Correa Moves Closer on Day 3, but Less Than a Quarter of Provisionals Remain as Later VBM Pile Grows

Correa Moves Closer

Correa moves closer — down by 85 — but are his best ballots behind him?

Today was mostly a provisional ballot counting day, and Lou Correa accordingly edged closer to Andrew Do.  His deficit has now dropped from 239 ballots down to 85.  But, if past days are a guide, this may be as close as he comes.  However, there’s a type of ballots out there that has literally never been counted before — “Timely Postmarked Late-Arriving Absentees” — and while we may think that we know what they’ll look like we don’t actually know.

And then, of course, there’s the possibility of a recount of some sort.  Lou may not represent Vietnamese areas again, if he loses this election, and that gives him the freedom to investigate some questionable practices — if there’s any basis to look for them — that candidates usually do not get.

Here’s the table of new overall totals (with the changes in RED):

Registration and Turnout
Completed Precincts: 101 of 101
Reg/Turnout Percentage
Total Registered Voters 215,503
Precinct Registration 215,503
Precinct Ballots Cast 7,443 [+ 1,076] 3.5%
Early Ballots Cast 0 0.0%
Absentee Ballots Cast 40,602 [+ 286] 18.8%
Total Ballots Cast 48,045 [+ 1,362] 22.3%

Top 

County Supervisor First District, Short Term
Completed Precincts: 101 of 101
Vote Count Percentage
ANDREW DO 18,698  [+ 468] 39.1%
LOU CORREA 18,613 [+ 622] 39.0%
CHRIS PHAN 7,785 [+ 193] 16.3%
CHUYEN VAN NGUYEN 1,850 [+ 44] 3.9%
LUPE MORFIN-MORENO 818 [+ 18] 1.7%

Time to visit the “What’s Left to Count?” pages on the OCROV site!

Here’s the total counted and known to be remaining after Election Day:

Total estimated number of ballots to count (after Election Day): 6,937 [+ 120]

Total estimated number of ballots counted (after Election Day): 6,172 [+ 1,256]

Total estimated number of ballots left to count: 765 [- 1,136]

From what categories were the newly counted ballots?

Later-arriving Vote By Mail ballots:  The number of them to be counted increased from 562 to 682.  Of these, 286 were counted today, while 396 remain.  That uncounted number will probably still increase, but not by much.

Paper ballots:  No change.  Still at 141 turned in, 136 counted, meaning 5 are still left.

Absentee ballots returned at the polls:  No change.  Still at 4,850 turned in, 4,780 counted, and 70 remain uncounted.

Provisional ballots:  This was the big category counted today.  Of the 1,264 provisionals that had been waiting, 970 were counted today and 294 remain.  (Of course, not all of those “counted” may have been deemed valid.  It looks like 17 ballots from some category were disqualified.)

Provisionals tend to favor Democrats, and we learned yesterday that Later Arriving Absentees tend to favor Do.  If absentees returned at the polls are pretty much the same as the late arrivals, then Do has 466 left favoring him (with more on the way) and — let’s give the Democrat the paper ballot advantage — Correa has a pile of 299 that should favor him (to the extent that they count.)  That’s about a 60-40 advantage for Do, compared to today’s roughly 75-25 advantage for Correa.

I think that we’re probably looking at a Do win between 100 and 150.  Normally, one would not go forward with that — heck, de facto Republican candidate Bruce Broadwater didn’t go ahead with the recount against Bao Nguyen in the Garden Grove Mayor’s race facing a deficit of only 15.  But if Lou thinks that the Vietnamese vote is questionable — as well as now clearly being the major new force in Orange County — this is the best chance he (and perhaps any Democrat) will ever have to give it thorough scrutiny.

Being the “heavy” in the Vietnamese community that has long supported him, until this time, would be a huge sacrifice for the team — but if it would help either dispel or confirm the rumors of chicanery in Vietnamese absentee vote manufacturing machine, it would ultimately do that community a huge favor in the long term, but making it easier for the most upright Vietnamese candidates (like Chris Phan and Bao Nguyen) to prosper.  Is Lou one to take one for the team?  You probably can guess what I think, but I would be very happy to be wrong — and happier still if, where signatures didn’t match and such, the result of the election ended up being reversed and sending Correa to the dais.


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)