Last week, I diaried about the California Attorney General's Race, which has been a closely run affair and one that has see-sawed back and forth.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Last week, various media types were predicting doom and gloom when Democrat Kamala Harris fell about 51,000 votes behind Republican Steve Cooley. For those who have not been following this race, Cooley is the "Law and Order", gay bashing, corrupt Los Angeles County DA who was heavily favored in this race. Kamala Harris is the liberal San Francisco DA who ran a campaign on environmental protection, fighting recidivism, reforming prisons, and prosecuting parents for their kids's truancy. If she were to prevail, Harris would become the first female African American Attorney General in U.S. history (also the first Indian-American Attorney General, her mom is from Tamil Nadu in India).
The current numbers in the race:
Kamala Harris: 4,189,949 46%
Steve Cooley: 4,160,211 45.6%
So the big question has been, what's left to count in the race? That's not entirely clear because the California Secretary of State's website often lags behind what the various county registrars have finished counting statewide and does not always have the most recent numbers. There are three basic types of ballots left to count: (1) Vote By Mail Ballots, (2) Provisional Ballots, and (3) "Other" Ballots.
To clear up some discrepancies, Permanent Vote By Mail Ballots are almost always counted first and counted on election night. The remaining Vote By Mail votes are those that were either dropped off on election day or arrived late compared to other Vote By Mail ballots. Roughly 80% to 85% of all Provisional ballots in California are in fact counted. And "Other Ballots" are defined as including "(1) ballots that are damaged or ballots that could not be machine read and need to be remade, and (2) ballots diverted by optical scanners for further review." We can break down what's left to count in the following ways.
The following counties have finished counting all their remaining ballots:
Alpine County
Colusa County
Glenn County
Inyo County
Kings County
Lassen County
Modoc County
Mono County
Plumas County
Sierra County
Siskiyou County
Trinity County
Of the remaining 46 counties, the following have completed counting all of their Vote By Mail ballots:
Mariposa County
Merced County
Nevada County
Merced County
Orange County
Placer County
Riverside County
Sacramento County
San Benito County
San Bernardino County
Santa Cruz County
Shasta County
Tulare County
Tuolumne County
Yolo County
The following counties have no more than 2000 Vote By Mail ballots to count. Many may actually be done but simply have not fully updated yet. I want to stress that these are the most updated numbers given by the SOS's website and a great deal of counties are already done. This may mean that there are far fewer ballots left to count than exist. In some cases, I've updated when county websites give their own up to date counts of remaining ballots. Nevertheless, I'm going with the information available to the public (I've placed the number outstanding in parenthesis):
Amador County (1457)
Fresno County (2000)
San Luis Obispo County (366)
Santa Barbara County (500)
Santa Clara County (100)
Solano County (100)
Stanislaus County (1100)
Tehama County (1898)
Ventura County (1999)
Yuba County (62)
Finally, there are some counties where no updates have been given since election day and it's anyone's guess as to how Harris and Cooley are doing:
Sonoma County
Napa County
Humboldt County
Lake County
Mendocino County
Madera County (voted for Cooley)
Important updated statistic on what remains to count:
Cooley was largely able to take a lead last week primarily on the large counties in Southern California quickly counting their Vote By Mail ballots before other counties were able to do so, particularly Orange County. What's left to count in Cooley's great stronghold of Orange County? Just 1,589 ballots (including 98 Provisional ballots and 1500 Vote By Mail ballots that were dropped off at Election Day precincts....Orange County counts these separately). San Diego County reports having approximately 35,000 ballots left to process (they are far less precise in what remains to be counted down there).
Things are looking very good for Harris right now(she gained some massive boosts out of Alameda County this week and last as well as a big boost out of LA County today) but given that I am no mathematical expert, I am going to hold off on making any projections. Hopefully, this vote count will finish up next week and Harris will be the winner.