According to the Orange County Registrar of Voters, 78,931 voters in the 72nd Assembly District have been mailed absentee ballots. As of close of business, the OCROV had received 4,355 back (see the daily updates here).
Tracking the number of absentee ballots returned is an essential component of properly framing the election strategy in this hyper-condensed special election that will have a relatively tiny turnout. If the past is any indicator (it is), then a strong majority of the votes cast in this election to fill the vacant Assembly Seat will come from absentee voters.
With the likelihood that thousands of votes will be cast each day (certainly in the coming days), there is a scramble for both the Norby and the Ackerman campaigns to really get their messaging out — especially to absentee voters — pronto.
Linda Ackerman has no choice but to hit Chris Norby hard with negative mail. As long long time public official in north Orange County, Norby has had many years to build up his positive name identification. If Ackerman can’t "drag down" Norby’s image, this race is over.
Hence you have this piece that Ackerman’s campaign just dropped to voters:
As has been talked about, there is pretty well funded (six figures) Independent Expenditure (not coordinated with the candidates) taking place to benefit Ackerman, with money coming out of Sacramento where the Ackerman’s have a lot of well-placed friends (from Dick Ackerman’s many years in the legislature from the early 90’s through last year). The IE Committee has dropped its first "hit piece" on Norby, and you can see that here:
Finally the Norby campaign dropped to voters what is the hardest hitting negative piece of mail I have seen yet from their campaign, accusing Ackerman (among other things) of "money laundering" because donations to her husbands political campaigns, in part, were going to compensate Linda for work done raising funds. It is hardly lost on the Norby campaign that even if he is hit with a lot of negative mail, Norby only needs to get more votes than Ackerman to win. Which means that if he can keep her from building up her positives, it will be tough for her to get more votes than him. Here is the piece:
I’m sure we’ll see a lot more before Tuesday, November 17 — special election day.