Sunday, July 6, 2014

The California Controller Recount is On

The California Controller recount is on like Donkey Kong. Former Assembly speaker John Pérez has requested a recount in 15 counties: Kern; Imperial; San Bernardino; Fresno; San Mateo; Orange; Ventura; Los Angeles; Riverside; Stanislaus; Tulare; Napa; Kings; Lake; and Merced counties. I haven't reviewed all of them, but none are small and they look like counties Pérez beat Yee in. So he figures to harvest a good amount of votes. I assumes he's got precinct level data and is only requesting certain precincts. That'll make a faster less expensive count.

Some of the counties are Republican strongholds. Swearengin and Evans got 65% of the vote in Fresno and Kern counties and one assumes that they topped 80% in the more rural areas. There won't be votes for Pérez there. All he'd be doing is helping the Republicans pick up votes. On the other hand, there are precincts in Bakersfield and Fresno he probably killed in. The number of votes is so small and the number of ballots they'll recount is so large that Pérez will almost certainly pick up enough votes to go ahead.

That doesn't mean that I think Pérez actually got more votes than Yee. But if they only count his strong counties and not hers, he picks up votes and she doesn't. The question is how Yee counters this. The standard is you only call for a recount if you're behind. But there may be a deadline for requesting a recount and the minute that Perez goes ahead, he'll stop paying for the recount. Can Yee wait until then and then start paying for a recount in San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Alameda, and Marin counties?

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