.

.

.

Notable results and non-results:

• Ashleigh Aitken today cut her deficit against Harry Sidhu by more than a third, from 1406 to 890!
• Ousted incumbents include Tim Surridge from Orange Unified School Board, Dennis P. Walsh from Saddleback Valley, Rob Zur Schmiede in Laguna Beach Council, Frank Cobo in the Midway City Sanitary District — and Billy O’Connell in Huntington Beach is looking a little Edison High School green around the gills.

Here are the downballot races that are still close.  I have generally included the static numbers from Tuesday’s OC ROV report and the Secretary of State’s office (for multi-county races) and the trend from the previous reports on Saturday.  In each race, the name in orange is currently barely in and the one in magenta is currently barely out.  (I’m somewhat arbitrarily and selectively drawing the line right around “under 4%,” down 1% from yesterday’s criterion.)

If you know anything interesting about these races and why we should care about them, please speak up!

Following the race updates will be the update of the “What’s Left to Count” report from the OCROV and a list of useful links.

James Kelley adds 33 votes, Christine de Bretteville adds 29.  Lead expands from 91 to 95.

Diana Hill adds 258 votes; Jeffrey Barke adds 261.  Lead shrinks from 26 votes to 23.

Kunath over Dan Walsh by 1202 votes, down 8.

Cuadra adds 1 vote, Jeng 3.  Lead at 86.

Juan Gabriel Alvarez adds 331 votes.  Jeff Cole adds 201 votes.  Lead expands from 78 to 208 votes.  Trend favors Alvarez, but we’ll keep reporting on it.

In the fight for third place, Shari Kowalke led Jennifer Hayden by 358 votes.  Kowalke gained 10 votes, Hayden gained 11, and the margin is now 357.

In the fight for the third seat, Jack Souders led Gracey Van Der Mark by 2,623 votes.  Souders added 211 to his total.  GVDM added 205.  We all know this is over … but let’s keep counting until the end just to make sure.

Yesterday, Chaffee led Shaw by 572 votes.  Today, the late Democratic advantage pushes that margin to 960 votes.

Harry Sidhu led Ashleigh Aitken yesterday by a margin of 1,406 votes.  Today that margin is down to 892 votes — a drop of more than 1/3.  Is that significant?  You bet.

Here’s what I wrote yesterday:

HOWEVER, there is good reason to suspect that a sizable number of provisional ballots are being challenged in Anaheim, whose percentage of the overall vote has been shrinking each day over the last week just when one would think it would be growing as the ROV moves to counting provisional votes, and therefore are not reflected in these figures.  (This will be the topic of a longer separate story, as soon as I can get to it.  Let’s just say for now that if it turns out that Disney lawyers are trying to obstruct or even just delay counting of the Latino vote in their flagship city, every network except maybe Disney’s own ABC and Fox will be interested in it.)

What this suggests is that the theory was correct — and that many of the provisionals may have had their voters located and gotten approved for inclusion.  I AM GOING TO TRY TO FIND THOSE BALLOTS IF I CAN AND SEE WHOSE NAMES WERE BEING EXCLUDED.  IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO GET COPIES OF THE ENVELOPE SIGNATURES THEMSELVES TO BE EXAMINED PRIVATELY BY A COURT’S SPECIAL MASTER, I WILL DO THAT AS WELL.  IF PEOPLE (who I’m merely guessing might be affiliated with Disney) HAVE BEEN TRYING TO PREVENT THE EXPEDITED COUNTING OF LATINO BALLOTS ON FLIMSY BASES IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW, I’M GOING TO FIND LAWYERS MUCH BETTER THAN I AM AND MAKE THE SCOFFLAWS VERY SORRY.

The fight is between Glenn Parker and Steve Shatynski for third place.  Yesterday, Parker left Shatynski by 1,107.  Today, it’s 1,118.  Between them, they added 31 votes.  Probably over.

Park and Vaughn both picked up 6 votes; Val picked up 2.  A margin of 14 doesn’t seem that safe, but Park is the Democrat and would normally get a late surge.  However, the sign-stealing news came late, and if provisional voters were attending to that then she might do more poorly in them.  Then again, we don’t know how many votes from this district remain to be counted at all.

The margin has gone from 130 to 140 and the percentage lead from 4,9% to 5.2%.  I’d call it — except for the possibility that non-profit executive MacDonald will be helped by provisionals.  Let’s wait.

No real change, hardly any votes counted, it stays on the cusp of being called.

Not enough new votes counted here to make a difference.  Also on the cusp of being called.

Yesterday, Phat Bui led by 389 votes.  Today, it’s 360.  Bui added 24 votes; Paredes added 53.  This is within the “maybe provisionals are being challenged” zone, so I’m keeping it open.

Only the first five names are even conceivably in the race — and that depends on a flood of provisional ballots from UCI and elsewhere.  Not much sign of that yet — though it’s possible (but not probable) that this is a race for which the state Republican Party might be challenging provisionals.  Just a trickle of ballots here today — as opposed to Anaheim — so no new analysis.  This is likely the final order of finish.

No votes counted today.

Very few votes counted .. but the race for the second seat does tighten from a margin of 81 votes to 76.

Prior margin was 320.  Stoaks gained 19, Duffy gained 28.  It looks like a long road to picking up 311.

Very few new votes counted.  James remains within striking distance of Ward — but that’s not the way to bet.

This one got some ballots processed today.  Yesterday’s margin of 904 was cut to 823.  Pulido picked up 475, Tinajero 556.  I’m going to repeat what I said yesterday:

This is another one where I strongly suspect, without having sought or received evidence to back up my opinion, that Pulido’s people have been challenging provisional ballots from areas (and possibly ethnicities) that they believe will be more likely to support Tinajero.  If so, then the likelihood is good that Tinajero will eventually win — but his mayoral term will have a difficult birth.  … Definitely not over until the last provisional is counted.

I don’t think that we’ll get much warning before the trickle of ballots — including all eligible provisionals — stops.  Every day it goes on is probably going to be a good one for Tinajero.

Why, Mirna Velasquez, why?

Nmanyballots counted — but Collacott’s lead over Fascenelli expands slightly.  Hard to see how it reverses.

Chi Charlie’s lead over Power drops very slightly — and it’s hard to see how Power picks up 1,000 votes.  But this is Janet Nguyen’s territory, so illegitimate challenges to provisionals are conceivable.  Otherwise, I’d call it.

Minimal movement — and none related to the race in for the third seat.

Cobo falls another couple dozen behind Margie Rice.

In the race for the third seat, Peer Swan had led by 2,352; now it’s 2,324.  Swan added 145, Pollard 173.  So Pollard’s gaining 28 on the margin burned up a lot of ballots.

Gaskins’s lead widens by 9.

Moorhead’s lead over Maddox expands from 1,428 to 1437.  Used up a few ballots to get there, too.

The YES side gained 2,882 votes.  The NO side gained 1,583 votes.  That’s 4465 voters — 139 more than were added to the Mayor’s race.  (Hrrmmm?  Do they come in on different days?)  The margin went from 4,492 to 5791.  So that tells you what kinds of votes are coming in: good news for Ashleigh Aitken.

WHAT’S LEFT TO COUNT?

Total Ballots Left to Count