Turnout: another stolen election?

Maybe someone has a better idea of how big the electorate of California is. What percentage voted? It seems like an extremely small amount relative to the total population of California. And of course this was part of the plan. To recall an unpopular governor while maximizing the name recognition of a celebrity in a race that took a matter of weeks thereby keeping large parts of the electorate home and stopping any democrat from running an effective campaign. This seems to be yet another example of republicans using "democracy" against itself. I don't see how this election can have any legitimacy.

[DerBeppo]

1. well...

it looks like the turn out is about 10% points higher than the election in 2002.

As for the lack of an effective democratic campaign, lay that blame squarely on the shoulders of the state democratic party.

[gardenista]

5. Amen to that. I called the State Dem Party, asked for a position

just a few months ago. "I'm a Dem who wants to fight the recall. What should I do?" They were totally unprepared. Couldn't tell me nuthin, not a thing.

I registered voters via the Dean campaign, anyway, but they were completely ineffectual. And now they're seeing the results of their efforts.

The schism between Davis and Bustamente didn't help.

At least my county came through.

[punpirate]

2. From what I am seeing published up to a couple of minutes ago...

... the number of registered voters was 15,380,000. The SoS's office predicted a 60% turnout. That should mean, including absentee votes, the total turnout should be in the range of 9.2 million votes. Thus far, with 53.0% of precincts reporting, there have been 4.1 million votes cast (if one figures that all ballots did vote yes or no for recall).

This likely means either one of two things--the turnout was less than predicted, or, as likely, many of the precinct screw-ups resulted in provisional ballots which have not been counted yet. If the turnout jives with expectations, the uncounted votes would be (provisional and absentee combined) about 1.1 million, or about 12% of all votes.

If the election is not tight, I don't know if they're required to verify and count the provisional ballots. I hope someone has an eventual total for those, counted and uncounted.

4. well it seems i was wrong about turnout

I seemed to have over estimated the population of cali. I thought it was up around 50 mil but it is between 35 and 40 mil.

[DerBeppo]

6. not quite

that's 53% of the precincts, not 53% of the voters.

[punpirate]

7. What did I write?

53% of precincts.

Now I know what's wrong with Democrats. They can't read. They see "Schwarzenegger" and think "yes."

[KeepItReal]

8. I'm one of those provisionals!! Count my vote!!

There is only a 500K difference between Yes and No on the whole recall. Those provisionals (location and voter roll screw ups) *will* make a difference.

[Kenneth ken]

3. some numbers

as of Feb 10, 2003 there were 15,168,263 registered voters in CA.

from the counties which are reporting final vote totals, the percent of voters voting range from about 46% to a high of 76.9.

some of those are small counties though. In general, it looks like turnout was pretty decent. from 14 counties showing final totals, 7 were 60% or higher turnout.