There's Something Happening Here, What It Means Ain't Exactly Clear

Just in case you had forgotten, on primary night Hillary was declared the overwhelming winner,
having received 1,940,580 (55.8%) votes as compared with Bernie's vote total of 1,502,043 (43.2%),
a margin of victory that was shocking, given the neck and neck opinion polls on the eve of the
primary. But when we learned the next day that there were perhaps as many as 3 million ballots --
mail-in and "provisional" which had yet to be counted, many expected that when these ballots were
counted and included in the final tally, the spread between Hillary and Bernie would narrow
considerably, and that Bernie might even emerge, in the end, as the winner of the contest.

As I wrote a few weeks back, the speed with which the AP, Obama, Biden and Warren raced to
crown Hillary the presumptive nominee struck me as owing to the establishment's desire to kill off
Bernie's candidacy with haste, lest a change in the CA outcome resuscitate Bernie's candidacy,
whose path to the nomination, one will recall, depended upon the momentum of a CA primary
victory.

Since then many in the Bernie camp have watched and waited as the supplemental counting of the
vote has proceeded at a pace that has been so slow and deliberate as to render even those who are
most averse to political paranoia susceptible to the inference that the CA Democratic Party is doing
Hillary's bidding in slowing the completion of the count, to make sure that the final outcome has no
more consequence than an academic footnote, whichever way it points.

And so the counting of the vote has continued -- though not at the same pace in all CA counties, as
if some are completely intent upon running out the clock on the count. But this being said, at least it
appeared that the entirety of the vote was being counted and that the principle of democracy was
being defended, however imperfectly.

And one could watch this process from afar by paying attention to two different web pages of the CA
Secretary of State (whose office is responsible for counting and finally certifying the vote). One web
page (http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/president/party/democratic/) tracks the vote tally itself, giving
tallies for Hillary, Bernie and updating these cumulative tallies every weekday, as the count of the
uncounted ballots proceeds. The other webpage of note (http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statewide-
elections/2016-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf), tracks the number of still uncounted ballots
themselves, which the state has divided into 3 categories: mail-in ballots, so called "provisional
ballots" and a third category of "other" which includes defaced or "spoiled" ballots. Basically, the
relationship between the vote totals on these two pages is reciprocal: as the total number of as yet
uncounted votes goes down, the number of votes cast for Hillary and Bernie should go up, and this
should occur in direct proportion.

In fact, on account of the differences among the three piles of uncounted votes, we might expect that
a one-to-one relationship will hold between uncounted mail-in ballots and the cumulative total of
votes cast for Hillary and Bernie. For example, if the number of uncounted mail-in ballots falls by 500
between Tuesday and Wednesday, we should expect to see a commensurate increase of
approximately 500 votes in the cumulative number of votes cast for Hillary and Bernie. (Or perhaps,
more conservatively, if we assume that 10% of the uncounted mail-in ballots were improperly filled
out and thus defective, then we should add only 90% of these ballots to the cumulative number of
votes validly cast for either Hilary or Bernie.) At the other extreme, we should not expect that a
reduction of 500 ballots in the third pile of uncounted ballots, marked "other" which were placed in
this pile because they were initially deemed to be spoiled or unreadable, will be reflected in an 500
vote increase in the total count, since the errors in these ballots are presumptively likely to lead to
most of them being discarded. Finally, there is the third pile of so-called “provisional ballots” that
were cast at the polls by persons who were either not listed on the voting rolls or were listed as
having received mail-in ballots but who had shown up to vote in person, or persons who were
registered as "no party preference" who were eligible to vote in either the Democratic or Republican
primaries if they arrived at the polls and asked for a primary ballot for one party or the other but
whose ballots were mistakenly placed in this pile by witless poll workers. One would imagine that it is
with respect to this third pile that there is the most indeterminacy as to whether they will end up
being included in the count or not. Perhaps a voter was not registered at all; perhaps a voter was
registered as a Republican but asked for, and then cast, a ballot in the Democratic primary; or
perhaps a given voter voted twice, once by mail and once in person at the polls. For all of these
reasons, one would expect that a percentage of the ballots placed in this pile will be disqualified and
not added to the final tally of votes. Historically, the exclusion rate for CA ballots in this pile is around
20%. So, for every 500 ballots found in this pile, we should expect that, after review, 400 will be
added to the official count.

Watching the count proceed over the past two weeks (since 6.7), the most striking thing, initially,
was the slow rate at which these ballot piles were being reviewed and counted. Every day the
Secretary of State’s office would publish the updated counts from every county in the state, but as
one looked down the roster, one could not but be struck by the fact that some counties with the
largest numbers of ballots to be counted appeared not to be doing anything at all. But this aside, the
process appeared to be unfolding as one would expect, with the reduction in the size of the 3 piles of
uncounted ballots being reflected in an increase in the cumulative tallies of the candidates.

But was the increase in the cumulative tally of the votes directly proportionate to the reduction in the
size of the pile of uncounted ballots?

That something has gone wrong with the process became apparent only yesterday when the gap
between the reduction in the uncounted vote and the increase in the cumulative vote tallies was so
disproportionate as to run up a red flag and ring the alarm of apparent voter suppression.

What set off these alarms was the plain fact that between June 20th and June 21st, the reduction in
uncounted mail-in ballots of 156,099 ballots, and of uncounted provisional ballots by 126,166 ballots,
was not reflected in the change in the cumulative tally of votes cast. In fact the tallies of Hillary and
Bernie increased by only 36,509 and 44,648, respectively, and the total tally of votes cast by only
81,157! Even if one excluded all of the provisional ballots, 81,157 is only somewhat more than ½
(56%) of the 140,500 (90% of 156,099) mail-in ballots which should have been added to the total
tally of votes. And even if, for the sake of argument, one posited that only 60% (which is far below
the historical average of 80%) of the provisional ballots were valid and properly added to the
electoral tally, this should add another 75,000 votes to the total. So what happened to the missing
135,000 ((140,000 + 75,000) – 81,157) votes, which were subtracted from the one tally but were not
added to the other?

Alerted by this discrepancy, I decided to check the aggregate totals, comparing the reduction in the
pile of uncounted ballots between 6.13 and 6.21, with the total increase in the votes cast for Hillary
and Bernie. What this shows is the following: From 6.13 – 6.21, the number of uncounted mail-in
ballots in the state has been reduced from 1,506,982 to 237,000, which means that1,269,061 mail-in
ballots have been counted and (90% of them) should have been added to the cumulative vote tally
of Hillary and Bernie. During the same period, the number of un-reviewed and uncounted provisional
ballots has gone from 717,862 to 511,429, which means that 206,433 provisional ballots have been
assessed. And if we posit again, for argument’s sake, the rather low certification rate of 60%, then
we should expect that approximately 123,000 votes should have been added to the total vote
received by Hillary and Bernie. Adding together these two figures, we should expect that the total
number of votes counted thus far, as reflected in the cumulative tally, should have increased by at
least 1,265,154 votes.

But if we look to the cumulative tally of the vote, we find something that should shock all who are
concerned about the integrity of the democratic process. What we find is that the tally of total votes
has grown from 3,945,458 (as of 3.13) to 4,673,541 (as of 3.21), which is an increase of only
728,083, as compared with the 1,265,154 vote increase that the reduction in the number of
uncounted ballots should have led us to expect. This amounts to a democratic deficit of over
537,071 votes thus far (compared to the 447,000 vote gap between Hillary’s and Bernie’s
respective vote tallies (6.21), which may explain why the percentage difference between Hillary and
Bernie has only shrunk by several percentage points since the election eve tally which showed a
55.8% to 43.2% split has only shifted to a 54.3% to 44.8% split in the past two weeks, with Hillary
still firmly in the lead.

So with more than 1 million votes remaining in the uncounted pile, with 394,020 uncounted mail-in
ballots and 637,595 provisional ballots included in this total (as of 6pm on 6.21), we the people have
ample reason to be worried about what has been going on in the counties of California where the
count of the uncounted votes cast in the Democratic Party primary continues. And we have reason
to demand that the federal government intervene to secure and ensure the integrity of the electoral
process.

There are several questions that must be asked and each is urgent: What has happened to the
missing votes? Have they been intentionally suppressed? For partisans of Bernie, it is hard not to
regard the inconsistencies in the count, to which I have pointed in this article, as evidence of a
nefarious and concerted effort by the Democratic Party of California to deny Bernie a primary victory
that is rightfully his. But even partisans of Hillary, must admit that the appearance that her primary
victory in California, the largest state in the nation, was obtained through election fraud would taint
her nomination and would drive her “negatives” through the glass ceiling while seeming to validate
the low regard Americans have of her trustworthiness. And even more than the partisans on either
side, disinterested observers who well understand that the legitimacy of our democratic system
depends upon the integrity of our election system, must acknowledge that the appearance of
electoral malfeasance places this very legitimacy at risk.

For all of these reasons, it seems to me that it is time for the Attorney General of the State of
California, or better yet, the Attorney General of the United States to appoint a Special Master, under
the authority granted by the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, to audit the entire process by
which the votes cast in the CA Democratic Presidential Primary have been counted, and to oversee
a complete recount of the votes if the investigation seems to warrant this step.

Even the appearance of fraud should be enough to mandate an investigation and a recount by
competent state and federal authorities whose integrity is beyond reproach. And the discrepancies in
the process thus far, which my analysis has demonstrated, suggests that this threshold has been
crossed.