California has 2.9 million ballots left to count in Newsom recall election. What that means
California county election officials have an estimated 2.9 million more ballots to count in the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Secretary of State reported Thursday evening. The majority of the remaining ballots are mail ballots.
Newsom won a clear and resounding victory early on election night, with many major outlets, including the Associated Press, calling the race for Newsom less than an hour after polls closed. As of Thursday evening, according to the AP, 9.6 million votes had already been counted, with the “no” vote leading the “yes” vote 63.7% to 36.3%.
Of the 2,918,010 ballots remaining as of Thursday, an estimated 2,759,294 are vote-by-mail ballots, 55,001 are provisional ballots and 52,182 are conditional voter registration provisional ballots, or those ballots cast by voters who register on election day.
An additional 51,533 ballots left to be counted are unprocessed ballots that are damaged or could not be machine-read and need to be remade, and ballots diverted by optical scanners for further review, according to the Secretary of State.
Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., said the remaining ballots are unlikely to make a significant difference in the result of the race.
“We’re still seeing that these outstanding ballots are largely vote-by-mails, which skew more Democratic than Republican,” he said. “ But does it close (Newsom’s) margin by a point or two? Maybe, but it’s not going to be anything major.”
In recent elections, Republicans have been more likely to vote in person, while those who vote by mail lean towards the Democratic party, according to election experts.
In 2020, across the nation, Republicans were more likely to vote on election day than by mail after President Donald Trump raised questions about mail ballots. Those who did vote by mail leaned “pretty significantly toward Democrats,” said Stephen Ohlemacher, the election decision editor for the AP, which has counted the vote in every U.S. election since 1848.
In the days following Newsom’s recall victory, some Republicans claimed false voter fraud accusations from Trump and others suppressed the Republican vote.
“One way not to have Republicans win is by telling Republican voters that their votes don’t matter,” said Ron Nehring, former chair of the California GOP and an adviser to recall candidate Kevin Faulconer.
Vote-by-mail ballots that are received by county elections officials before election day are typically counted on election day, but many more mail ballots are dropped off at polling places, drop box locations, or arrive at county elections offices on election day, the Secretary of State’s office said.
Those ballots postmarked on or before election day can be accepted by officials up to a week after polls close. Depending on the volume of those mail ballots, it can take up to 30 days for county elections officials to verify voter records and determine if ballots have been cast by eligible voters.
The frequency of updated results will vary based on the size of each county and the process each local elections office uses to tally and report votes, the Secretary of State’s office said.
San Diego County has the largest batch yet to be counted, with 310,000 unprocessed ballots, followed by Los Angeles County with 274,400 ballots and Orange County with 197,815 ballots.
Sacramento County reported an estimated 185,338 ballots remaining.
After the 30 day canvass by counties, the Secretary of State’s office has until Oct. 22 to certify the results of the election. If the current margins hold, Newsom will win the recall by a slightly greater margin than his 2018 election, where he beat Republican John Cox 61.9% to 38.1%.
This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 10:58 AM with the headline "California has 2.9 million ballots left to count in Newsom recall election. What that means."