Could uncounted ballots affect Prop. 8?

Could the vote on Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban, turn around when all the uncounted ballots are tallied? Almost certainly not. Here’s why:

Roughly 2.7 million ballots from Tuesday’s election remained to be counted statewide as of late Friday, according to the California secretary of State’s office.

The estimate comes from reports filed by each of the state’s 58 county registrars, who have until early December to complete the count and publish the final, official results.

The complete, county-by-county list is available on the secretary of State’s website. Earlier this week, Times reporters contacted the state’s largest counties and reported that at least 1.7 million ballots remained outstanding. Since then, several of the counties, including Los Angeles, have increased their estimates. L.A. officials reported to the secretary of State that they had more than 615,000 ballots yet to count.

Where do all those ballots come from and why does counting them take so long?

Statewide, about 1.9 million were mail-in ballots that were received too late to be counted on Tuesday. Those ballots can be processed relatively quickly.

But another 728,000 were provisional ballots, votes generally cast by people whose names do not show up on their precincts’ registration lists. Those ballots need to be processed by hand, with officials checking to see if the person who voted was entitled to do so. Then there are another group of at least 146,000 ballots that were damaged or for some other reason could not be read by optical scanners. Those also have to be handled individually.

With all those ballots outstanding, how can news organizations, including The Times, be confident about calling the results of elections? The answer is a matter of odds.

Take Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriages, as an example. As of this morning, the secretary of State reports 5,661,583 votes in favor and 5,154,457 opposed, for a margin of just more than half a million votes. In order to reverse that result, opponents of the measure would have to win just over 59% of the uncounted ballots. So far, however, opponents have won 47.6% of the vote. The odds are strongly against the uncounted ballots being so dramatically different from the counted ones.

By comparison, Proposition 11, the redistricting initiative backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a 133,952 margin of victory so far. Opponents would have to win about 52% of the remaining vote to turn around the result -- still a very high hurdle, but perhaps achievable. For that reason, The Times has not declared a winner in that race.

Some other races are far closer. The tightest locally is the fight over development of the Beverly Hilton property in Beverly Hills. As of the latest report by the LA. .County Registrar of voters, the city’s Measure H is losing by nine votes out of 13,577 counted.

Elsewhere in the state, the congressional race between Democrat Charlie Brown and Republican Tom McClintock and the state Senate race between Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson and Republican Tony Strickland both remain very close. McClintock and Jackson are each leading their races by less than half a percentage point. The secretary of State updates the closest races on its website.

Overall, about 14 million people are estimated to have voted in this year’s election -- the final number won’t be known until officials have determined how many of those provisional ballots are valid. That works out to about a 63% turnout of the state’s voter-eligible population, which is not quite an all-time record, but appears to be close.

Nationally, according to Professor Michael McDonald of George Mason University in Virginia, the turnout is estimated to be about 61%, also near a record. Turnout was high in most states except solidly Republican ones, including Texas, Utah, Arkansas and Tennessee, where relatively weak turnouts suggest a significant number of John McCain supporters decided to stay home.

-- David Lauter

Comments

[Sam]

The LA times is sheltering the gay community from public opinion and has been for months. The gay culture that is so proud of its sadomasochistic roots with its street fairs is NOT a civil rights movement. There are gay blacks too. What makes you think a black father and a black mother with small children consider a man who does an impression of a female and expresses his sexuality with sodomy as a role model for their kids? Whites don't see a difference. They lump blacks in with everybody else. But you think CONDUCT is the same as appearance? Shame on you LA Times.

[Jonathan]

Once all the votes are counted, the Prop 8 result may be MUCH closer than announced so far. This has important PR implications for both sides. "The odds are strongly against the uncounted ballots being so dramatically different from the counted ones." -- not necessarily -- the uncounted votes are in urban areas which may be less bigoted than the rural bible belts. LA County has the largest number of uncounted votes, maybe 'No on 8' will gain a few percent. Generally, the media should not use the highly deceptive phrase "100% precincts reporting" when 30% of the votes remain uncounted.

[Kristine]

This is an issue concerning fundamental rights-- this is NOT a voting issue. If we left things like this up to voters, we might still have slavery. Historically the courts have been on the cutting edge of making people do the right thing. Remember the outrage when courts ruled against segregation? Doesn't anyone remember how violently society reacted to the Civil Rights Movement? Finally, do we still need to remind people that we have the right to live free of your interpretation of your Bible?

[John]

It is a very sad day in the United States when it's citizens choose to re-write the very constitution that affords the many freedoms that they enjoy. Freedom of speech for example through which they are clearly attempting to take away the freedoms of their fellow Americans. NO person has the right to belittle, deduce, or prosecute another for reasons of personal rights or preferences. Just because you choose not to engage in similar choices doesn't mean you treat them any less. Prime example... Your fellow heterosexual conterparts choose to drink, smoke, do drugs, commit adultry, insest, child abuse, spousal abuse, and the list goes on. All of these things are considered sin and are wrong within most socities. Shouldn't we re-write the consitiution to ban these people from civilization? These are the lessons everyday that "YOUR CHILDREN" learn, just by living in the world as we know it. Now let's look at the 18,000 gay marriages that took place over the past 6 months. YOU NEVER would have even known about them untill the news media made it known. Gay people are your children, family, friends and neighbors some of which you know of and some that most likely choose to hide it from you because of your hatered towards them. God says sin is equal. There is no sin greater than another. So everyday when you have impure thoughts you are sinning. Don't judge as you will be judged. Read your bible people and LIVE by it. Stop the HATE... STOP JUDGING others for this is SIN!!!

[gg]

Is the definition for democracy whine when you lose the vote and keep whining until you get your way? No. Answer: rule of the majority. California has spoken.
Is the definition of marriage 2 men; or 2 women? No. Answer: one man and one woman.

[Michael Seebeck]

Sure, LA Times, that's the same logic that allowed you to call CA-44 for Calvert when the race is still too close to call.

Try again, sans the bull.