Poor Mojo's Newswire

Bloomberg News series "Revolution to Riches" lifts the veil of secrecy on China's princelings, an elite class that has been able to amass wealth and influence because of their bloodline. Mapping the family trees of China's "Eight Immortals," founding fathers of Communist China who later led the country's economic opening, Bloomberg tracked 103 descendants and spouses -- from the powerful leaders of state-owned conglomerates to their jet-setting, Prada-accessorized grandchildren. The extended family of another princeling, China's new leader Xi Jinping, amassed a fortune in assets and real state, reporting by Bloomberg shows. The identities and business dealings of this red nobility are often hidden behind state censorship and complex corporate webs. To document them, Bloomberg scoured thousands of pages of corporate filings, property records, official websites and archives, and conducted dozens of interviews from China to the United States.

Nearly a third of votes cast in Arizona remained uncounted the day after the election. Most of them were probably cast by Latinos, organized and newly registered by multiple civil rights groups in the state to combat candidates like the notorious Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. On Thursday, the Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, announced the figures: 631,274 early and provisional ballots remained uncounted out of a total of 1.8 million votes. At least 350,000 of them are from Maricopa County (Phoenix metropolitan area), where Joe Arpaio has already claimed victory. Activist Randy Parraz, president of Citizens for a Better Arizona, told the Huffington Post, “We’re not conceding anything until every vote is counted. They’re just going to act like, ‘Oh, the election’s over, Arpaio wins.’ Hell no.” Three Congressional races also remain in limbo. Although Democrat Rich Carmona originally conceded the Senate seat to Jeff Flake on election night, he changed his mind after hearing the unprecedented number of uncounted votes. On Friday, he sent this message to supporters: “We will take every necessary step to make sure all of our supporters’ ballots are counted.” Two U.S. House races are also too close to call until the remainder of the votes are tallied. Protestors from a coalition of rights groups are maintaining a continuous presence outside of the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center. In a letter to the county recorder, Helen Purcell, the American Civil Liberties wrote that the “public confidence in the voting process” was at risk.

As of 2:30PM today, Thursday, November 8th, two days after the election, many votes in California remain uncounted. I tried to find out how many. It turns out that the Secretary of State of CA, responsible for elections in the state, doesn’t know. I was told all counties in California have been asked, not ordered, to report in with those figures. It’s voluntary. So I picked out a few of the biggest counties and called their voter registrar offices. Here are the boggling results: Santa Clara County: 180,000 votes remain uncounted. Orange County: 241,336 votes remain uncounted. San Diego County: 475,000 votes remain uncounted. LA County: 782,658 votes remain uncounted. In just those four counties, 1.6 million votes remain uncounted. The California Secretary of State’s website indicates that Prop 37 is behind by 559,776 votes. So in the four counties I looked into, there are roughly three times as many uncounted votes as the margin of Prop 37′s defeat. And as I say, I checked the numbers in only four counties. There are 54 other counties in the state. Who knows how many votes they still need to process? So why is anyone saying Prop 37 lost?