http://youtu.be/tRA7aIs9zIA
If you follow California politics, you may have been following the California State Controller’s race. John Chiang, the current state controller is terming out. California now has an open primary – where voters can vote, even if they are registered to a political party, can vote for any candidate, not only their own party. And when you have an open primary, the two top vote-getters proceed onto the general election in November. Because there were several Democrats who ran in the June primary, Republican candidate Ashley Swearengin came in first with 24.8% of the vote, though on election night, it looked like the 2nd most vote-getter would be another Republican, David Evans.
But as the days progressed, Democrats John Pérez and Betty Yee see-sawed back-and-forth ahead of each from a few hundred to a few thousand votes with 21.7% of the vote each:
“Lake County in Northern California was the last, with 6,053 ballots left to count. They were finally counted Monday, and although Perez pulled in more votes in Lake County, the new votes appeared to unofficially give Yee 484 votes more than Perez statewide. … If Perez asks for a recount, it would be the first recount by a candidate in state history.“
That is crazy close considering over 4 million ballots were cast in the primary. Personally, if I were Perez, I would definitely ask for a recount! But congratulations to Yee – Yee is currently on the Board of Equalization and is based in the Bay Area and I have had a chance to meet her a few times and a variety of political-related events. Since no Republican has been elected to state-wide office in California in a while, I think it is pretty much a given that Yee will be elected as California’s next State Controller this November – which is great to see another Asian American to be elected to statewide office (I’m assuming, since John Chiang won 55% of the vote for State Treasurer in the primary, that he will win in the fall as well).
