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  • 2016-06-09 (xsd:date)
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  • Uncounted California Ballots (en)
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  • On 7 June 2016, California was one of the last states to count its ballots in the final presidential primaries. (The vote was eclipsed somewhat by a pre-primary call made by the Associated Press declaring Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.) Results from California didn't begin trickling in until late on the night of 7 June 2016. As a state with both early and mail-in voting, Clinton obtained an early lead that leveled out as votes made in person were added to the tallies. As of the afternoon of 9 June 2016, Hillary Clinton had received 1,940,580 votes in California to Sanders' 1,502,043, for a total of 3,442,623 ballots counted: Shortly after California was called for Clinton in the early hours of 8 June 2016 on the East Coast, memes and rumors began circulating claiming that a large share of ballots had yet to be tallied. The rumors dovetailed with social media reports of problems at polling places, and claims that voters were forced to vote on provisional ballots due to broken machines: A 9 June 2016 Los Angeles Times brief about voting by mail indicated that more than five million votes were mailed in for the 7 June 2016 primary. A separate short update in the same paper noted that estimates for total ballots counted were live, but no information about the uncounted balance was available: A lengthy certification period is part and parcel of California's vote certification process. Counties have a month to submit finalized tallies in early July 2016, and that 30-day period is a well-publicized aspect of the process. An 8 June 2016 article from the Justice Gazette (reproduced by the unreliable web site USA Daily Politics) exacerbated the confusion by making unsupported claims that poll workers reported vote flipping in parts of the California. Those claims were peppered with language like it has been learned and estimates without citations: USA Daily Politics cited a blog post by investigative journalist Greg Palast to support its claim that a majority of provisional ballots were discarded. However, that claim was addressed and largely debunked the next day, when Dean Logan of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk addressed fears of uncounted provisional ballots on Twitter and stated that most would probably be deemed valid and added to totals: Logan fielded questions about percentages reported in the media, and attempted to clear up confusion about votes tallied versus votes outstanding: It is possible (though not certain) that the gap between Sanders and Clinton might narrow further as more votes were certified, but California's lengthy post-election process is neither fraudulent nor secretive. Mainstream news outlets and county officials frequently and regularly interact with concerned citizens, and invite them to observe the certification process. On 14 June 2015, the state of California release a per-county estimate of then-uncounted ballots; the total for all counties in the state was just under two million [PDF]. Logan continued actively addressing questions as the certification process continued: The complete tally of uncounted ballots to date can be found here. (en)
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