Even though with all of the 100 percent precincts reporting that Republican challenger Doug Ose had got the better of incumbent Democrat Dr Amerish ‘Ami’ Bera by 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent in the election for California’s 7th Congressional District, the only Indian American lawmaker has not thrown in the towel. In fact, he is far from doing so.
In an exclusive interview with rediff.com, Bera exhorted the Indian American community not to lose faith that it had lost the only Indian American representative in the US legislature, but instead to help him raise funds to pay the best election lawyers in the country that he had hired to make sure that each and every mail-in and absentee ballot was counted.
After a back and forth on election day, November 4, when each candidate led the other with Bera, 49, leading Ose, 59, by a few hundred votes by 50.4 per cent to 49.6 per cent with 56 per cent of the precincts reporting, ultimately when all 100 percent of the precincts were tallied, Ose was ahead by 56,284 to 53,273 votes respectively.
However, neither Ose declared victory nor Bera conceded defeat.
Bera asserted, “I am not going to concede at all.”
“It was a tough and close race and this was always expected,” he said, and recalled, “If you remember in the contest in 2012 (with then Republican incumbent Dan Lungren) we were tied and after all the ballots were counted, we won by over 9,000 votes.”
Bera said, “The Registrar has tens of thousands of votes that haven’t even been counted yet,” but he acknowledged that by the same token, once they all came in and were counted, it would perhaps enhance Ose’s slight lead too.
“Of course,” he said, “but if you look at the trend, the late ballots that get turned in, has generally gone in our direction. In 2010, we picked up thousands of votes and in 2012, we picked up over 9,000 votes.”
Bera noted, “So, it is a long way to go and there are still tens of thousands of ballots that were late ballots…
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