California Primary Results - Friday evening update

[MineralMan]

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/president/party/democratic/

Still holding steady, with Hillary having 54.5% and Bernie with 44.5%. More votes counted each day. Soon, they'll all have been counted. It looks like those provisional and late-arriving ballots are showing the same percentages as the election-night results, within 1%.

[strategery blunder]

1. The Guardian hasn't updated its results since the day after election night.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/jun/07/live-primary-results-new-jersey-california

If we want to compare the present count to before the provisionals were counted, that is a good "before" snapshot.

Hillary went from +12.6 to +10. She still won (by a lot) but 2.5 percentage points is a noticeable dilution in the margin of victory. If the election had been closer than it was, counting the provisionals absolutely could have changed it.

A similar thing happened in Arizona; I believe Hillary went from +25 to +19 or something like that after the provisionals were counted.

[MineralMan]

2. That wouldn't make any material difference, actually.

It's a matter of a few pledged delegates going to the convention. Hillary has a lead in pledged delegates of almost 400. A few percentage points in California won't change a thing.

And that's the fact.

[strategery blunder]

3. In this election? It wouldn't.

My post is more a commentary on the media's shoddy reporting of provisional ballots than anything else. I shudder to think of what would happen if we had another 2000-like election with a few million provisional ballots stuffed inside supply closets somewhere.

I'm not a big fan of tolerating error in election reporting because "it won't make a difference." It won't make a difference--until it does.

[MineralMan]

4. This is the election we're having in 2016.

In California, every last provisional ballot will be counted if it is from a verified registered voter qualified to cast it. California counts all ballots. There are so many checks and balances in that state that it's virtually impossible for a counting fraud to happen.

[strategery blunder]

5. I wish all states were as stringent as CA. nt

[MineralMan]

6. Focus on your own state.

Elections are a state-by-state thing. Residents of every state need to pay attention to how elections are handled there. If there are problems, they should work to correct those problems, at the ballot box or in state courts.

It is a mistake to broad-brush election handling as fraudulent unless you have a specific state in mind. I live in Minnesota, and I've seen how our election system is handled first hand, through two state-wide hand-count recounts. It doesn't get any fairer than how it's done in my state.

I lived in California for over 40 years, and was an election judge there in several elections. Each county does a great job of ballot-counting and running elections in California, at least while I was there. I believe it is just as fair today.

When California's count is finished, we'll have the final numbers, and they will be accurate and fair. This year's no different from any other, when it comes to counting ballots that weren't counted on election night. They'll count them all and verify the ones that need verification.

It's not an issue in that state.