SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The statewide vote on Proposition 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mental health ballot measure, is relatively close.
Going into the weekend, ‘yes’ and ‘no’ were separated by fewer than 20,000 votes. With updated vote counts released Tuesday, the ‘yes’ lead widened to more than 22,000 votes. That’s of the more than 7.5 million ballots cast statewide, for context.
Posting on X Tuesday evening, Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc. said he is confident after Tuesday’s update Prop 1 will pass, saying, “It is up by 22,000 votes, which doesn’t seem a lot, but of the remaining 150k ballots outstanding that means the No side would need to win 86,000 to 64,000.”
Prop 1’s chief opponents, Californians Against Prop. 1, revived their campaign Monday, their website now urging supporters to make sure their ballot got accepted and counted and, if not, to fix the issue. Less than a week prior, the group had conceded the race in a statement, saying at the time, “it looks like we will fall short. Today, as the principal opponents of Proposition 1, we concede that it is almost certain to pass.”
So why did Californians Against Prop. 1 revive their campaign this week?
For one, the vote narrowed going into the weekend, with fewer than 20,000 votes separating ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ though ‘yes’ has since strengthened its lead.
But also, as the non-profit, non-partisan news organization CalMatters reported Monday, “Newsom’s political action committee put out an appeal late last week for volunteers to reach out to Democrats who had their ballots rejected — for mismatched signatures or other reasons — to fix them and get them counted.”
In response, Paul Simmons, a director of Californians Against Prop. 1, said in a statement Monday “we know that many Democrats voted against Prop. 1, so the governor's effort is no slam dunk. If you’re a Republican or independent, we want you to know that your ballot might make the difference in this election… If your ballot was rejected, don’t ignore the notice. Fix it.”
But how big of a problem are ballots with mismatched or missing signatures?
Sacramento County spokesperson Ken Casparis says it's not a big one.
“Sacramento County has one of the lowest rates of challenged ballots in the state. More than 99% of our ballots are counted without issue, and then a few of them have either mismatched signatures or no signatures, so we have to work with voters to get those cured,” Casparis said.
The county will notify any voter whose ballot has a signature issue, he said. They have until March 31 to fix it.
“First we’ll send them a letter, and those letters are available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese. If we have other contact information, like a phone number, or an email address, we'll also try and reach out to them that way,” Casparis said.
Before Tuesday’s Prop 1 results were clear, Paul Mitchell told ABC10 we’ll see if this push by both sides of Prop 1 makes a difference.
“Whether or not that happens in this Prop 1 race is really to be determined,” Mitchell said. “But someday we'll be on talking about a local race, maybe where just the act of going and make sure everybody's vote counts makes a difference between a winner and loser.”
This comes as some 42,000 ballots statewide still need to be ‘cured,’ Mitchell said, “meaning that they need to have either a signature for somebody who forgot to sign it or a fixed signature for a signature that the County Registrar wasn't able to match to a registration card or driver's license.”
If you’re wondering about a possible recount, experts say we’re not likely to see one with Prop 1 either way the vote goes. It’s expensive, it’s cumbersome and it has to be requested; there’s no automatic recount in the state of California.
“But a campaign can request one in specific counties — if it’s willing to pay for it. That could be a hurdle for the cash-strapped Prop. 1 opponents if the measure narrowly passes," CalMatters reported.
Additionally, CalMatters said, “there’s another provision in state law that could also come into play: The governor can order a state-funded hand recount of all votes statewide if the official results show a difference between “yes” and “no” votes on a ballot measure… 0.00015 percentage points or less.”
