Finally back in the lead!
Total estimated number of ballots to count (after Election Day): 150,305 165,305 177,305
Total estimated number of ballots counted (after Election Day): 14,765 43,792 79,638 111,235 138,714 148,561 155,556
Total estimated number of ballots left to count: 135,540 106,513 70,667 54,070 38,591 28,744 21,749
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots to count: 40,000
Total vote-by-mail ballots counted: 14,765 40,000
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots left to count: 25,235 0
Total estimated number of provisionals to count: 38,513
Total provisionals counted: 0 5849 12,467 17,552
Total estimated number of provisionals left to count: 38,513 32,664 26,046 20,961
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls to count: 66,000 81,000 93,000
Total vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls counted: 0 3,792 39,638 71,235 87,615 90,644 92,554
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls left to count: 66,000 62,208 26,362 9765 5385 2356 446
Total estimated number of election day paper ballots to count: 5792
Total election day paper ballots counted: 0 5250 5450
Total estimated number of election day paper ballots left to count: 5792 542 342
Tso photo credit to the Register; Moore’s is from her website.
Orange Juice Blog remains Orange County’s newspaper of record on all the close races, although our friends at both Voice of OC have joined us in covering the two marquee races in Garden Grove and Costa Mesa and A Bubbling Cauldron even dipped its toe into Laguna Woods today. Speaking of which: Carol Moore has climbed ahead of Rae Tso by four votes for the second seat on the Laguna Woods City Council behind Bert Hack. Moore picked up 50 today while Tso gained 45.
Here are the numbers for the today’s ballot count:
New provisionals counted: 5,085 (20,961 remain.)
New VBMRAPs counted: 1,910 (446 remain.)
New paper ballots counted: 0 (342 remain.)
Not finishing off those last two categories is inflaming my OCD. But let’s get to the fun stuff.
Progressive hopefuls Nguyen, Humphrey, Fox — and a community college bond for Veterans.
We’re primarily covering four races at this point — Garden Grove Mayor, Costa Mesa Council, Irvine Council, and Measure J (NOCCCD School Bond.) (Update: nope, now it’s six — adding Anaheim City Council and Measure N.) The Garden Grove Mayor and (sort of) Measure J saw the lead change today, while Costa Mesa and Irvine had very few new ballots counted, and so stayed the same. Again, until now a smaller proportion of the count has been provisionals than we’ll see in the days ahead, which bodes slightly better than that for Bao Nguyen, Jay Humphrey, and Melissa Fox, who are pictured above. But each of the races could still go either way, depending on what precincts have and have not already have their provisionals counted.
Let’s get right to the races. For each candidate, you’ll see today’s raw vote total, plus that candidate’s percentage of today’s haul in parenthesis.
Garden Grove
Yesterday, Broadwater led by 26.
| CITY OF GARDEN GROVE Mayor |
| Completed Precincts: 87 of 87 |
| Vote Count | Percentage | |
| * BRUCE ALLAN BROADWATER | 11,622 | 42.4% |
| BAO NGUYEN | 11,596 | 42.3% |
| ALBERT AYALA | 4,184 | 15.3% |
Today, Bao Nguyen leads by 7!
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Another 197 votes were counted. Broadwater picked up 67 votes (34.0%), Bao picked up 100 (50.8%), and Ayala picked up 30 (15.2%). Chances are good that only provisionals remain — and that’s where Bao has been cleaning up. The wrong precincts coming in could still take him down, but having momentum plus the lead is exactly where one wants to be.
Costa Mesa
Yesterday, Jim Righeimer led by 21.
| CITY OF COSTA MESA Member, City Council |
| Number To Vote For: 2 |
| Completed Precincts: 70 of 70 |
| Vote Count | Percentage | |
| KATRINA FOLEY | 9,252 | 26.5% |
| * JIM RIGHEIMER | 7,432 | 21.3% |
| JAY HUMPHREY | 7,411 | 21.2% |
| LEE RAMOS | 5,249 | 15.0% |
| TONY CAPITELLI | 1,839 | 5.3% |
| AL MELONE | 1,459 | 4.2% |
| RITA LOUISE SIMPSON | 1,179 | 3.4% |
| CHRISTOPHER SCOTT BUNYAN | 1,098 | 3.1% |
Today, Righeimer leads by 37 — but don’t panic. This was a just conservative precinct or two.
Another 125 votes were counted. Foley picked up 27 (21.6%). Righeimer picked up 36 (28.8%). Humphrey picked up 20 (16.0%). Ramos picked up 19 (15.2%). Capitelli picked up 10 (15.0%). Melone picked up 8 (6.4%). Simpson picked up 2 (1.6%). Bunyan picked up 3 (2.4%). When you see Foley get only 3/4 as many votes as Righeimer in an update of this year’s count, you know that you’re looking at an outlier. With that out of the way, things still look good for Humphrey — plenty of provisionals remain and a fair number of them will likely be from Costa Mesa. OJB does not retract its provisional prediction of a Humphrey win.
Irvine
Yesterday, Fox trailed Jeff Lalloway by 223.
| CITY OF IRVINE Member, City Council |
| Number To Vote For: 2 |
| Completed Precincts: 109 of 109 |
| Vote Count | Percentage | |
| LYNN SCHOTT | 16,610 | 22.9% |
| * JEFFREY LALLOWAY | 16,556 | 22.8% |
| MELISSA FOX | 16,333 | 22.5% |
| * LARRY AGRAN | 14,238 | 19.6% |
| EVAN CHEMERS | 8,865 | 12.2% |
Today, Fox trails Lalloway by 215 — but not many votes were counted.
|
Another 370 votes were counted. Schott picked up 80 (22.2%). Lalloway picked up 89 (19.8%). Fox picked up 93 (24.5%). Agran picked up 73 (21.3%). Chemers picked up 35 (12.1%). Is Fox running out of time? Well, if she falls short, that will be why — but I wouldn’t conclude that from these numbers. This was about 1/7 the number of new votes added yesterday, and Melissa picked up on Scott at a reasonably pace — but Lalloway happened to outpoll Schott today. The Statement of the Votes has 619,640 being cast in the Governor’s race (where almost everyone votes) and 43,011 — just under 7% — were from Irvine. So — if Irvine has an average number of provisional votes — and I believe that it probably has more than average, due to its student population — you’d expect about 3,000 of them to be from Irvine, but 4,000 would not be surprising. OK, let’s do some math. (Skip to the end of the next paragraph if you can’t abide it.)
Over the past two days combined (and remember that about 30% of those 2,778 votes cast probably weren’t the more favorable provisionals), Scott picked up 612, Lalloway picked up 563, and Fox picked up 685. If they were pretty much equal in the expected 30% of non-provisionals, we can knock 185 off of each count to estimate how well they’re doing in the 70% of those votes that were provisionals. So if Schott got 427, Lalloway 378, and Fox 500, then in an estimated 2,000 or so ballots Fox gained 73 votes on Schott, She needs 264 to tie her, so even 4,000 more provisionals would make that unlikely — but not impossible if favorable precincts still need to come in. Her situation is much better regarding Lalloway, where we’d estimate that she picked up 122 votes out of 2000 counted and needs only 215 to tie. That’s doable, with about 3,500 provisionals. I am making some favorable assumptions here for Fox — but not crazy ones. I’d still put her odds at under 50%, but hope persists.
Measure J
Yesterday, the Measure J bond (which needs 55% to pass) was behind this much:
| J-North Orange County Community College District, Fullerton/Cypress Colleges Bond Measure |
| Completed Precincts: 522 of 522 |
| Vote Count | Percentage | |
| Bonds – Yes | 79,049 | 54.8% |
| Bonds – No | 65,119 | 45.2% |
Today — it’s leading. Well, not actually leading: it’s at 0.54979995357%. Very very close.
|
Another 2298 votes were counted. The Yes side added 1478 votes (64.32%). The No side added 820 votes (35.68%). That’s even better than the 63.55% it had yesterday. To actually win, 30 of those votes would have had to switch from No to Yes. At the present rate, though , if 50 more votes come in — and that seems like a fair bet — it will be in the lead. OJB would be willing to call this one right now if it had to.
Anaheim
I hate to do this, but I have to promote coverage of the Anaheim City Council race into the top section, given Gail Eastman’s gain on James Vanderbilt today. Anaheim counted 1559 new votes — which could be as few as 780 new voters, but is probably more — and Eastman picked up 43 votes on Vanderbilt, gaining 263 to 220. What is especially disturbing for Vanderbilt is that these were voters that went largely for Dr. Jose Moreno — who got 390 of them. Moreno’s 4,000 votes back of Vanderbilt, so he’d need ten more days like that to catch him. but Eastman would only need five more days like today to catch him — and with 20,000 provisionals out there (meaning another 40,000 potential votes), then it’s not entirely impossible. If Anaheim has between 20-25% of the provisionals — unlikely but not impossible — it wouldn’t take much on an uptick for Eastman to make a charge. That’s not how I’d bet — but, just in case, here are today’s totals so we can start keeping track: Myrray 251, Vanderbilt 220, Eastman 263, Dr. Moreno 390, Pettibone 121, O’Keefe 104, Acevedo 93, adn JoJo Moreno hitchhiked his way to 117.
Measure N
For a similar reason, I have to include Anaheim’s Utility Tax Measure N (Anaheim Utility Tax) up here as well. Except — Measure N now looks like it will win. Two days ago, it was down by 341. Yesterday, it was down by 289. Today — it’s down by just 165. The Yes side added 502 votes; the No side added just 378, for a net gain of 126. It needs another day-and-a-quarter like that — and it will probably see more than enough additional voters to do it. Sadly, this is voters for Galloway (who went up another .4% today) and Dr. Moreno doing it to themselves.
Others
Some other close races so still exist, but in none of them (except maybe Dana Point and Measure N) does the challenger seem likely to catch up due to provisional ballots. For the record, though, you could keep an eye on:
- Art Montez by 123 (0.7%) — unchanged — over Kevin Sequeira in Centralia School District
- Jim Cunneen by
8879 (0.3%) over Gary Stine in Fountain Valley School District - Cynthia Aguirre by
132142 (0.9%) over Kevin Jacobson in La Habra City School District - Joe Muller by 64 (0.3%) over Jodi Payne for Dana Point City Council
- Satoru Tamaribuchi by 1,367 (2.2%) over Execrable Dave Ellis for Municipal Water District of Orange County, Seat 5
(That last one isn’t really a close race; we just like rubbing it in.)
The plot thickens.
Just as all the lies that were thrown against Mayor Tait and Measure L makes those victories that much sweeter, so would the fact that Bao surmounted being tarred as a Commie in the Viet community by thugs of Broadwater.
Ryan, you may want to take a look at the update.
Measure N now looks likely to win. And Vanderbilt, while not is grave danger, is now somewhat less than a mortal lock.
Yeah, I saw it.
The NOCCC bond and measure N resurrecting themselves. Ewww.
But hey, that’s the way the votes crumble.
Ryan, perhaps you can help explain what’s wrong with J.
Over half a billion dollars to do what exactly?
Oh, right, fix leaky roofs for veterans who attend community college.
This bond (the bond! Not even the existing operations cost) will require property owners to pay more to the JC than a full time student pays in tuition.
That’s disgusting.
I’ll ask Michael Matsuda if he can weigh in on this.
Could you specify what a full-time student pays in tuition, Ryan? My daughter is a couple of years out. Is it about $500? And is that spread out over 30 years, so that it could be something like $17 a year? If so — and I’m just guessing here from what you wrote — then what you wrote seems misleading.
Yep. And the district floated a $250,000,000 bond just a few years back. Aesthetic issues aide, how well was that building program managed? I remember it sure didn’t start out well.
And of course on that one (as on almost all of them) the Oversight Committee was a joke.
Tuition, Two years at $1084 a year equals $2168.
Bond Tax, Thirty years at $89.40 a year ($14.90/$100,000 @ $600,000) equals $2682.
Again, this does not include existing property tax and bond tax already paid by the property owner. This bond sale on its own will cause the average property owner to pay more to the JC than a student pays in tuition.
Tuition will continue to rise, so in about 3 years — for 90% of the life of the bonds, in other words, homeowners will pay less over those 30 years than a student will pay in two. Of course, as the husband of one relatively recent FC student and the father of another, as well as one other who took classes for a trade at the Anaheim adult school, I can tell you that it’s very difficult right now to get through with an AA or certificate in two years because of competition for courses. (I’ll take your word for it that $600,000 is the assessment — not the actual value but the official assessment — of an average house in this district, but only because I don’t want to demand that you prove it.)
The bigger answer, though, is: so? The question is whether the money is worth it for the community in general. I think that FC and CC and the Anaheim campus provide a significant benefit to their communities and to a large number of individuals there, one that keeps property values higher and that individuals could not obtain by themselves for anything like comparable money.
I’m with you on lots of extravagances that make middlemen wealthy, but I don’t think that that falls into that same category. It seems to be a reasonable choice for voters in a community (who all pay either through direct tax or it being funneled through rent) to make. If there are inefficiencies and inadequacies in service delivery, by all means go after those — but attacking this sort of expenditure categorically seems wrongheaded.
I’d happily see you or Zenger on an Oversight Commission, but I would not presume that each of your criticisms would be borne out.
The entire JC system needs to be overhauled. It has metastasized into a gigantic babysitting operation.
In classes that I have taken at Santa Ana, Fullerton, and Citrus I’ve encountered the same thing: massive drops throughout the course of the semester with students suffering very little consequences other than having to take classes again. It really is appalling.
A good friend of mine teaches a very necessary (for those wanting to advance in this well paid field) class at FJC and reports each year that the number of flunking quitters is completely unacceptable. He gets the same students several times in the same class over the years.
Part of the problem is that it’s too cheap and easy for students to quit.
Part of the problem is that many if not most of the students don’t belong in college at all (another macro problem in our society in which all sorts of jobs require unnecessary degrees and then the government produces degreed illiterates to fill them).
Part of the problem is that the administration is bloated and underscrutinized.
Part of the problem is that the Boards are composed of incompetent geriatrics, or professional educrats, or other assorted rubber stampers.
Using veterans to promote this bond is the absolute height of cynicism. But hey this is “Use a Vet in 2014” year.
That’s certainly an argument for some reforms, David, such as delaying the time until one can take a given class for one year for each time one has dropped it. (One year time out for the first time, two years for the second time, etc.) But to me it doesn’t speak to the inefficacy of community college generally (especially given the price of the CSUs and UCs), nor to the legitimacy of this particular (wrapped in a nice bow for the voters, as is so much in politics) bond proposal. I do seem to recall a recent proposal, don’t know if it passed, to limit the times one can retake a class (or something along those lines.)
The latter comments you make may well argue against the bond, but they’re too general to engage. If you just don’t like community college — well, I don’t find it hard to say that I and 55%+ of the people around do, so we can settle this at the ballot box, as we just have.
Greg, the bigger issue isn’t if it’s worth it. And the semantics around my shock value comment are largely irrelevant as well.
I think it’s a travesty that voters were told this bond was for vets (it’s not) and that a tax increase is the first resort vs a tuition increase.
If this really were for vets, the more sensible solution would be to RAISE tuition to capture more revenue from the GI bill. Tuition at FJC, CSUF, and UCLA is free for vets. We just agreed the most massive section of the federal budget is inadequate to address the educational needs of our vets, so we must tax ourselves at the smallest level of government to close the gap.
That, in a word, is Bullshit.
Ryan, what’s your understanding of the recent history — say, the last six years — of tuition at these community colleges? They’ve been “resorting” to tuition increases — significant ones — every year. If they hadn’t been, you might have a point, but they’ve already priced some students out of what was to be our free educational system.
My experience has also influenced my opinion. I’ve taken six JC classes at three different districts over the years. The level of instruction and student accomplishment was absolutely abysmal in all six.
The system is being largely run by and for the benefit of super-high paid administrators and tenured teachers – even as work load was dumped onto more and more part-time instructors making peanuts.
Greg,
Tuition is a $1000 a year.
For college. That’s a fifth of Cal State, a tenth of the UC system, and three hundredths the cost of a private University.
In other words, it’s a friggin’ steal. If you want to argue that FJC and CC have increased tuition revenue by half a billion dollars in the last six years, I’d love to hear it.
The overwhelming burden of tuition is financed by the taxpayer. Considering JC’s actually pay their professors (what appears to be) a humane wage, I’d hazard to guess we’re funding 95% of the cost. Probably more. So you’ll have to forgive me for not exactly shedding a tear over tuition increases.
I don’t think they’re pricing anyone out of the market.
Rent increases or employment issues would be SUBSTANTIALLY more significant to pricing a student out of the market.
Again, if this bond measure is really truly for Veterans and providing a decent education for Veterans, the gross disparity between what the GI bill provides and what JC actually costs was sorely absent from the ballot argument.
It was a cheap political trick for a very expensive bond. That isn’t right.
But hey– I get one vote. Looks like a lost.
Even if you were presupposed to think that the JCs were doing a great job and were producing superior outcomes, the idea of using vets to gin up a massive encumbrance on property owners is really pretty low.
Ask yourselves this question: if no mention of veterans had been made and if the NOCCCD had simply put on the usual poor mouth they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near 55%. Or 50% for that matter.
The ironic thing is that I expect that sort of behavior from flag-waving jingoists – not from those within the educational-industrial complex.
Guess I was wrong.
rumor has it that riggie has retained janet nguyen’s favorite vote counter, the ethically challenged phil greer, to make sure the margins stay where they should
Well, I’m not allowed to advertise, but….
you and greer
that would be fun to watch
If Bao wins the skallywag family will be proud to have made the difference that put him over the top.
When did you move to Garden Grove?
I have family in Garden Grove – and they all voted for Bao.
Nice. And surprising
Vern – Why would that be surprising to you?
Skallywag’s family supporting a progressive Democrat, let alone one who’s been called a commie, is surprising and welcome. You guys must have a real problem with Broadwater.
Guilt by association?
Broadwater is an old douche – it is time for some new blood.
And Broadwater is a dem as well – so not much difference there.
…”being taired a commie” What exactly was said? Can you post a picture of the mailer?
So I can return to barfing again?
Sorry, my friend. I do not want it to be so, but the results of today’s provisionals are not good. So long as they don’t get worse, though, he should be ok,
Thanks for the props… hearts are pounding on both sides here in Costa Mesa. And, thanks for the smile at the end of your piece. You’re description of Dave Ellis made me chuckle. Keep up the good work. Neal Kelley tells me that he hopes to certify all race results Monday or Tuesday.
I’ve been calling him “Execrable Dave” for a while now. It helps to distinguish him from “Dishonest Dave” Gilliard.
So good news in Garden Grove, a ray of hope in Costa Mesa… And jitters in Irvine.
Thanks for keeping us updated. Hopefully in the coming months, progressive minded activists will examine the results to figure out what worked and what did not. Katrina Foley is a rock star. And while I won’t name any fallen stars, I don’t really need to. (The results speak for themselves.)