While there were some personal wishes I had for this recent California recall / Governor election, and while many of those weren't realized, one thing I had hoped would be the case was that whoever was elected / kept-on as governor would receive more votes than Gray Davis did when elected in 2002. That would at least relieve doubts about the decision having been made by a majority of California voters.

The California Secretary of State website is an excellent resource of information on elections (and, in fact, yesterday, one could watch the election returns in real time). So, here are some figures that I thought were interesting:

3,469,025: votes for Gray Davis in November 2002
3,655,074: votes for Arnold Schwarzenegger

3,521,809: votes against the recall of Gray Davis
4,310,219: votes to recall Gray Davis

I maybe wish a lot of things were different, but at least, fair and square, it looks like a clear majority (i.e., compared with the 2002 election) of California voters chose Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor and chose to remove Gray Davis.

(Note: the figures shown for yesterday's election represent 99.5 % [ 15154 of 15235 ] precincts reporting as of Oct 8, 2003 at 10:58 am, and are subject to change without notice ;-)