Capitol Alert

As many as 1 million ballots remain to be counted from Tuesday's primary election in California, according to the Secretary of State's office.

The unprocessed ballot report tallies 972,652 ballots, but a dozen small counties have yet to report.

The bulk -- 783,770 -- are vote-by-mail ballots that came in too late to be counted before Election Day. The rest are provisional ballots cast on Election Day or otherwise questioned ballots that must be reviewed.

The outcome of several close races will turn on how these ballots come out. Proposition 29, the $1-a-pack cigarette tax, is trailing by about 40,000 votes out of more than 4 million counted so far.

Here is a county-by-county breakdown of the unprocessed ballots:

Unprocessed Ballots Report

Emerge America, a California-based group that offers candidate training to female Democrats, has lost the nonprofit status that allowed it to operate without disclosing its donors, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.

The Internal Revenue Service told the group in a letter that it made the decision to strip the its tax-exempt status based on a determination that "You are not operated primarily to promote social welfare because your activities are conducted primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole," according to Bloomberg.

The president of Emerge America told Bloomberg that the group refiled under a section of the tax code that requires it to report its donors after last month's decision.

The website for Emerge America's California chapter says it offers an "in-depth, seven-month training program that inspires candidates to run and gives them the tools to win."The group is also active in Arizona, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin.

Read the full Bloomberg story at this link.

The bottom line is in: Taxpayers spent more than three times the projected cost to redraw the state's political districts.

Voters gave the commission $3 million to draw legislative and Board of Equalization district boundaries by passing Proposition 11 in 2008.

Money ran out quickly.

The final tab was $10.4 million, roughly one-third of which was Bureau of State Audit funds used to solicit and screen applicants for the 14-member citizens panel that replaced the Legislature in drawing political districts.

Executive Director Dan Claypool said it is not surprising that the commission's initial $3 million fell short. The state never before had attempted independent redistricting, and the authors of Proposition 11 took their best shot at estimating cost, he said.

"In fairness, when you're working in a void and just attaching a number, one number is as good as the next," he said. "But we believe this (bottom line) will provide a more realistic basis for next time around."

The commission pegged its own costs at $6.9 million and the Bureau of State Audit's tab at $3.5 million. The figures do not include $3.3 million spent by the Irvine Foundation to educate community groups and encourage public comment as initial maps were drawn and released.

Commissioners were not paid a salary, but received $300 for each day they worked. Other expenses included the cost of holding public hearings throughout the state, travel, a roughly 10-person administrative staff, public relations, line-drawing services, computer software, and legal counsel to defend against lawsuits challenging the new districts.

Funded only through June 30, the redistricting commission is preparing to shut down. Its cost estimates Thursday covered a three-year process that began with recruiting thousands of potential panelists and climaxed with the drawing of new political districts that were used in this week's primary election.

Days before selection of the panel's first eight members in November 2010, Californians approved Proposition 20 to expand the panel's duties to include congressional boundaries. The voters' action increased costs, by an unspecified amount, but did not add more funding.

Dan Walters says California legislators' task next week is agreeing on budget cuts -- and there are big differences over what to whack.

Have a question you'd like Dan to answer? Post it on our Facebook page.

See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

VIDEO: Dan Walters says in his latest video report that California legislators' next task is figuring out what to cut in order to resolve the state's budget deficit.

The Legislature has until next Friday to pass a state budget. The Senate and the Assembly convene next on Monday. It promises to be a long week.

Do California voters think they're up to closing the budget gap? Not according to the latest Field Poll, which doesn't find much confidence in either Gov. Jerry Brown or the Legislature on that score.

But if Brown is at odds with legislators over budget specifics, 41 percent of voters say they're more inclined to support his position, while 26 percent would side with the Legislature, the poll says.

Brown has the backing of Democratic voters, 53 percent to 20 percent, as well as "no-party-preference" voters, 41 percent to 25 percent. Republican voters, however, would side with the Legislature over the governor, 35 percent to 25 percent.

David Siders has more details in today's Bee about what voters think of Brown's and legislators' job performance. Click here to read the statistical tabulations compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert. You'll find the publicly released poll at this link.

Democratic legislative leaders and Brown have been meeting behind closed doors, as Kevin Yamamura reports in this post. Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said Thursday they're still about $2 billion apart.

CAPITOL STEPS: Members of Christians for Religious Liberty rally on the west steps at noon to protest the Obama administration's rule on health insurance plans and contraceptive coverage.

CAR SHOW: If you're into classic cars, check out the 18th annual Capitol Concours d'Elegance on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. west of the Capitol on Capitol Mall. Proceeds benefit the Shriners Hospital for Children and the California Auto Museum. Admission is $20. Click here for more information.