Dem Jerry McNerney up 121 votes to GOP's David Harmer in East Bay

In the gerrymander-gone-awry California 11th congressional district, sprawling across four counties from Gilroy to Lodi, incumbent Democrat Jerry McNerney is ahead 121 votes to GOP challenger David Harmer:

A third party spoiler, Tracy's David Christensen of the conservative American Independent Party, has 8,809 or 5.1%

That's with all precincts reporting as of 5:41 a.m. It would appear that Harmer would have won had Christensen not been in the race. . . .

“All precincts have reported and the campaigns are awaiting a final count from provisional and absentee ballots.”

according to the article sounds like they still have some counting to do. I thought if the race came within so much of a margin of error they would do an aoutmatic recount.

Harmer should stay on top of it this is how Franken won and 2 years ago almost how Charlie Brown (D) tried to win against McClintock (R) it took several weeks for McClintock to gain victory but he was on it everyday which is what Harmer needs to do . Dont give up to the Rat so easily

A third party spoiler, Tracy's David Christensen of the conservative American Independent Party, has 8,809 or 5.1%

Ugh, idiot 3rd party voters. Anyone who is in any way conservative and is not voting Republican is a complete fool.

3rd party's are virtually always nothing more spoilers or a dumping ground for wasted votes.

How is it so many people can't grasp this?

We seriously need to create something called the American Liberal Union Party and get it on the ballot in as many districts and states as possible. We will find some hardcore marxist types who want attention to be the candidates for this party and use them to splinter off a couple percent of the Democratic vote everywhere we can. We have enough dopey people on our side that fall for this (yes Libertarians, I'm talking to you), so I've gotta figure the left will have even more dunderheads who can't figure out what completely fail 3rd parties are.

When I voted at 4:30PM in my precinct in the east part of the 11th in Stockton, the poll worker's told me that it had been heavy and steady all day... but that more than 50% of the ballots they had received had been walk-in voters turning in their mail-in ballots that they had not mailed. While I was waiting in line, two more people came in and just dropped their mail-in ballots in the ballot box.

My best friend's family went to their normal polling place of several years—a garage at a private residence, and found it closed. It is a now foreclosed property with an overgrown lawn. They were unaware that there was now no polling place for their precinct... even though there is a fire station across the street from the old location. They called County Elections Office and were told the County had been unable to find a suitable polling place location for their precinct and were told to go to another polling location (a fire station!) and vote on a provisional ballot.

Somehow, they were supposed to know by osmosis that they were in a "mail ballot only" voting precinct. They learned later this information was on the sample ballot in very fine print on the back, which said: "Mail Only Precinct: You Must Request An Absentee Ballot."

When they got there, the only available ballots were for Lodi elections ... but their home is in the Linden area... so the ballots were incorrect for some of the candidates and issues on which they were supposed to vote. They were given a provisional ballot which did cover the statewide and congressional candidates and issues.

Then last night, KCRA, Channel 3, after 3AM, showed many bins of mail-in ballots that had been collected at San Joaquin County polling places that had YET TO BE OPENED and counted, and more bins of provisional ballots that had not even been looked at... these would take hours and hours of work.

My friend's family of six are all Harmer supporters... but their ballots are now "provisional" and will take time to be checked, and if accepted, finally counted... because of this glitch. Many of their neighbors, mostly conservatives, were in the same situation. Even if they noticed the "absentee ballot" requirement... their ballots haven't been counted yet.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.