessarily painstakingly tediously slow and ERROR-PRONE process. In the database world, this is called: SORT MERGE PURGE.
It ain't so easy, and it ain't quick. And with 2 million outstanding ballots (as was reported by LA-Times on Saturday) this could take some time, assuming they are doing it correctly, which we must ensure they are.
LA TIMES (continued):
The state's final vote tally is not likely to be known until near the end of the month, when counties are required by law to certify their counts.
After election night, more than 2.3 million ballots still needed to be counted statewide. Since Nov. 3, armies of county workers have whittled that number to about 900,000, counting most of the mail-in ballots that arrived too late to be tallied on election day. The majority of the remaining votes — about 500,000 statewide — are so-called provisional ballots, which are given to voters when polling places do not have a record of their registration, often because a voter has moved since registering.
Detailed analysis of the race:
by Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles City Council President
FRI EVE UPDATE: Sorry for the radio silence--day job and all :) So, it was a very exciting couple of days with Cooley's lead cut to under 10,000, then jumping up to almost 20,000, then Harris taking a lead again in the late Friday ballots (remember that LA County is doing late Friday and Tuesday updates). Harris now leads by 5,576 votes (UPDATE: 3609 votes). So here is the quick and dirty of what is left:
- There are an estimated 900,000 votes left, so don't get too excited yet.
- Of these votes, the biggest chunk is in Los Angeles County--209,000
- The next two biggest chunks are in San Diego (72,000) and Orange County (54,000). Combined these are 126,000.
- The other Cooley-leaning counties that still have at least 10,000 votes outstanding are: Kern, Fresno, Riverside, San Bernadino, San Joaquin (a smaller Cooley margin), Butte, and Ventura (also a smaller Cooley margin). These add up to a total of 172,886 more votes (combine with San Diego and Orange and you have about 299,000 votes in pro-Cooley counties)
- The other Harris-leaning counties with about 10,000 or above votes outstanding are: Yolo, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Napa, Monterey, Mendocino, Marin, Humboldt, Contra Costa, and Alameda. Together, they have about 302,539 votes left, which together with Los Angeles means there are about 512,000 votes in pro-Harris counties.
- The remaining votes are scattered in smaller amounts, some in pro-Harris counties and some in pro-Cooley counties.
- I expect the remaining votes to break in Harris' favor by about 25,000 votes if they reflect the percentages in these counties on the day after Election Day. But since there is ample reason to believe that the remaining votes (late VBMs and provisionals) will break a few percentage points more in Harris' favor, she could pick up an additional 2-5% of this vote, giving her another 4-10,000 votes. This would leave Harris with a win of about 40-45,000 votes in the end.
In conclusion, things are looking very good for the Harris camp.
SAT AM: From the LA Times last night: "Updated numbers from several counties put Harris ahead by 3,609 votes.]
Harris, the Democratic candidate, was buoyed by updated vote counts from several counties where she had outpolled Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, the Republican, on election day, including Los Angeles, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa Clara.
As of 6:30 p.m. Friday, Harris had 4,117,728 votes compared to 4,117,425 for Cooley, according to a Times review of website updates by all 58 counties.
[Updated at 8:25 p.m.: The numbers give Harris 4,131,847 votes to Cooley's 4,128,238.]
The secretary of state reported late Friday that Harris was leading by about 5,500 votes, but its count lagged more than 150,000 votes behind the most recent figures provided by each county."
SAT PM: Thanks again Max Kanin for an update on today (from my comments section on this note--"Most counties were not counting (or not updating) today but a few counties did update their numbers. Cooley net gained 2189 votes in Orange County today. Though going by the LA Times numbers, Harris would still lead statewide by 1420 votes. The good news is that Orange County is nearly done processing ballots. They estimate 11,089 left overall to process including:175 Regular Vote By Mail ballots4665 Regular Vote By Mail ballots returned at polling precincts6,198 Provisional ballots51 Paper Election Day ballots
Cooley was able to regain the lead last week largely on the strength of Orange County reporting its Vote By Mail ballots. But this week, the number of gains has dropped to a mere trickle. Harris has retaken the lead and there's not that much left to count.
Also, Harris gained 351 votes in San Francisco today. Cooley gained 77 votes in Ventura County today.
Most counties were not counting (or not updating) today but a few counties did update their numbers. Cooley net gained 2189 votes in Orange County today. Though going by the LA Times numbers, Harris would still lead statewide by 1420 votes. The good news is that Orange County is nearly done processing ballots. They estimate 11,089 left overall to process including:175 Regular Vote By Mail ballots4665 Regular Vote By Mail ballots returned at polling precincts6,198 Provisional ballots51 Paper Election Day ballots Cooley was able to regain the lead last week largely on the strength of Orange County reporting its Vote By Mail ballots. But this week, the number of gains has dropped to a mere trickle. Harris has retaken the lead and there's not that much left to count. Also, Harris gained 351 votes in San Francisco today. Cooley gained 77 votes in Ventura County today."
Eric Garcetti
Los Angeles City Council President
District: 13th Council District
From: Swingstateproject.com
Note: Follow the link for a detailed county-by-county projections.
CA-AG: Things Looking EVEN Better for Kamala Harris
by: jeffmd
Sat Nov 13, 2010 at 11:27 PM EST
I was pessimistic last time about Kamala Harris' chances, but daman09's excellent analysis inspired me to do another county-by-county canvass of results with new projections. And as the title would give it away, things are looking MUCH better for Kamala.
Going county-by-county for the most recent updates, Harris now leads by 4,565 votes, 4,141,477 to Cooley's 4,137,212.
While the SoS estimates 898,458 votes left to process, I estimate about 636,669, using the most recent estimates from individual counties when available and adjustments to the UBR counts where appropriate.
In the counties left standing, I'm conservatively estimating Harris' weighted performance to be 46.08% to Cooley's 45.14%, which should be good for another 5,993 votes. Perhaps most significantly, Harris is performing better in the Abs/Prov/VBMs that have been added. Based on her performance as of our November 8th county-by-county canvass and and the origin of the 1,042,711 tabulated since then, we would have expected Kamala to outperform Couoley by 0.84%, for a margin of 8,707. But instead, she's actually outperformed Cooley by 2.28%, improving her margin by 23,754.
And, for just one example of why this matters:
Cooley retaliated against prosecutors for their union work, hearing officer says
Decision says the D.A. waged a 'deliberate and thinly disguised campaign' aimed at destroying the Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley waged an illegal anti-union campaign in which he and his staff harassed and unfairly disciplined union officers, a county hearing officer has decided in a labor dispute.
In a sharply worded decision issued Wednesday, Thomas S. Kerrigan found that veteran prosecutors with outstanding evaluations were transferred to less desirable assignments in retaliation for their union work.
* * * * * A request from the Kamala Harris Campaign * * * * *
Dear friends,
We all remember the first few hours after the polls closed last Tuesday night. Because the first ballots counted were from heavily Republican counties, Steve Cooley opened an 8-point lead that led Cooley to declare himself the victor, yet by Wednesday morning Kamala Harris was ahead.
Even after every precinct in the state reported its vote tallies last week, more than two million additional ballots remained uncounted, and now we are working to ensure that the process goes smoothly and fairly. However, this is a significant new cost that we need to cover. Can you help us make sure the votes are counted fairly by contributing $25 today?
Sincerely,
Brian Brokaw
Campaign Manager
