On today’s BradCast, while the Democratic Party and the mainstream corporate media may have moved on — and Elizabeth Warren may feel ready to be Commander-in-Chief if tapped as Vice President — there are millions of still-untallied ballots in the state of California. Meanwhile, in the key Presidential swing-state of Ohio, Democrats are being disproportionately purged from the voting rolls by state Republicans in advance of the 2016 general election. [Audio link posted below.]
Yes, democracy actually still matters, and that includes counting the ballots of all the legal voters who wish to vote, counting them accurately, and in a way that we can know they have been counted accurately. While we’ve been reporting this week, often exclusively, on the huge number of still untallied ballots — both Provisional and Vote-by-Mail ballots — here in Los Angeles County, ever since Tuesday’s Presidential Primary, new data now reveals the totals are even higher than we’ve so far reported, both in L.A. and across the state. With some 3.5 million ballots now tallied in the Democratic Primary, and a 500,000 vote (appx. 13%) margin for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, there are still some 2.5 million ballots that have yet to be tallied at all. We discuss what that means and why it matters on today’s program.
We also discuss the necessity of taking action on issues that effect elections before your candidate is announced as having lost one. While it’s a message we’ve been shouting from the rooftops at BradBlog.com and on The BradCast for more years than we care to remember, perhaps Sanders supporters will now take note and action. And perhaps Clinton supporters will join them now, rather than waiting until the media declare President-elect Trump has sewn up the race. As one of the cell phone companies used to say: Can ya hear me now?
Speaking of taking action before it’s too late, it appears that the state of Ohio is purging voters from the rolls at an alarming rate. Specifically, Democratic-leaning voters in urban areas won by Obama in 2008 and 2012 are being purged at a disproportionate rate to more Republican voters in suburban, whiter areas. To date, more Democratic-leaning voters have been removed in the state’s three largest counties in OH than Obama’s margin of victory in the state in 2012. Can ya hear me yet?
But, there is also some good news for voting rights and democracy advocates out of the Buckeye State on today’s show, as a federal judge has found this week that a number of election reforms enacted by the Republican state legislature and signed by its Republican Gov. John Kasich in 2014 are unconstitutional. That good news, however, comes a bit too late for those voters who had their otherwise legitimate provisional ballots unconstitutionally rejected, thanks to those GOP provisions. Naturally, the state’s Republican Sec. of State Jon Husted plans to appeal the federal court’s ruling.
Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report which, as luck would have it, includes a number of encouraging new laws passed this week to help save the environment, underscoring once again that, yes, elections really do matter. You can hear us now by simply clicking on one of the links below. Enjoy!
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_CABallots_OHPurge_061016.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Brad,
I was banned from DU lol….but I believe many ballots have been thrown out in CA and that Bernie has won that state with a huge margin. Some have said a 69 to 31 margin. The rigging against Bernie has been eye opening for me and millions of others. We will NOT vote for that woman come hell or high water. She cheated her way into the nomination plain and simple. Bernie is our best bet for what is decent that is left in this Country.
Kathy @ 1:
For what it’s worth, I don’t share your assessment that “she cheated her way into the nomination”, nor that Sanders “has won” by a “huge margin” or otherwise. But, of course, we’ll see what is reported after the ballots are tallied (either correctly or incorrectly, we’ll likely never know.)
On the LA Progressive website there’s an article written by a poll worker, which lends more anecdotal credence to the Los Angeles county seemingly system-wide dysfunction. Also, the posts below the article offer a couple of concurring comments:
First of all, my precinct had no counted ballots when they were delivered to the Los Angeles Central at around 11 p.m. on Tuesday night. Why? Because the machine we were given jammed at around 10 a.m. and couldn’t be fixed. The remaining regular ballots voted were dumped into the ballot box with the machine counted ballots, so they would all have to be recounted.
https://www.laprogressive.com/uncounted-ballots/#comment-1063831
I’m doing what I can to report on what I believe is the truth.
Here.
Jim Spriggs @ 3:
For the record, that poll worker is very misleading with those comments. Not necessarily on purpose, but clearlly he doesn’t understand how vote tallying works in L.A. County.
The machines he refer to as having jammed are NOT ballot counters. They are electronic ballot readers (Precinct Ballot Readers or PBRs) which do nothing but warn voters about overvotes on their ballots (and, it seems, undervotes, if they haven’t voted in enough races.)
They DO NOT COUNT BALLOTS. Therefore, no matter whether it “jammed” or not — and many other precincts also had problems with those horrible machines — all ballots STILL would have had to have been counted, in full, at County HQ on election night or in the days thereafter.
While there was various forms of problems, arguably version on “dysfunction” as you describe, the information offered about ballots being sent uncounted to the County are completely inaccurate and misleading. Just FYI.
Can we drop that Commander-in-Chief stuff? You and I are old enough to remember that that was not in common use before W decided to be a War President(TM). Let’s not perpetuate that particularly bad meme.