On November 7th, just three days after election day, the Rose Institute calculated California voter turnout at 79.5 percent. We are happy to report that this weekend, over a month later, the Secretary of State released the final count:79.42 percent.

Rose Fellow Douglas Johnson recently gave a presentation on the trends behind this year’s election results to the Apple Valley Rotary club. While not all of the substance is on the slides, those interested in looking at the California election in an historical contest, or how the 2001 bipartisan gerrymander of California has saved much of California’s Legislative and Congressional Republicans from defeat, can view the presentation here: California’s 2008 Election analysis

Doug Johnson was recently quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article that focuses on Proposition 11 and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Doug gives his opinion on how he thinks Proposition 11’s passage might change California politics.

A few more competitive seats could change the state’s political picture, said Doug Johnson, a consultant to the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College and a supporter of Prop. 11.

“Both parties are more likely to moderate their messages when they’re fighting for competitive seats across the state,” he said.

The Enterprise newspaper of Brockton, Massachusetts recently released an editorial calling for redistricting reform in the Bay state. The paper looks towards the success of Proposition 11 in California, suggesting that the importance of its victory was lost in the controversy over Proposition 8. The article analyzes California’s redistricting methods over the years, until providing suggestions for Massachusetts:

Reforming redistricting in Massachusetts will be at least as difficult, but it is equally important. One-party governance is bad for the state and even bad for the health of the Democratic Party. With the state expected to lose at least one congressional seat following the 2010 Census, the political stakes in the next redistricting will be especially high.

Gov. Deval Patrick has convened a special task force on ethics and reforms, which will hold its first public hearing this week. Patrick should show the same commitment to better government Schwarzenegger has demonstrated and put redistricting reform at the top of the list.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel recently had an interesting article looking at the results of the California propositions, and in particular Proposition 11. The article looks at how the vote turned out in the county and compares it with the perceived prevailing political sentiments in the area.

While many would expect Santa Cruz County to support government reform measures, the proposition passed by less than half a percentage point, according to Tuesday’s election results. The initial tally showed the measure failing.

Opposition to the measure by the state Democratic Party, and the Republican governor’s endorsement likely motivated many to stick with their partisan instincts and vote against Proposition 11, said former state legislator Fred Keeley.

Keeley continues by pointing out that Santa Cruz County in fact likely has a lot to gain from Proposition 11:

The irony, Keeley explained, is that the county stands to gain from the measure. The latest redistricting, after the 2000 census, left Santa Cruz County with less representation in Sacramento, and Proposition 11 has the potential to change that, he says.

“The campaign against it was that it was a power grab by the Republicans, which was untrue,” said Keeley, a Santa Cruz Democrat who worked for the measure’s passage.

Additionally the article delves into the local results, and provides some suggestions of they might have come about.

Because the proposition was not as popular as other ballot contests, Keeley adds, many voters here and elsewhere didn’t pay much attention to it and simply listened to what they heard in campaign ads.

Santa Cruz and Watsonville, the cities with the highest percentages of registered Democrats locally, voted against Proposition 11, according to the final vote count. The cities of Scotts Valley and Capitola as well as the unincorporated areas, on the other hand, voted for the measure.

Statewide, the measure was similarly rejected in the more liberal areas.

Opposition to the measure by the state Democratic Party, and the Republican governor’s endorsement likely motivated many to stick with their partisan instincts and vote against Proposition 11, said former state legislator Fred Keeley.

Doug Johnson was recently quoted in an article appearing on PolitickerCA.com. The article mentions that former state Sen. Steve Peace (D-San Diego), is pushing a ballot initiative that would change California’s primary election process from partisan to a top two advanced system. Johnson weighs in on the legality of the proposal:

“The top-two was held up by the Supreme Court as legal, and California’s open primary was not,” said Douglas Johnson, a fellow at the Rose Institute at Claremont-McKenna College in Los Angeles.

He referred to a “blanket primary” system used in California in the late 1990s that was ultimately thrown out.

Later, Johnson also adds his views on voter opinions of such an initiative:

Johnson, of the Rose Institute, said voters favor concepts like open primaries and redistricting, but can get confused when such a topic is actually on the ballot.

In reality, he said, redistricting and open primaries have more power together than apart.

“There used to be a fairly numerous bipartisan caucus in the legislature,” he said. With those two reforms in place, he said, that could happen again. “You’d see more debate over issues,” he added.

The Secretary of State’s update from late Monday morning shows Prop 11’s margin contiues to grow. With another 165,000 ballots counted since Friday evening, the Yes on 11 margin grew by another 4,274. Yes on 11 now leads by 186,167 votes — nearly double its margin on election day — and the Yes percentage is solid and steady at 50.8 percent. By our count, there are about 1.1 million ballots left to count.

Among the latest ballots counted, 17.2 percent were blank on Prop 11. Among the rest, 51.6 percent voted Yes and 48.4 percent voted No. The new ballots came from seven counties.  The largest batches came from Solano (34,000 new ballots, 54% yes), San Joaquin (26,000 new ballots, 52% yes), Ventura (7,700 new ballots, 54% yes), Orange (5,600 new ballots, 53% yes), Monterey (4,900 new ballots, 46% yes), Kings (1,450 new ballots, 47% yest), and Nevada (908 new ballots, 55% yes).

California’s State Senate district 19 is another example of County elections officials posting more up to date results than are available from the Secretary of State. The district is comprised of territory in Los Angeles County, Santa Barbara County, and Ventura County. Democratic candidate Hannah Beth Jackson led Tony Strickland in the early counts, but Strickland has now taken the lead as counting continues.

According to the Secretary of State’s website earlier this morning, Strickland leads by 1,560 votes. But numbers gathered directly from the three counties in question show that Strickland’s lead is now up to 2,141 votes. Strickland now leads 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent.

The different results from the different sources is yet another example of why one question desperately in need of review before California’s next election is how the data reporting can be improved between the counties and the Secretary of State.

If Strickland holds on to win this election, Republicans in the State Senate will avoid losing even a single State Senate seat in either 2006 or 2008, despite the national Democratic landslides in both of those elections. The net for Republicans in California this decade will remain +1 in the State Senate, as Republicans picked up a State Senate seat in the 2001 redistricting / 2002 election.

As noted before, this election is over and the Yes side has won. But the formality of counting goes on.

Friday was a scheduled reporting day for many counties. Between votes newly reported to the Secretary of State, and votes posted on county websites but not yet reported to the state, we counted 219,248 more ballots today.

Of those, 11.2 percent were blank on Prop 11. Of the Prop 11 votes, 52.8 percent voted yes and 47.2 percent voted no. The Secretary of State reported new votes from Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Marin, Nevada, Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Tuolumne, and Ventura counties. The Rose Institute also discovered 56,000 new Prop 11 votes on the Los Angeles County website that are not yet reported to the Secretary of State.

Any Prop 11 opponent’s remaining dreams of a reversal now hang on a big defeat among the remaining 200,000 or so LA County ballots. And there was very bad news for those opponents today: this new batch of LA County ballots voted no by only the slimmest of margins: 49.9% Yes, 50.1% No. The difference was only 158 votes.

The end result of all today’s vote counting: Prop 11’s margin is now the highest is has ever been: 181,893, and it leads 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent. 
The number of ballots left to be counted has begun to drop a bit faster: by our count, it is now down to about 1.2 million.

To win, the Yes on 11 side needs only 41 percent of all remaining ballots. In 55 of the 58 counties in the state, the Yes numbers are running higher than 41 percent. And 65 percent of the ballots left to be counted are from “yes on 11″ counties.

A number of our earlier posts have noted the high number of ballots cast that are blank on the question of Proposition 11. Here are comparison numbers of blank ballots by contest, based on the Secretary of State’s vote report for 10:22am on November 14th:

Blank Presidential ballots: 1.4%
Proposition 8 (gay marriage): 2.1%
Proposition 4 (parental notification): 5.4%
Proposition 2 (farm animal care): 5.4%
Proposition 5 (drug offenders): 7.0%
Proposition 1A (high speed rail): 7.1%
Proposition 7 (renewable energy): 7.4%
Proposition 3 (childrens hospitals): 7.6%
Proposition 10 (alt fuel vehicles): 8.1%
Proposition 9 (crime victim rights): 9.2%
Proposition 6 (police funding): 9.4%
Proposition 12 (veterans’ bond): 10.0%
Proposition 11 (redistricting) 12.1%

On Thursday a number of counties updated their counts, and many more are expected today.

Most of Thursday’s votes were counted in counties where Prop 11 is trailing: Alameda, Kern, and San Francisco, though some came from the Pro-11 counties Amador, El Dorado, Nevada and Sacramento. Counties that earlier were pro-11 remained that way, and counties that earlier were anti-11 remained that way. The net was 82,075 new votes for Prop 11 and 86,551 new votes against (48.7% yes, 51.3% no).

Roughly in line with previous results, 13.5 percent of ballots were blank on the Prop 11 question.

The impact on the overall results is unchanged: Prop 11 continues to lead 50.8 percent Yes to 49.2 percent No. With the latest batch of 194,881 new ballots counted, the Yes on 11 margin declined by 4,476, to 168,151.

Meanwhile the number of uncounted ballots continues to dwindle. Officially, there area 1.8 million ballots left to count, but the timing of the official “uncounted ballot” report trails the “current counts” report. Our analysis shows the real number of remaining ballots to count is about 1.4 million.

Thursday’s data did include a major question mark: On November 11th Alameda County’s report to the Secretary of State said it only had 38,500 ballots left to count. On November 13th, Alameda County reported to the Secretary of State the results of over 100,000 newly-counted ballots. It is not unprecedented to suddenly find over 60,000 new ballots that were missed in the earlier check, but it raises questions.

While we have called the results for the Yes on 11 side, the official vote counts continue to roll in. We will probably cut back to a daily update, and even then only when there are significant numbers of ballots to report.

In that spirit, here is the combined results of the 4pm and 7pm Secretary of State updates, plus the additional Riverside votes noted earlier:

Counties reporting new counts: 
Santa Barbara, San Mateo, Sacramento, Orange, Fresno, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Trinity, San Francisco.

New ballots counted: 166,812
Blank: 22,297 (13.4%)
Yes: added 77,746 new votes (53.8%)
No: added 66,796 new votes (46.2%)

New total Yes: 5,335,890 (including Riverside’s votes not yet reported to the Secretary of State) [50.8%]
New total No: 5,163,263 (incl. Riverside) [49.2%]
New margin: 172,627 [the highest recorded to date]

Estimated ballots remaining to be counted: 1.55 million
Percentage needed by the Yes side to win: 45.0 percent (down from 45.2 percent this morning)

First, the Wednesday 1pm update numbers: 14,755 new ballots counted from Kings, Merced, and San Louis Obispo Counties. The number blank on Prop 11 remains fairly constant, at 12.6% in this batch. Of those with votes recorded on Prop 11, 50.1 percent were yes, 49.9 percent no.

More significantly, the Secretary of State also issued its first report on uncounted ballots since Monday. There are now 1.8 million ballots left to be counted statewide.

Also, the Rose Institute visited the website of Riverside County and discovered that the County has been updating its own website, but not passing the new counts along to the Secretary of State. The County website reports an extra 72,000 votes on Prop 11, split 40,546 Yes (56%) and 31,612 No (44%).

The Rose Institute is now ready to call this race, based on the following factors:

1) The Yes margin is now up to 161,650 votes (including the extra Riverside votes);

2) There are about 1.75 million ballots left to count, and about 12 percent of them will be blank on Prop 11;

3) To win, Proponents need only 45 percent of the remaining votes on Prop 11;

4) Only 8 counties are 45 percent or less Yes on Prop 11, and there are only 131,280 ballots left to count among those eight;

5) Of the remaining ballots to be counted, 60 percent are from counties that voted Yes on Prop 11;

6) Late-counted ballots are turning out fairly close to ballots cast in that same county on election day: the largest changes came in San Benito County (late ballots made the County only 0.46% less supportive than election-day ballots alone) and in Stanislaus County (late ballots made the County only 0.73% more supportive than election-day ballots alone);

7) The Rose Institute analyzed potential swings in the remaining ballots on a county by county basis, and we found that, to defeat Prop 11, the remaining ballots will have to average 5.75 percent lower support for Prop 11 than each county currently reports;

Our conclusion: the campaign is over, and Proposition 11 has won. 

Congratulations to the proponents and, more importantly, congratulations to the people and communities of California. In their 6th vote on redistricting reform since 1980, California voters have finally approved it, if only for the legislature.

An editorial on AppealDemocrat.com suggests that Governor Schwarzenegger should consult bodies like the Rose Institute regarding the California budget.

“We urge the governor to appoint reasoned voices that understand state budget picture — such as from think tanks such as the Rose Institute of State and Local Government and Reason Foundation, and universities — not advocates for further taxing the public and bailing out Sacramento’s spendthrifts.”

Throughout the San Gabriel Valley, voters approved increasing sales-taxes and school bond measures despite the current poor economic climate. Professor Pitney and Rose Institute Fellow Doug Johnson both speculate on this issue in Amanda Baumfeld’s article in the Whittier Daily News:

“Jack Pitney, professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, speculated voters approved school bonds as a way to invest in the community.

‘If the quality of schools tends to decline so will home values,’ he said. ‘So bad schools will make a tough situation even worse. The bonds bring a direct economic benefit in the form of more stable property values.’

and

“Rose Institute Politics Fellow Doug Johnson said some people may not have been clear on what they actually voted for. ‘It’s a definite disconnect between reality and perceptions of what they will have to pay,’ Johnson said. ‘It is amazing, but it happens again and again.’”