On March 17, California held an election to fill three vacant State Senate seats. In the 37th district, in Orange County, three Republicans were on the ballot, and the ballot had write-in space. Even though this was the only office on the ballot, more than 1,200 voters cast an “undervote”. In other words, they did not vote for any of the three candidates on the ballot, nor did they vote for the only declared write-in candidate in the race, Democrat Louise Stewardson.
The Orange County Registrar of Voters, in this interview, was asked why a voter would go to all the trouble to vote in an election with only one race on the ballot, and not vote for any of the official candidates. The response is that most of these voters wanted to vote for a Democrat, but they didn’t know the name of the only declared write-in Democratic candidate. Probably most of these undervotes are from voters who cast a write-in for someone who wasn’t a declared write-in candidate.
So far, the election returns for this race are: Republican John Moorlach 36,393; Republican Donald Wagner 31,870; Republican Naz Namazi 2,490. There is no tally yet for the number of write-ins for Louise Stewardson. Until the Stewardson write-in total is known, it is difficult to predict if Moorlach got as many as 50% of the total valid votes cast. If he didn’t, there will be a run-off. Thanks to AroundtheCapitol for the link.
Cost per vote — even an undervote ???
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NO more special elections.
Candidate/incumbent rank order replacement lists.
The undervote is about 1.66%. I think you misread the interview with Neal Kelly. He indicated that there were always persons writing in names of mythical beasts, etc. There may be some persons who wanted to vote for a Democrat, etc. Since election officials probably can’t point out the names of write-in candidates, the election officials would probably be more aware of the requests being made.
In Texas the names of write-in candidates must be posted in each voting booth, and by-mail voters are required to have the same experience as in-person voters to the extent possible, which means the ballot materials must include the name of write-in candidates.
Votes for the the write-in candidate Louise Stewardson are being counted, and are available on the Orange County website. The California Secretary of State for some unexplained reason (my guess is incompetency) does not report votes for all candidates until some time after the election.
87% of the ballots cast were cast by mail. The reason people voted, is that they received a ballot because they are permanent vote-by-mail voters. I suspect close to 0% requested a mail ballot for this election only. It would not surprise me if a large number of unreturned ballots were from persons who might have voted for a Democrat. But 1.66% is not an unusual amount, even when there is only one race on the bsllot.
In this election, Moorlach was at 49.66% among ballots cast for candidates including Stephenson in the mail ballots counted on or before election day. Based on election day and late arriving mail ballots, that has crept up to 50.31%. This would heighten the awareness that he may avoid a runoff.
Meanwhile his share of ballots cast has increased from 48.77% to 49.53%.
The reporter and Richard Winger appear to have conflated the two measures.