Races Too Close to Call: California A.G. and Alaska Senate
Today Kamala Harris declared victory in the race for California Attorney General, a race in which my boss Steve Cooley declared victory last night. Which one of them is right remains unclear, and may remain that way for days or even weeks:
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, the Republican hopeful was trailing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by 14,838 votes. With thousands of provisional or questioned ballots still left to be counted across the state, the race was literally too close to call.
. . . .
Kevin Spillane, senior consultant for Cooley’s campaign, said there’s a long way to go before any conclusions can be drawn. He noted Cooley is trailing by just two-tenths of a percentage point.
“There are over 1 million provisional and absentee ballots yet to be counted,” Spillane said. “The race for attorney general will not be decided for at least another couple of weeks and potentially could go until the official certification-of-vote deadline on December 3.
Meanwhile, we have another nail-biter in Alaska, where the counting of write-in ballots begins next week. The Lieutenant Governor claims that write-in votes for Miller won’t count, to which Allahpundit responds:
With all the talk of write-ins up there, there may well be a chunk of Miller voters who went into the booth thinking that writing someone in was the only option. I can’t wait to see how Alaska’s going to justify tossing out otherwise valid ballots bearing his name when the legal standard in the state is to follow the intent of the voter. Whether he’s on a preapproved list or not shouldn’t matter; in fact, I’ve had friends in New York write in “Allahpundit” as a gag and it ended up in the official returns. Intent is what counts, not some list.
Intent must be clear to govern, in my opinion — but if intent is the standard of the state, intent is what must control. We’ll have none of this ad hoc crap like they tried to pull in Florida in 2000, or there will be hell to pay.
I’ve been trying to find out how many uncounted ballots (late absentees and provisionals) we have in California, but the unprocessed ballot webpage is returning no information at all.
My instincts are that late absentees + provisionals skew left of the electorate at large, and so Harris will end up winning. But it’s premature for either side to claim victory, and we should wait for the votes to be counted.
[Disclaimer: I voted for Cooley].
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:04 pmIf intent of the voter is the standard, any ballot in which someone has written in the name of a candidate on the ballot in a normal ballot position, that write-in should be counted. The intent is clear, even if the strict rules aren’t followed.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:05 pmIt would be wild if some of the people registering as write in candidates had names that were twists on Murkowski… such as other Lisas, Lisa Ms and so on… hard to see how the Alaska vote counters could ever assign those votes.
steve (116925) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:07 pmHow is it that the attorney general race is so close?
Steve Cooley should have carried L.A. County by a wide margin. Plus, Kamala Harris based her campaign on protecting the environment, something voters usually do not associate with this office.
Michael Ejercito (249c90) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:15 pmSteve, some of them do – I know there’s a Lisa M, for example. A radio talk show host encouraged his listeners to do just what you’re suggesting, and a number of them did.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:16 pmMichael: every other statewide Democratic party candidate won by 9.5% or more. So I think there was a lot of straight-ticket voting … which carried over to Harris.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:17 pmAlso, something like 500K fewer people voted on the AG race than did in Prop 19, which indicates that a fair number of people weren’t paying attention to the race at all.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:18 pmand if you check the numbers, Cooley got more total votes than any other Republican. He just couldn’t make up the general deficit.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:20 pmSFGate mentions that Harris focused on less typical issues including shrinking the state’s recidivism rate and tackling school truancy.
I can easily see where a state that voted Jerry Brown back in as governor would go for her.
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:20 pmDana, the joke that’s going around on the left today (quite true) is that legalizing pot got more votes than any Republican in California, yesterday.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:24 pmAphrael,
There are also THOUSANDS of write in’s on absentee ballots – Murkowski’s campaign requested tens of thousands
So once those are counted – I think Miller will concede – if the ratio’s I’m hearing are correct – on these absentee ballots then – she may be over the 45% threshold
If they are already counted then – her vote is pretty firm at 41%
A note for anyone running for office – if an outside group comes into your backwater state and props up a semi fictious person into a lege candidate and surprizes a political dynasty in a primary –
ITS A REAL REAL REAL REAL good idea that you dont call her a whore on tweeter
– just a thought
EricPWJohnson (58f987) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:30 pmAnd face it – Miller got his butt kicked – but good…
EricPWJohnson (58f987) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:31 pmThat’s not what an attorney general is for, it’s to faithfully enforce the laws, I know that wasn’t true under Lockyer or Brown,
The fellow who came up with the write in overflow, is a staunch Miller supporter, I hate the Anchorage News with a passion, misrepresenting things 24/7, it’s McClatchy after all,
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:32 pmEric: I couldn’t care less about the outcome in Alaska. I do care about the process, however.
“Intent of the voter” only works if there’s a broad bipartisan agreement on how to interpret intent. I think this one – that write-in votes for Miller should count even though he’s not a declared write-in candidate – is obvious.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:33 pmEPWJ is his typical bombastic blowhard, defending the likes of Scozzfava and this sore loser and Castle and well, you get the idea.
Kamala seems to be not all that great of a potential AG.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:43 pmSometimes aphrael, you really surprise me with your naivete, you think this is about observing rules, the Court has made it manifestly clear it has no care about the law
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:44 pmIan: I expect people charged with enforcing the law to do their job, until each individual demonstrates that they don’t; I no more want to prejudge politicians or judges negatively as a class than I want to prejudge any other group of people whom I have insufficient personal experience with to be able to draw experience-based judgments.
I’m not a saint, so I fail at this more often than I want to admit.
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 7:53 pmIf the ethics code hadn’t been used as a weapon, if confidential personnel records hadn’t been released
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/3/2010 @ 8:00 pmby order of a judge with a clear conflict of interest, if the law hadn’t been rewritten on the sly for partisan reasons, if someone can be convicted and removed from office, on phony representation, then I would agree with you
Ian: i’m utterly unfamiliar with Alaska politics. Do you have a link for any of those claims?
aphrael (8883ae) — 11/3/2010 @ 8:02 pmThank you teabaggers for giving us candidates so extreme and stupid that we were able to retain Senate control. Without your help, we couldn’t have done it.
I hear the house is going to make science denial a priority.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 3:22 amw,
You’re welcome. Have a nice day.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:41 amMD – I suspect what yelverton claims to be science, and what is actually science, are 2 concepts not even remotely related to each other.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:46 amw-
Kevin M (73dcc9) — 11/4/2010 @ 2:57 pmMany tea partiers view “teabagger” as coming from the same hating bigoted place that “spi*” and “ni**er” come from. But then you know that, and know that hiding behind a pseudonym makes it safe to do.
BTW, is there a Right to a secret ballot? If so, I would think that a write-in for Miller (or the Dem) must be counted. Given the plurality of voters choosing the write-in option, might a voter feel that NOT asking for the write-in ballot mean that his vote was obvious? So he writes in Joe Miller to keep them guessing.
Kevin M (73dcc9) — 11/4/2010 @ 3:02 pmWell said.
And indeed, this is exactly right. People spit that out with hate, hoping to show how ugly and dehumanized they see others.
I disagree with w’s view that the democrats would hate lost the Senate except for the Tea Party’s birth. But that is quite a dire view for Team D.
Loquacious D (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 3:26 pmActually, I recall seeing Miller’s name on the list of official write-ins.
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/ci_pg_cl_2010_genr.php
The Departed (d027b8) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:33 pmDeparted, according to your link, Miller is a candidate but not a write-in.
They have a special ‘write in’ note for those candidates, and Miller didn’t have one.
What an outrage, though.
Loquacious D (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:47 pmAs of tonight, there are 1.4 million late absentees and 450K provisionals, says the secretary of state.
It’s gonna take forever for the AG race to be determined.
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