What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

So Geoff, in terms of how different types of votes are counted, we’re expecting blue —> red shift —> blue shift?

Early on, the vote results will generally be those from mail-in ballots that were received and counted before election day. According to Political Data, Inc., which tracks the ballot returns, about 8.7 million ballots had been returned up through yesterday, and another million or so have been added today. But remember that as long as a ballot was mailed by Election Day, it can be accepted up through a week from now, Sept. 21, so some mail votes will be counted later on. After the initial wave of mail ballot results, the next set of results later on tonight will be mostly in-person votes.

As for how many in-person votes we can expect, that’s hard to say exactly. A Suffolk University poll recently found that about 16 percent of likely voters planned to vote on election day, so whatever the final tally of total recall votes is, perhaps around one-fifth, give or take, might be cast in-person. What we do know is that those election day votes are likely to more GOP-leaning, as the Suffolk survey found that about 42 percent of those planning to vote today were Republicans, while 24 percent were Democrats (the rest were independents).

We have the first results! The recall is currently failing 61 percent to 39 percent in San Diego County, which is slightly more conservative than the state as a whole. Remember, though, that the first votes reported are likely to skew Democratic because they are mostly mail-in ballots.