2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Already 1 million ballots have been declared invalid in California, 2.5 million still uncounted [View all]onenote
(44,717 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 10, 2016, 03:03 PM - Edit history (3)
Your assumption that there are a million or so votes that have been invalidated is based on the following:
Padilla says 6 million votes have been processed. The exact number is 6,044,814 (see bottom of page, ballots cast column at http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/status/
The reported returns in the presidential primaries (including the four third party primaries) show 1,610,657 (aggregate R) +1,528,853 (Bernie) + 1,977,908 (Clinton) + 32,000 (approx.) (other Dem. candidates) + 65,764 "Third Party" =5,215,182
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/
6,044,814 minus 5,215,182 =829,632
So where did these 829,632 ballots that were cast go? No where. They just weren't cast for anyone in any of the presidential primaries.
As support, I direct your attention to the California Target Book Report
http://www.californiatargetbook.com/ctb/default/assets/File/CA_Target_Book_-_06-06_-_Media_Advisory_-_Primary_Voter_Turnout.pdf
That report, which folks have been citing in support of the claim that there are up to three million uncounted votes (turns out to be closer to 2.6 million but not a bad guesstimate), states that as of Monday night 2.7 million mail-in ballots had been received and that 49 percent were Democratic primary ballots and 34 percent were Republican primary ballots. That leaves 17 percent, or nearly 460,000 ballots received by Monday night that were not Democratic or Republican presidential primary ballots. Now, some number of them were for the third party primaries, but since those primaries, after the addition of in-person ballots, only totaled around 66,000 its probably a safe estimate that no more than 50 percent of that total was received by Monday. Subtract those from the 460,000 ballots not cast in the Democratic or Republican primaries, and your left with 427,000 votes that apparently were cast before Monday but not in any of the presidential primaries. Since we know that the number of votes processed was around 6 million and that 2.7 million of them were mail in ballots received by Monday night, that means the number of in-person ballots cast on Tuesday was over 3 million. And just as 400,000 plus of the early mail in votes were not presidential primary ballots, its is likely that 400,000 plus of the 3 million in-person ballots also were not presidential primary ballots.
So, when you add the 427,500 non presidential primary ballots received by Monday with the likely estimate of another 400,000 plus non-presidential primary in-person ballots processed on election night, you end up pretty much at the number of supposedly "invalidated ballots." Only they weren't invalidated, they just weren't cast in the presidential primaries and thus didn't show up in your estimate of the votes cast.
ON EDIT: The numbers on the California website continue to be updated. Since the time I wrote my original post, the number of processed ballots has increased to 6,128,180. Clinton's lead over Sanders has increased from 449,055 to 456,699.