Sanders edging closer to Clinton in slow California vote count

[J_J_]

More than two weeks after the election, state reports show that there are still 605,000 uncounted ballots in the state, and there’s little the state can do to hurry the count along.

But the delayed count can have consequences, even if the final result doesn’t change, said Ben Tulchin, lead pollster for the Sanders campaign.

While Tulchin says there’s no question Clinton won the California primary, he believes the slow ballot count still hurt Sanders.

“The election night results showed Clinton winning by 12 to 15 percentage points,” he said. “Those numbers became the national narrative,” even though the final margin may be half that.

Ensuring accurate count

Tulchin, who works from San Francisco, is no stranger to vote counting in California, but months of tracking primaries for the Sanders campaign have given him a new perspective.

“When you see how (vote counting) is done in 49 other states, you have to ask why (California’s delays) should be normal,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”

http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Sanders-edging-closer-to-Clinton-in-slow-8322387.php?t=dfd33e5d077d4f3860&cmpid=twitter-premium

[pkdu]

1. Sad. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. not really

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/president/party/democratic/

[Renew Deal]

3. Tulchin would have preferred a process where fewer people voted

[beachbumbob]

4. It's over.....

The final count minutes or months later made no difference..

[still_one]

5. It is delayed because some folks didn't want to REGISTER AS DEMOCRATS, but instead choose to

AS NPP, (No Party Preference), because for one reason or another, they did not want to be officially registered as a Democrat.

If those who registered as NPP, did not request a Democratic ballot properly, or it was not available, then they were given a provisional ballot. Contrary to some of the MISINFORMATION spread on the INTERNETS, California counts ALL ballots, including provisional ones.

California has had this current voting system in place for more than a decade.

All the information was readily available to any REGISTERED voter. Not only through a voter pamphlet sent to every REGISTERED voter, but also at the California SOS website, and major newspapers.

[KMOD]

6. This is so strange.

Is it about saving face somehow? Instead of losing by 13% he can say he only lost by 9%? What purpose does this serve?

[villager]

28. What "purpose" does counting all the votes serve? Seriously? nt

[KMOD]

29. I was referring to this

While Tulchin says there’s no question Clinton won the California primary, he believes the slow ballot count still hurt Sanders.

“The election night results showed Clinton winning by 12 to 15 percentage points,” he said. “Those numbers became the national narrative,” even though the final margin may be half that.

[villager]

31. Fair enough, since we agree on the need to count all ballots, in every election

Yet if my California had been speedier in the vote counting -- like the way those Brits counted a whole country's worth of paper ballots in a night! -- there is a point about how the impression/interpretation might be different...

[HarmonyRockets]

35. At this point it serves absolutely no purpose.

[HarmonyRockets]

40. What is the purpose then?

[villager]

44. What "purpose" has there ever been to counting *your* vote, then?

[HarmonyRockets]

47. To find the winner of an election?

[villager]

48. Except, according to you, after a certain point, your vote doesn't need to be counted at all.

Please proceed, and volunteer to have your own vote among the uncounted.

[HarmonyRockets]

49. If we already have an outcome

then it wouldn't be necessary, would it?

[villager]

50. Well, you are in great company with Josef Stalin and Antonin Scalia, that's for sure.

They absolutely share your views on vote counting, how certain votes count more (the way you view yours, for example) than others, etc.

[HarmonyRockets]

53. What you are saying is utterly incoherent.

I'm not sure if you're trolling or if this is actually making sense somehow in your head.

[Retrograde]

46. There are still some close races

like, who gets to lose to Nancy Pelosi in November. California voted on more than potential presidential candidates earlier this month: we also had primaries for state, federal and local offices on the ballot, as well as state and (in some cases) local propositions.

[LongtimeAZDem]

7. Sanders needs 86% of all remaining ballots to win California, but even if he gets 100%

Clinton already has almost three times the votes she needs there to win the pledged majority.

If the counting trend continues, Clinton will win CA 53% to 45%, which is what FiveThirtyEight estimated before the primary.

And, this is already an active topic:

Sanders edging closer to Clinton in slow California vote count

[LiberalFighter]

56. Someone from California election office stated that about 85% of provisionals get counted.

The other 15% don't qualify. Use 85% of current provisional ballots and add to remaining mail ballots then deduct about 20% for ballots for other primaries over 100% would be needed.

[CrowCityDem]

8. It's changing the narrative.... oh wait, no it's not.

[fleabiscuit]

62. LOL

[jcgoldie]

11. I dont understand

How did it hurt Sanders? What difference does it make if it was 12-15% or half of that?

[stonecutter357]

12. " this posts has been hidden by a DU Jury"

[MattP]

13. People bitching that Ca counts every vote should just stop

It's a state with 40 million people that actually counts every vote and is doing the opposite of Kansas in almost every way better right and slow than fast and wrong

[COLGATE4]

14. OMFG. Not this shit again. nt

[onenote]

15. It's already over mathematically

As of the weekend, Sanders trailed by 428,575 with 605,824 ballots unprocessed. That means Sanders would have to win over 85 percent of the unprocessed votes to catch Clinton.

But that assumes all of the unprocessed ballots were cast in the Democratic presidential primary. However, as of the weekend, of the 8 million plus ballots processed, only around 60 percent had been cast in the Democratic presidential primary. If only 60 percent of the remaining unprocessed ballots were cast in the Democratic presidential primary, it means that Sanders is 428,575 votes behind with only 365,251 Democratic presidential primary ballots left. If every one of those ballots was a Sanders vote, he'd still be tens of thousand of votes behind.

But let's imagine that the percentage of unprocessed ballots cast in the Democratic presidential primary is 75 percent, not 60 (even though there is no particular reason to think that's the case). Then it would be possible for Sanders to catch Clinton -- if he got 97.7% of the unprocessed Democratic presidential primary votes.

It's over. Really.

[MariaThinks]

22. There is still the Sanders math.

[fleabiscuit]

63. Kinda like String Theory versus Loop Quantum Gravity.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. 429,000 votes

[MohRokTah]

17. Why are we stilll fighting a primary that is over?

Why continue fighting the primaries?

[msongs]

19. lots of people running around DU flagging posts these days...the reason? keep hope alive n t

[LongtimeAZDem]

20. Yeah, I honestly don't understand the rules on this (nt)

[99th_Monkey]

25. No one is contesting that Hillary won CA <--this would be 'fighting the primary all over again'

DU's 'new rules' do not forbid examining how the CA election's vote counting is going
and why the fuck it took the state weeks to count its votes.

The integrity of our elections is the issue here, not who won CA.

[Lord Magus]

34. The tone & headline of the article give the IMPRESSION of fight the primary over again.

That's where the objections are coming from.

[99th_Monkey]

42. The tone is in the ear of the beholder. n/t

[Lil Missy]

18. Spoiler Alert: Bernie Lost

[Surya Gayatri]

23. Good one! Thread win!

[Vogon_Glory]

27. Nice one!

[cosmicone]

21. California's outcome is irrelevant n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

30. How elections are run and reported is never irrelevant.

This shouldn't be framed as if it only matters who won.

[HarmonyRockets]

37. Who won is the only thing that matters.

That's the whole point of an election.

[Tom Rinaldo]

39. In one way yes.

By that criteria I hear that Putin is on quite a roll.

[HarmonyRockets]

41. How is that comparable?

I'll go ahead and wait for an explanation before alerting.

[Tom Rinaldo]

43. I doesn't have to be comparable (and no it's not)

However I do not agree that the only thing that matter is who wins, which is the assertion I replied to. Every facet of how our our democracy stages elections matters. Uneven playing fields for example matter also, which is an argument for public funding of elections. News black outs matter. Verifiable return matter. Not having burdensome obstacles to registering matters, etc. etc.

I think it is reasonable for us to discuss how the entire election process is America is staged in addition to and aside from who wins and loses. Which is the point I was making.

[NurseJackie]

24. Don't keep fighting the last Democratic presidential primary.

[floriduck]

33. Okay, let's start fighting about the 2020 primaries instead. (just kidding, sort of)

[redstatebluegirl]

26. Give it up, it is over, it is time to go after Trump.

The more you beat this horse, the more it hurts Senator Sanders in his negotiations with the DNC over the convention. I don't see him having a big role at this point. He, and you, need to accept a very well fought campaign defeat.

[LanternWaste]

32. To your credit, you didn't cite a guy with a bullhorn as your source.

To your credit, you didn't cite a guy with a bullhorn as your source.

[randome]

64. What do you have against bullhorns???

[lamp_shade]

36. Oh my...

[Beacool]

45. Still harping on CA????

Yes, they need to fix their mess. It shouldn't take this long to have a final count, but the results in CA were irrelevant this year because by the time they voted Hillary had already achieved a large pledged delegate advantage. Whether she won or lost the state, she would still be the presumptive nominee.

[Agnosticsherbet]

51. Link to the total count as of today. Clinton 2,633,209 53.9% Sanders 2,205,218 45.2%

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/president/party/democratic/

[Her Sister]

69. New Total count: Clinton 2,664,312-53.8% ~ Sanders 2,246,936 -45.3% ~ Difference is 417,376

Last edited Tue Jun 28, 2016, 08:44 AM - Edit history (4)

reporting as of June 27, 2016, 9:21 p.m.


State wide Uncounted: 586,872 As of 6/27/2016 5:02 p.m

Unprocessed Ballots: http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statewide-elections/2016-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf
and http://vote.sos.ca.gov/unprocessed-ballots-status/


Count reporting as of June 27, 2016: http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/president/party/democratic/ and

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10RF1oGXLOMSnn3aW_rLgpnZM4wrEsCPDmvf35LjjjaA/edit#gid=0


Just an Update.

HRC #45

[peace13]

52. Thank you for the update. It is clear from the numbers that this race has been a close one.

Interesting to see the comments above. Looking at our last election President Obama gave Hillary a position of power and esteem that left her in the action that she was looking for. She came out of it equal or better after her presidential loss. Senator Sander's is a grub on the boot of the process to many in the press and Clinton camp. It would be nice to be able to mention the man's name around here without the usual rude and unnecessary comments. It is very disheartening!

[MaggieD]

58. It really wasn't that close of a race

And I would feel fine about Bernie if he would start campaigning against Trump instead of continuing his barbs against the Democratic party. That said, at this point I don't think what he does or doesn't do is going to change much of anything about the convention or the GE.

[peace13]

59. Ya know...we have heard this hundreds of time out here.

Perception is 100 % of everything. Let...it...go! Don't poke, let other people have a conversation. You knew when you opened this OP that there was nothing here for you! People have a right to comment on actual news related items even if you think they don't!

[MaggieD]

60. If it makes you feel better go for it

However, I have a bias toward factual information. That's just how I roll.

[peace13]

68. ...

[Her Sister]

70. Same bias as you!

[frazzled]

66. 8.7 point margin is NOT a close race

And the overall national primary race is even less close. Clinton and Obama was a close race in 2008. 48 to 48 %. This one is one of the lesser close races in a while.

[fleabiscuit]

67. The 'majority' of people like to live on 'two-way-street' as well. eom

[MaggieD]

57. Still rehashing this?

Why?

[NurseJackie]

65. Testing the limits? Boredom? (It's all pretty silly, in my opinion.)

[MyNameGoesHere]

61. I predict in about 8 years or so ??????? might catch up