Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The latest on the election

     Nov. 3: IS PRENDERGAST THE VICTOR? All day, we’ve been trying to nail down the really real outcome of the all-important Prendergast/Muldoon vote. I’m now inclined to think that it’s virtually a done deal and Prendergast won.
     I just checked with the OC Registrar of Voters, and, as of 4:55 today, they show this:
THOMAS "T.J." PRENDERGAST, III
86,726 - 50.78%

KEVIN M. MULDOON
84,046 - 49.22%
     So Prendergast is almost 1.6% above Muldoon. Whew!
     Still, the numbers don’t make much sense to me:
Prendergast: 86,726
Muldoon: 84,046
Total votes: 170,772
     Those numbers seem awfully low. I compared them with the numbers for (to pick a random South County trustee race*) the 2008 race between Tom Fuentes and Bob Bliss:
Bob Bliss: 126,936
Tom Fuentes: 168,530
Total votes: 295,466
     That’s a much higher number of total votes. On the other hand, yesterday’s election was a midterm, so maybe that explains the discrepancy.
     The numbers for the 2008 race are odd in other ways. There were 546,037 registered voters and 419,089 ballots cast. That’s an amazing 77% turnout!
     One might assume that 100% of those ballots sported a vote for either Mr. Bliss or Mr. Fuentes.
     Nope. Only 70%.
     Getting back to last night’s race: according to the League of Women Voters website, there was a “38.9% Voter Turnout (631,030/1,621,934)”
     39% is lots lower than 70%, dude.
     Also, where does this number—1,621,934**—come from? That’s way more than 546,037.
     I don’t get it.
     Also: if 631,031 ballots were cast and the combined total of Prendergast and Muldoon votes is 170,772, then only 27% of last night’s South County voters actually voted for Prendergast or Muldoon.
     Huh? Could that be right?
     So, the data we have remain a bit confusing. To me.

     (*Why, you may ask, didn't I compare the Prendergast/Muldoon race of 2010 with the race for the same seat four years ago? For some reason, I can't find that data at the OC Registrar of Voters site. Can't figure it out. **This number appears to be the total for the whole county.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ouch.

You're making my head hurt.

gj said...

Wagner was unopposed in 2006 so the race was not on the ballot. Same thing in 2002. Here's 1998: http://www.smartvoter.org/1998nov/ca/or/race/3059/

Anonymous said...

You are all lost. Lost in your own conspiracy theories fueled by the best conspiracy theorist, Roy Bauer. Everything regarding Kathy Schrader reported on this blog is wrong. Additionally, Roy made sure Wendy didn't get the job despite the fact that she has done it for several years. Roy carped and harranged at every oppportuity against Wendy. Then, when the committee went south, he attempted to appear as the hero on Wendy's behalf. What a pud. Roy and Raghu are cut from the same evil cloth. Roy needs to hang his head in shame.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...