As of 6:00 a.m., Republican Andy Vidak was leading Democratic challenger Leticia Perez, by more than 6,000 votes for the empty seat in the Senate District 16 runoff race.

Congratulations were already coming in to Vidak on his Facebook page.

Vidak, a 47-year old, third-generation Republican farmer from Hanford, seemed to win 51.9 percent of the vote in the special election in May over Bakersfield Democrat Leticia Perez for the Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Bakersfield.

Vidak needed 50 percent-plus-one votes to avoid a runoff against Perez.

But a large number of provisional ballots came in after Perez had already conceded the election causing Vidak to lose his 51 percent edge, and a runoff election was scheduled for July 23.

Democratic supermajority

Central Valley Senate District 16 has been a crucial one for Democrats in the Capitol. They needed it to keep their solid two-thirds supermajority that allows them to raise fees and taxes without any Republican votes. Even with a Vidak win, Democrats would still control 27 seats in the Senate. But they are worried about the seat recently vacated by Sen. Curren Price who won his race for Los Angeles City Council. That special election will take place in September.

July runoff

“With 100% of precincts reporting, the Hanford-area grower holds a nearly 6,000 vote lead over Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez in the contentious 16th State Senate race,” 23 ABC News in Bakersfield just reported.

The California Secretary of State is reporting Vidak has 54 percent of the vote, with a total of 39,085 votes. Perez has 46 percent of the vote, with a total of 33,252 votes.

Kern County and Fresno County were where the majority of the provisional ballots appeared in the special election. In yesterday’s election, Kern County reported 48.1 percent for Vidak, and 58.9 percent for Perez. Fresno reported 45.9 percent for Vidak to 54.1 percent for Perez. However, Vidak won King and Tulare Counties with large margins.

CalWatchdog will update this story and the election results throughout the day.

By Katy Grimes

Central Valley Senate District 16 is a crucial one for Democrats in the Capitol. They need it to keep their two-thirds supermajority that allows them to raise fees and taxes without any Republican votes.

Candidates Andy Vidak, a Republican, and Leticia Perez, a Democrat, are facing a runoff election July 23. And it’s getting messy. Allegations of unfair and negative campaigning permeate news stories in the Central Valley.

Special election

After appearing to outright win the special election for State Senate District 16 in May, Andy Vidak, a 47-year old, third-generation Republican farmer from Hanford, was ready to get to work.

It appeared Vidak had won 51.9 percent of the vote in the special election over Bakersfield Democrat Perez for the Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Bakersfield. Vidak needed 50 percent-plus-one votes to avoid a runoff against Perez.

But only a couple of days later, it was announced Vidak would have to face a runoff, thanks to an onslaught of provisional ballots that dropped Vidak below the 50 percent threshold. Provisional ballots have been at the center of election dramas in California in recent years.

Interestingly, on election night, the media and both campaigns acknowledged that Vidak was far enough ahead that the outstanding ballots would not have made a difference. This is precisely why Perez conceded so quickly. But then something happened. And even the Fresno County Elections office admitted at the time, they didn’t know what happened.

Since then, Kern County elections officials said there was no fraud, despite a complaint from the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Los Angeles, which claimed the group had uncovered about 30 verified examples of voter fraud in Bakersfield, according to the Bakersfield Californian.

What happened?

Immediately after the May election, I spoke with Lauren Stephens, an experienced campaign consultant who has worked in several states and been involved in several elections, recalls and in a major recount. She shared her concerns about the Vidak race, and explained a provisional ballot is not an absentee ballot. “Absentee ballots are another source of voting which can bring a lot of voter fraud and it is next to impossible to detect,” Stephens said.

Kern county, the home of Leticia Perez, had a total of 14,798 ballots cast in this election, according to Stephens. Of that amount, 554 were provisional ballots. “That is 3.74 percent, almost 4 percent. That is not a small number!” Stephens said. “By contrast, Kings County had 15,314 ballots cast in this election, and of that amount, only 128 ballots were provisionals. That is only 0.84 percent. Kern County had more than three times that amount! For this reason, we targeted Kern county for our first audit.”

Stephens explained it was not financially feasible for her alone to request a recount. But it was feasible to get a list of the provisional ballots in Kern County. The goal for her was to verify the residential addresses of the people who showed up at the last minute to vote. According to the County Elections Clerk, they have no real way to verify that information. They only verify that the address given belongs in the district.

“Initially, the clerk demanded a court order and stated that I must contest the election, which I made clear I would be doing immediately,” Stephens said. “But by May 29th, as I was starting on the petition to get that court order, she called me back and gave me a workaround so that I can get the data that I need to do my own audit of the Kern County numbers in order to verify if the people who voted in the 16th were legitimate voters. No court order or contest needed.”

Additionally, the clerk invited Stephens to sit in on the runoff election on July 23.

Stephens was the reporting party in the disputed 1996 election of Rep. Loretta Sanchez in Orange County back in the 1990s, where it was proven that there were a significant number of illegal alien voters. Stephens claimed the Sanchez campaign and its associates had directly registered those illegal alien voters. But the case was ultimately dismissed by the investigating congressional committee.

Stephens stressed that, once the vote happens and is certified, there is no way to go back and change the numbers. “We simply do not know who voted for whom,” she said. “We have to stop this prior to an election.”

I asked her why it is that, when I ask politicians about voter fraud, most claim there is no real evidence suggesting voter fraud anywhere. Stephens said, “That is because no one has easy access to the data. If we did, we would easily be able to find voter fraud.”

She gave the example of drivers’ licenses in the state of California, which non-citizens are allowed to get, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Stephens explained, “In the state of California, non-citizens are not allowed to vote. But because the only thing you need to provide is a driver’s license number in order to register to vote, it is possible that there might be millions of people in California who are driving legally, but who are voting illegally. They may possibly think that they are voting legally, since the only thing they need is a driver’s license.”

How did Vidak pull ahead?

Vidak had good name recognition because of his 2010 run for Congress, when he narrowly lost his challenge to incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Costa.

And because Vidak ran in this most recent race as a farmer, and not as a politician, many say people in his district trust him.

“Vidak was a good candidate with good name recognition,” Harmeet Dhillon, vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, told me in May. “And Chairman Brulte made it clear he was looking for as much support from everyone on the board, and from the counties.”

Dhillon said they couldn’t have done what they did without the help of an Independent Expenditure Committee headed by Republican Charles Munger. “The big giver to the Tulare County GOP is mega-Republican donor Charles T. Munger Jr. He’s contributed close to $270,000,” the Fresno Bee reported.

New California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte also authorized an Independent Expenditure Committee to be able to run television ads.

Expect fireworks in this election coming up next week on July 23.

By Katy Grimes

By Katy Grimes

Only hours after appearing to win the election outright for State Senate District 16 last week, many in the political media were opining that Andy Vidak had it easy during this special election, but predicted a 2014 re-election bid would be a different game. Tuesday’s election seemed over and done.

Vidak, a 47-year old, third-generation Republican farmer from Hanford, seemed to win 51.9 percent of the vote in the special election over Bakersfield Democrat Leticia Perez for the Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Bakersfield. Vidak needed 50 percent-plus-one votes to avoid a runoff against Perez.

But by Friday evening, in a stunning announcement that caught California’s political class completely off guard, it appears Vidak will now face a runoff, thanks to provisional ballots that dropped Vidak below the 50 percent threshold. Provisional ballots have been at the center of election dramas in California in recent years.

Senate District 16

Rubio resigned from office in February after accepting a top position with Chevron. But even with a Republican win, a Democratic supermajority would remain in the Senate; Democrats still hold 28 of the 40 Senate seats.

“After Hanford Republican Andy Vidak posted a convincing victory Tuesday over Bakersfield Democrat Leticia Perez in a 16th state Senate special election, Democrats were hoping history can repeat itself — and Republicans were calculating how to solidify Vidak’s future,” the Fresno Bee wrote.

A provisional ballot is used when there are questions about a given voter’s eligibility.

According to the California Secretary of State provisional ballots are used when:

* “Voters who are not on the polling place roster for an unknown reason;”

* “Voters who have moved within their county without re-registering to vote;”

* “Vote-by-mail voters who appear in person;”

* “First-time voters”

Another explanation, according to Wikipedia for when provisional ballots are cast is as follows:

* “The voter refuses to show a photo ID (in regions that require one).

*”The voter’s name does not appear on the electoral roll for the given precinct.

* “The voter’s registration contains inaccurate or out-dated information such as the wrong address or a misspelled name.

* “The voter’s ballot has already been recorded.”

The day after the election, Vidak had nearly 52 percent of the vote. Perez was a distant second with 41.7 percent of the vote.

Many speculate Perez did not finish first because she was only recently elected to the Kern County Board of Supervisors, and voters and even Democratic supporters felt she jumped the gun when she decided to run for the vacant Senate seat.

 How did Vidak pull ahead?

With only a truncated timeline, Vidak’s campaign team managed to do just about everything right. And they kept their focus on winning 50 percent-plus-one of the vote.

“Vidak was a good candidate with good name recognition,” Harmeet Dhillon, vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, told me. “And Chairman Brulte made it clear he was looking for as much support from everyone on the board, and from the counties.”

Vidak had good name recognition because of his 2010 run for Congress, when he narrowly lost his challenge to Democratic Rep. Jim Costa.

And because Vidak ran in this most recent race as a farmer, and not as a politician, many say people in his district trust him.

Dhillon said CRP Chairman Jim Brulte walked precincts and made phone calls to voters, and expected everyone elected to the CRP Board of Directors to do the same. And they did. “We had the Log Cabin Republicans sitting next to Second Amendment people making campaign calls,” Dhillon said. “And the chairman looked to the counties for support as well. We made 1,000 calls one weekend.”

Brulte also did something the CRP has not been able to do in a long time. He authorized an Independent Expenditure Committee for Vidak’s campaign in order to run a television ad.

It’s surprising how well Vidak did. Voter registration in the 16th Senate District is approximately 50.7 percent Democratic and 28.6 percent Republican, according to Political Data Inc., a voter collection data company. With the surprising provisional ballots, it will be interesting to see how those numbers have changed.

A runoff between Vidak and Perez, now almost certain, is scheduled for July 23. It should bring not only attention from both statewide parties, but national attention as a bellwether election both for Gov. Jerry Brown’s statewide policies and President Barack Obama’s national policies. A major factor in the race has been Obamacare, which California has taken a national lead in implementation at the state level.

A victory by Vidak could be seen as an allergic reaction by voters against Obamacare; while a Perez victory could be a shot in Obamacare’s arm.