November 22, Open Thread

the (0.00 / 0)

"American Recovery and Reinvestment Rescission Act" will not get past the Senate, In the event that It does, It will be Vetoed by President Obama, then It would need at least 2/3rds in both the House and the Senate for an override of said veto to become law, So this spoiled rotten Turkey corpse will never become law, Not on this planet. It's going to be a good long two Years, Until the repugnican reprobates can be rooted out and replaced.

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by: SuperJoker @ Tue Nov 23, 2010 at 04:30:43 AM UTC

CA-AG: Almost over (0.00 / 0)

The latest results from the official site have Kamala Harris (D) opening up her lead even more now with over 9.44 million ballots counted so far.

Harris (D)   4,340,454 (46.0%)
Cooley (R)   4,288,568 (45.5%)
Allen (Green)  249,952  (2.7%)
Hannan (Lib)   240,107  (2.5%)
Templin (AIP)  166,124  (1.7%)
Evans (P&F)    155,526  (1.6%)

That's almost a 52,000-vote lead, the largest margin it's been so far for her, I think. This latest update came just minutes after a Fox11 report had her opening her lead to about 43,000 votes, so the afternoon update padded her lead by another 8,000 or so votes.

There's still about 300,000 ballots left to be counted, but since a majority of them are from counties Harris won, it's looking highly unlikely that Cooley could overtake her now.  From Eric Garcetti's Facebook post keeping track of this, Max Kanin had this Monday night update:

According to the SOS website, Harris now leads Cooley by 51886 votes statewide. Cooley net gained 1467 votes in Madera County today (though the county has completed its count). Cooley net gained 2352 votes in Butte County (the county has completed its count). Cooley net gained 985 votes in Kern County (the county has completed its count). And Cooley gained 161 votes in Tulare County (the county has also completed its count). Harris net gained 494 votes in Santa Clara County (they've also completed their count). And Harris net gained 333 votes in Marin County (they've completed their count).

Cooley net gained 691 votes in San Diego County today (they have just 2500 ballots left to count). Harris net gained 279 in Riverside County. Harris also net gained 938 in San Francisco today.

No update from Ventura County today. I don't want to make any Ventura County predictions because the last time I did so, it turned out they weren't done counting. But I'd presume they're finished.

Now I am willing to bet $50 (and I'm not a betting man) that some high profile blogger or news outlet will report that Cooley has a great chance of overtaking Harris because far more remains left to be processed in Orange County than LA County with a sizeable chunk left to process in San Diego County. But this is not accurate at all. Orange County has finished its count. San Diego County has roughly 2500 ballots left to process.

If Kanin is right about Orange County COMPLETELY having finished EVERYTHING, then yeah, there simply aren't enough red counties for Cooley to make up enough ground to overtake Harris.

What's unclear, though, is if Cooley will actually concede when the final results must be certified on December 3rd.

BTW, we've surpassed 10 million ballots being cast overall in California (remember, not everyone who cast a ballot voted in the Attorney General race, given how much more high-profile the Governor and Senate races were).  In the 2008 presidential election, 13,575,514 Californians voted for President (plus a few others who left it blank for whatever reason), so getting over 10 million back for a midterm election is pretty nice.

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by: BruinKid @ Tue Nov 23, 2010 at 05:03:18 AM UTC

The gap is slowly getting bigger (0.00 / 0)

It's now at 53,581 votes for Harris over Cooley, The number of uncounted Ballots statewide according to the SOS website is now down to 488,030, The end is near for the Cooley threat, He should Concede, But If He wants a recount, He pays for the entire cost, So I hope He raised enough, If not too bad, so sad.

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by: SuperJoker @ Tue Nov 23, 2010 at 17:04:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Just checked (0.00 / 0)

and Orange County is now done counting. The total number of ballots left is under 400K.

My blog


Twitter

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by: cali_girl_in_texas @ Tue Nov 23, 2010 at 18:20:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's shrinking (5.00 / 1)

The outstanding ballot count statewide is now down to 322,353 with the Gap between Harris and Cooley now at 53,796 in favor of Harris, No doubt the end is near for Cooley's run for AG. Los Angeles County has some 4,950 Ballots left to be counted.

	Kamala D. Harris (Dem)	4,356,591	46.0%
 	Steve Cooley     (Rep)	4,302,795	45.5%

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by: SuperJoker @ Tue Nov 23, 2010 at 21:32:02 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The number of Uncounted ballots (5.00 / 1)

is now down to 154,806 Ballots Statewide, This Turkey might be done before Thanksgiving gets here. The Gap is now at 53,764.

Kamala D. Harris (Dem)	4,362,484	46.0%
Steve Cooley     (Rep)	4,308,720	45.5%

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by: SuperJoker @ Wed Nov 24, 2010 at 04:14:49 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Instant Runoff Voting in the Oakland Mayoral Election (0.00 / 0)

enabled a home-grown city council member to win an upset over a well-funded political heavyweight.

Jean Quan finished second (24%) in the first round of counting, but Don Perata also fell short of of a majority with 35%. In the subsequent rounds, Quan pulled ahead with second and third choice votes as the last place candidates were eliminated.

The final count was a close 51%-49%, but I call this a victory for IRV.

There was a good story on the PBS NewsHour about Oakland's "Ranked Choice Ballot", but I'd really like to see someone from Oakland (or at least the Bay Area) diary on this election.

The NewsHour story is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

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by: jjohnjj @ Tue Nov 23, 2010 at 16:41:02 PM UTC

As an Oakland voter (0.00 / 0)

who would probably only vote for Perata if forced to by some kind of ransom / hostage situation involving my family, I loved IRV.

Quan wasn't my first choice, but I didn't have to give up my first choice, and I knew that my lower-ranking vote wasn't wasted.  I think a lot of anti-Perata voters put Tuman, Kaplan and Quan in their 3 slots, knowing that their votes weren't wasted no matter how they ranked those candidates. No vote-splitting, and much less tactical voting.

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by: jsw @ Tue Nov 23, 2010 at 18:52:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]