OC Blog

Correa's Welcomes Another Legislator's Anti-Registration Flipping Fraud Bill

This came over the transom yesterday from Sen. Lou Correa's office:

Senator Lou Correa Welcomes New Voter Protection Law

SANTA ANA – State Senator Lou Correa today publicly thanked Governor Schwarzenegger for signing into law legislation to provide greater protection and notice for California voters when party registration is changed in a re-registration. The measure, which was supported by Senator Correa, is Assembly Bill 452, authored by Assemblymember Juan Arambula. The new law will require a voter notification card, which is required to be sent to all registered or re-registered voters, to include a notification that the card may have been sent due to a change in party affiliation.

Little Saigon Outreach Headquarters Grand Opening

Little Saigon Outreach Headquarters Grand Opening
LITTLE SAIGON OUTREACH HEADQUARTERS
Asian Village Mall
9191 Bolsa Avenue, Suite 209
Westminster, CA 92683
May 30, 2007

Dear Friends,

As part of our ongoing outreach effort and constituents service, we will be inaugurating the Little Saigon Outreach Headquarters to better serve our mutual constituents in Central Orange County. Below are details of the grand opening celebration:

Senate Passes The "Help Re-Elect Lou Correa In 2010 Act"...

...otherwise known as SB 812, which passed the state Senate on May 24 by a 22-13 party-line vote. It would outlaw per-registration bounty programs.

I discovered this via a post by my friend Claudio Gallego on Orange Juice. Being a good Democrat, Claudio fans the flames of myth-making the OC Democrats have been stoking since registration flipping scandal broke amidst news of the OC GOP erasing the Democratic registration advantage in the 34th Senate District.

According to Claudio:

• The OC GOP believes it can only make registration inroads via registration fraud
• Correa's bill is simply intended to stop registration fraud
• Any Republican who voted against SB 812 must be for voter fraud

Yeah. And I'm the Tooth Fairy.

From The Correa Campaign...

Here's an e-mail sent out by John Scribner of the Lou Correa for Senate campaign:

Greetings all from the Correa Campaign,

Friday's vote tally, along with a smattering of additional votes from Saturday processing, continued to extend Orange County Supervisor Lou Correa's lead to well over 800 votes.

Saturday's vote count gave Lou Correa 64% of the day's vote - a trend established at the start of the week that allowed Correa to begin his break out toward victory. (raw numbers below)

Closing The Coffin: Correa's Lead Expands To 821 Votes

It feels anti-climactic, but I suppose I ought to post the OC Registrar's tally from yesterday's counting:

Lou Correa              55,234       50.0%
Lynn Daucher           54,413       49.2%
Otto Bade                    899       0.8%

Correa has now expanded his lead to 821 votes. By the time all is said and done, Lou Correa's margin may well exceed the number of votes garnered by Trojan Horse write-in Otto Bade.

Truth be told, it's unlikely we'll ever know for sure if Otto Bade cost Lynn Daucher victory in this race. That would involve knowing that each and every person who voted for Otto Bade would otherwise have cast his or her ballot for Lynn Daucher -- something that is impossible to know. I have no doubt the majority of Bade voters would have otherwise voted for Daucher. Daucher campaigned as an education conservative, and that is how GOP voters in the 34th SD. The Californians United/Otto Bade campaign was able to do what Lou Correa couldn't -- attack Lynn Daucher from the right and cost her conservative votes.

Which is why it is hard to calculate the impact of the Californians United assault solely via the number of write-in Bade received. Four district-wide mailers plus phone banks to pro-life and 2nd Amendment voters painting Daucher as pro-choice and anti-gun certainly caused a number of GOP voters to either skip that race altogether or vote AIP or Libertarian. Combined with the 899 votes Bade actually received and one can make a strong case the Bruce Young's evil plan cost Daucher the Senate race.

Alas, we'll never know for sure. There was nothing illegal about Otto Bade's candidacy. The law doesn't -- and shouldn't -- prohibit a citizen from launching a candidacy for petty, selfish reasons, or even from being dishonest in representing his or her reasons to the voters.

But I think it should disqualify him from consideration fro any public office. And he ought to be vigorously and overwhelmingly opposed should he ever place name on a ballot again.

Lou Correa Widens His Lead Over Lynn Daucher To 783

The latest 34th SD tally has Lou Correa widening his lead to 783 votes over Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher.

LOU CORREA                      55,147       50.0%
LYNN DAUCHER                  54,364       49.2%
OTTO BADE                            899         0.8%

Barring some dramatic or unforseen circumstance, as the say on E.R.: "Call it -- time of death, 5:00 p.m."

34th SD: Lou Takes The Lead

Today's updated tally in the 34th Senate District shows Lou Correa grabbing a lead of 282 votes:

Lou Correa                53,834        49.7%
LYnn Daucher            53,552        49.5%
Otto Bade                 891             0.8%

That's a 429 vote swing since yesterday. This doesn't look good for Lynn. 1st Supervisor District hopefuls are probably already on the phone to their consultants.

I'm going to mail Otto Bade a voter registration form inviting him to re-register as a Democrat.

The Daucher-Correa Count: Daucher Up By 147

The OC Registrar of Voters has justed posted the latest results, and now there are only 147 votes separating Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher and Supervisor Lou Correa -- with Daucher in the lead.

And the Democratic Trojan Horse candidate Otto Bade takes a bite with 886 votes:

LYNN DAUCHER (REP)   53,019             49.7%
LOU CORREA (DEM)       52,872          49.5%
OTTO BADE                   886                0.1%

The involved parties will have no finger nails left by the end of this.

UPDATE: Here's the customary Paul Mitchell analysis, brought to you by EdVoice.org:

So much for the common wisdom that Daucher would dominate the “damaged” absentees.  Today Correa won them by a 53/47 margin, cutting Daucher’s lead in half once again.

Credit Correa supporters for mounting the Otto Bade candidacy.  He won 886 write-in votes, a big deal given the current margin.

Today’s Totals:

Daucher:      53,019       49.7%

Correa:        52,872       49.5%

Bade:               886         0.1%

The registrar said yesterday that they would be reporting “damaged” absentees today for the 34th, but that there were not expected to be enough volunteers from the Daucher and Correa campaigns to oversee the counting of provisionals in the 34th.

They could be done with absentees, having counted 2,721 today.  If so, they will get into the provisionals tomorrow and we should get a trickle of those over the next several days.  Correa’s good showing in these absentees, and his overwhelming margin on those paper ballots (for people who chose not to use the electronic voting) have put him well within striking distance.  He needs to perform at 51.2%   

OC GOP/New Majority Registration Drive Made The 34th SD Competitive

Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the Lynn Daucher campaign deserves enormous credit for the strongest showing by a Republican candidate in central Central OC in years.

However, there is more to the story -- and credit must be given to the Republican Party of Orange County and The New Majority for creating the circumstances that made a Daucher victory -- or near-victory -- possible.

TNM's leadership (Tom Tucker, Larry Higby, Gary Hunt and Paul Folino) agreed to fund a voter registration drive but were uninterested in a generic effort, preferring to target resources in an area where their funds could change on outcome. Hence, the decision to target the 34th Senate District.

When the 34th Senate District was created in 2001, the Democrats had a registration advantage of 10.5% -- unsurprising since it was drawn to be a safe Democratic seat. By the time Sen. Joe Dunn was re-elected in 2002, that advantage had grown to 11%.

Daucher's Lead Shrinks A Little More To 302

Lou Correa gained a little bit of ground today, gnawing 59 votes off of Lynn Daucher's lead, which has shrunk a bit more to 302 votes.

Here's the customary Paul Mitchell analysis (brought to you by EdVoice):

Today’s Totals:

Daucher:     51,736     50.1%

Correa:       51,434     49.9%

Correa gained back 59 votes on Daucher, placing the gap at 302.  In today’s counting, he led her by a margin of 51.1% to 49.9%.  Correa needs to win the remaining ballots by a margin of 52/48 in order to prevail.  There are still 12,260 absentees outstanding county-wide.  Using previous counts, it can be assumed that this means there are 1,500 absentees to be counted in the 34th. The registrar has increased the likely number of Provisionals outstanding to 5-6,000 in the 34th, meaning that 25%+ of the provisionals were from this district, even though it is only 18% of the registration in the county, and about 14% of the votes on Election Day.  The registrar also suggested that only half of these 5-6,000 would ultimately count.  This is a much lower rate than in 2004 when only 16% of ballots were rejected.  Even though there are two wildly different ways of approximating the number of provisionals to be counted, both methods get you to about 2,500.  With a projected 1,500 absentees and 2,500 provisionals to count, it can be expected that we have 4,000 more votes to tally.

Today’s update is from absentees that had to be duplicated and re-run through the machines.  It can be presumed that they’ll get these all done by tomorrow, and start with the provisionals.  The Correa campaign has suggested all along that they will perform very well in the provisional ballots – something that is supported by previous elections.  If Correa wins the remaining provisionals and absentees by the same percentage as his election day counts, he will win by 62 votes.