Ballots Still Being Counted in Orange County

Don't think your vote  counts?

Think again.

All across Southern California, ballots are still be counted, including in some tight races.

The Orange County Registrar said he's never seen anything like it -- First the turnout which was 76 percent in Orange County, then the number of observers from both parties, watching and waiting.

The process has been almost non-stop since the polls closed Nov. 8. Thousands of provisional ballots are still in the queue, from voters who left their mail in ballot at home or dropped it off at the wrong precinct.

It is especially tight in the 29th State Senate District, which has Republican Ling Ling Chang barely ahead of Democrat Josh Newman.

The result will determine if California has a democratic super majority or not.

"It's 187 votes in all three counties out of hundreds of thousands of votes that have been cast so we're well under 1 percent and there's still a lot of votes left to be counted," said Derek Humphrey, an adviser for the Josh Newman campaign.

Even today there is no official winner in the 49th congressional district. Republican incumbent Darrell Issa is barely 2 percentage points ahead of Democrat Doug Applegate.

"Election day is only a sign post to the eventual victor in the election," said Steve Baric, an advisor for the Issa campaign.

More than half of Californians are permanent absentee voters, yet only 40 percent of ballots cast election day were counted by the next morning.

The challenged ballots will land on the Registrar's desk where he will examine every stroke of the voters' pen.

"I'll dive a little bit further into that, to examine the voter registration record, to look at handwriting, to look at other signatures," said Neal Kelley, of the Orange County Registrar's Office. "So there's other tools I can use to make a determination that I believe that's the person who cast the ballot."

The two undecided races cross county lines which means they won't be decided until LA, San Bernardino and San Diego counties finish the same process. They all have to be completed by Dec. 8.

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