Report from the California Polls -- The Absentee Ballots will Decide.

Turnout is expected to be about 50-60 per cent of qualified voters -- less than the 70 per cent which showed up to vote for Al Gore in 2000, but more than last year's election, which swept Gray Davis into power.

However, the big story here is the
2.1 million absentee ballots which have already been received by the state -- and the estimated 3.5 million they will receive in total. With 15 million registered voters, this is 40 percent of people expected to vote, much more than the 27% due to absentees in the 2002 General election. Most voted before the LATimes article last Thursday which brought to light Schwarzenegger's groping problem; but, that probably doesn't matter.


Who are these people? They are not an organized faction of the Republican party -- the Republicans are not that deeply grassrooted in this state, and even if they were, they were not rallied around a single candidate until last week. That extra 13% of all voters are either a grassroots unorganized group of people disaffected with Gray Davis, or that's the turnout of Unions -- who show up at workplaces, hand out absentee ballots, and mail them off. My money's on the Unions.

If so, then those absentee ballots will be overwhelmingly against recall, and for Bustamante.

California doesn't count absentee ballots until after the ballot box ballots are cast -- and only does so if the absentee ballots can make a difference in the outcome (which, with 3.5 Million absentee ballots, 40% of the total, they will). The absentee ballots take longer to count -- so this election will not be called tonight.

And, if those absentee ballots are indeed union ballots, then even if the ballot-box vote goes for Recall and for Schwarzenegger tonight, sit tight until the absentee vote is counted.