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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Secretary of State Alex Padilla said at least 2 million votes cast in California’s presidential primary election have yet to be counted while speaking at a post election forum.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. >> Nearly 2.6 million ballots are still to be counted in California’s presidential primary election, California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Thursday.
With the 6 million ballots already counted, that would put turnout at 8.6 million, or 48 percent, if all the ballots are certified.
Although the outstanding ballots are unlikely to swing presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s win in the nation’s most populous state, down-ballot elections could be affected as counting continues.
“The final, final turnout numbers and percentage won’t be known for several days,” Padilla said at a post-election forum in Sacramento. “But overall we do know that turnout is above the 2012 levels. Maybe not quite 2008 levels, but it was good.”
Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project at UC Davis, said the numbers released Thursday indicate more voters participated than were anticipated in the days leading up the election.
“It means that you got more of the people that don’t typically vote,” Romero said, adding that, absent detailed data, “we would expect we got more young people to turn out.”
The respected Field Poll had forecast turnout of 8 million, or 44.7 percent of the state’s 17.9 million registered voters, before Tuesday’s election.
The 48 percent turnout indicated Thursday fell in-between California’s 31.1 percent turnout in the 2012 primary and the historic 57.7 percent of the 2008 primary.
“Still, that is a good year and I think that is something to feel good about,” Romero said.
The survey of unprocessed ballots at all 58 county elections offices included 616,000 outstanding ballots in the most populous county, Los Angeles.
Voter turnout is unlikely to have matched a record number of registrations for a variety of reasons, experts who study turnout said.
Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination a month before California’s primary. An Associated Press delegate count the day before the primary showed Hillary Clinton had clinched the Democratic nomination. Nonpartisan voters may have been ill-informed or confused about how to vote in the presidential race.
“For no-party-preference voters, it was honestly quite a challenge,” Padilla said.
Mitchell and Romero said the AP report likely did not have a major effect on turnout because the majority of California votes were mailed in before the news.
Padilla said it’s hard to quantify.
“It’s so hard to measure, it’s all anecdotal,” Padilla said. “It did, it didn’t, it motivated some people to turn out with extra vigor, versus it discouraged somebody else.”
The Field Poll forecast that as many as 5 million voters would cast mail-in ballots, which had to be mailed by the June 7 primary. California law allows vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by election day and received at clerks’ offices within 3 days to be counted.
“We don’t know how many ballots were postmarked on or before election day that are in the process of arriving, still in the window to be processed and counted and added to the tally,” Padilla said.
Clinton has nearly 2 million California votes to 1.5 million for Bernie Sanders so far. In the Republican primary, Trump has 1.2 million votes, or 75 percent.
There are going to be comments that suggest some anti-Trump conspiracy regarding the late vote count in California.
The commenters will not know or understand the fact that California allows mail voting with a postmark as late as Election Day.
No conspiracy. Just a state that removes barriers to voting, instead of erecting them.
Anti-Trump conspiracy? Are you for real? He ran basically unopposed.
Probably a Hillary conspiracy to give her “I won it all” claim some time to air. Regardless of what she mouths, she is so much like Trump, they could be brother and sister.
At least she restrains herself and doesn’t publicly state what she thinks of segments of the Dem factions. Remember this woman supported her husband on his failed “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, which instead of making for more tolerance, resulted in thousands being outed and kicked out of the military.
Her negative rating is just a tad shy of Trump’s. I see if she doesn’t make the concessions at convention that Bernie asks for, that regardless of what Bernie says in the interest of unity, many of his supporters, sensing the shaft will either stay home or vote for Trump. Given Hillary’s negative score, the stay-at-home and/or Hillary backlash vote may be enough to leave Hillary as a bridesmaid, but never a bride.
I know I can’t get it out of my mind that she is in bed with the people who brought us the subprime mortgage financial crash of 2008-2009, the effects of which we are just emerging from, and is willing to tell them they are not to blame for anything. And her f-bombing of the president when he said he could not call off his departments’ scrutiny of her email handling because it would be perceived as favoritism, to which the pretend-demure candidate responded with a tirade of expletives. Yeah, nice person. Both she and Trump, the same spirit motivates both.