Dueling Methodologies In The 34th SD

Earler today, the OC Registrar posted the latest results from the Daucher-Correa race. Daucher is still ahead, although her margin shrank to 764.

So, who will win in the 34th SD?  That depends on to whom you talk.

Paul Mitchell from EdVoice sent out another analysis based on the latest count from the ROV:

Today the Orange County Registrar of Voters counted 47,000 ballots in the county, 5,847 which were in the 34th Senate District.  In this count, Correa added 2,958 votes and Daucher added 2,889.  This means that Correa made up a bit of ground (69 votes) and now is behind by 764.

Daucher’s daily percentage of the vote has been diminishing over time.  Thursday’s count was 56% Daucher, Friday’s was 52%, and today’s was 49%.  While this percentage of the vote is trending away from her, it also means that Correa’s uphill battle continues to get steeper.  He is losing time to make up ground, and the percentage he needs to get on all remaining ballots has increased.

The initial estimates for outstanding ballots (absentees and provisionals) in the 34th ranged from 7,000  - 12,000, and then up to 26,000.  They counted 4,274 on Thursday, 5,622 on Friday and 5,847 today, meaning that 15,743 ballots have been counted.  That leaves as many as 10,000 remaining from the highest estimates.  How steep is Correa’s challenge?  If there are only 5,000 ballots remaining, he needs to beat her by 16-points (58/46) among the remaining ballots to win.  If there are 10,000 he needs to beat her by 8-points (54/46).

The Registrar is taking Sunday off, so the next report will be Monday night.

 

Over at the OC Democratic Party blog, Executive Director Mike Levin still contends Lou Correa has a very good chance of overcoming Lynn Daucher's vote advantage -- although his tone is less certain than it has been. Correa's and the Democrats' hopes of victory are based on the presumption there is a large enough pool of uncounted ballots cast in Lou Correa's favor.

The firmness to which that hope is tethered to reality is difficult to guess, but I think Mitchell's point  is well taken that as the number of uncounted ballots dwindles, the rate at which Correa must capture them steepens.

Comments

[anon]

Mitchell is right in principle. But the question is how many SD34 ballots are left, and that's where his reliance on an early newspaper report is misguided.

To this point, anywhere from 11% to 16% of the daily countywide numbers have been in SD34. This means that of the 80k or so ballots left, there probably will be between 9,000 and 13,000 in SD34. If it's 9,000, then Correa needs about 54% (his election night percentage) to make up a 764 deficit. On the other hand, if it's 13,000, then Lou needs 53%. Either way, it's doable.

[Art Pedroza]

The other key lies in where the leftover votes come from. If they are from Garden Grove, as opposed to parts of Anaheim and Santa Ana, then Correa is likely done. And if many of the remaining votes are from the Vietnamese community, that also bodes ill for Correa.

[Publius2]

Art-
The Registrar's office does not process ballots by geographic area. They are processed by date of receipt. Each day they count ballots from Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Westminster, Stanton, Buena Park, and Fullerton. I would guess that they are pretty much done with ballot received in Monday's mail by this point and will start or have started Tuesday's mail. The last ones will be those dropped off on election day (which more closely reflect ballots cast on election day and will likely favor Correa).
As for Mitchell's argument, I have a tough time trusting a person who "presumed " yesterday that there were only 7,000 ballots to be counted in this race. Either he doesn't know what he is talking about or he is telling us what he wants us to believe.

[Art Pedroza]

Publius2,

True - but nonetheless, it may well be that as time progressed more, or less, votes came in from certain areas. The conjecture is that more votes were cast, per capita, in Garden Grove as compared to Santa Ana. Latinos had little reason to vote, considering the dead weight, Angelides, that was atop the Dem ticket...while the Vietnamese were energized by a concerted OC GOP effort to turn out their vote.

[Dumb and Dumber]

Publius2,

Mitchell may be right with the 7,000 figure. So far the absentee ballots counted in 34th SD is about 13.1% of the total since Wednesday. It is understood that only 53,341 absentee ballots left. Thus, 7,000 is approximately 13.1% of 53,341. Obviously, he left out the 21,915 provisional votes and 5,665 paper ballots.

However, I personally doubt that Correa can pull this one out based on the provisional and paper ballots. But if he does then my hat is off to him and his team. Thanks.

[Publius2]

D&D:
Mitchell's prediction was made late Friday, though - BEFORE over 5000 ballots were counted on Saturday. That's when he presumed that only 7,000 were left to be counted. WAY OFF!
7,000 left is a decent guess today, but I think it's pretty low. I'm confident that there are at least 10,000 ballots remaining in this district, and perhaps as many as 12 or 14 thousand.
Art:
You are the king of finding non-evidence to support your faniciful (usually wrong) conclusions. I'm reminded of election night 10 years ago when Bob Dornan was there at the ROV claiming that the tide would turn his way when they got to "his Vietnamese voters." It never turned. Either they were counting Vietnamese votes all along or they were not as pro-Dornan as he believed. I think both.
I challenge Art to check the election day turnout numbers for some heavily Latino SA precincts and compare them to Garden Grove. They're available on the website.

[Nemisis]

A few points of clarification regarding remaining ballots:

7,000?? - The original 7,000 figure was widely reported the day after the election, but was increased to 20,000+ in subsequent days. Clearly, if there had only been 7,000 it would be all over. Now, with estimates of 7-10,000 ballots still remaining, the outcome is hanging in the balance.

80,000?? - The county has a count of approx 80,000 total ballots remaining (51,341 absentee + 5,665 paper ballots and 21,915 provisionals). Looking at daily totals for the county and SD 34 you can find that there has been between 9% and 16% of ballots within the 34th. The average is 12.2%. If all outstanding ballots were in the 34th at this average, then there would be 9,727 ballots in the district.

Validity Rate?? - There are some provisionals that will not be deemed valid. A Superior Court Case from ’04 found that 16% of provisionals in Orange County were not counted because the voter can not be verified or has submitted more than one ballot (often when they mail on Monday and vote on Tuesday b/c they think their ballot isn’t going to be counted). Applying this discounting to the provisionals, the total likely to be counted is 18,409 county-wide, or 2,209 in the 34th, which then places the likely total number of outstanding ballots at 8,370.

So, using this range, Correa needs to win by 8-pts (54/46) to catch up with 9,727 ballots to be counted, and 10-pts (55/45) with 8,370 counted.

I would appreciate any input on the percentage of provisionals that will likely be counted, and where the 5,665 uncounted paper ballots are from. Are these uncounted paper ballots somehow damaged or flawed? Why are these ballots sequestered?

Things should be much more clear after Monday’s 5pm report.