Is Bernie Sanders officially the winner of the primaries due to a recount vote in California or have “Still Bernie” fans jumped the gun?

Fans of Bernie Sanders being elected at the Democratic National Convention to become the presidential candidate for 2016 were disappointed when Bernie Sanders “lost” the June 7 California primaries to Hillary Clinton.

Soon after, Bernie Sanders supporters wanted a recount vote in California, but there were still close to 3 million votes that still had not been counted.

Around June 14, Alternet points out that the process of counting all of those votes in California was going to be a slow process.

About three weeks after the California primaries on June 27, California Bernie Sanders supporters got a rush of hope when it was announced that Bernie “officially” beat Hillary Clinton.

On June 27, a “Feel the Bern” YouTube account published a video titled “L.A. and S.F. counties officially flipped — Sanders wins both!”

While the title seems to conclude that the recount vote in California is over and Bernie Sanders is the winner, comments under the video pointed out that this might be misleading.

The video takes place at a rally and a speaker states the following to a crowd of Bernie Sanders supporters.

“We have an emerging report… guess what just happened? After all the stolen votes have now been counted… everything has been counted as of right this second, and we have [unknown person] to corroborate… it looks like Los Angeles and San Francisco County have flipped…”

The video description goes on to say “This means that [Bernie Sanders] has effectively won California!”

They also stated in the YouTube video that the announcement about Bernie Sanders could be made on national news on June 28.

Bernie Sanders "winning" the California primaries over Hillary Clinton has yet to be officially confirmed or denied. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring)

Alternatively, is this news that is too good to be true, as the Washington Post suggested on June 27?

When the facts are reviewed, it appears that while there are some districts in Orange County that have been re-counted and the votes may have shifted towards Bernie Sanders’ favor, the job of recounting votes, counting all of the votes, or reporting the official tally in California might not be done yet.

For instance, California might have some time before the ballots need to be turned in. For example, on California’s website for “unprocessed ballot status,” the following is stated.

“State law requires county elections officials to report their final results to the Secretary of State by July 8, 2016. The Secretary of State then has until July 15, 2016, to certify the results of the election.”

Films For Action and others have pointed out that according to the Democratic National Convention rules, “Clinton and Sanders both fell short of the 2,383 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination before the Democratic Convention, July [25 to 28]. According to Democratic Party rules, this means the convention will be ‘contested.'”

Interestingly, this is not the first time Bernie Sanders or his supporters have asked for votes to be double-checked, but this was not a “recount” and instead was a “recanvass.”

Bernie Sanders is worried his popularity with people under 30 will not translate into votes for Hillary Clinton. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

NPR points out on May 24 that Bernie Sanders’ campaign asked for a recanvass of Kentucky after election/voter fraud was suspected and sent a request to Kentucky’s Secretary of State to check “all of the voting machines and absentee ballots in all each of the state’s counties to verify the accuracy of the vote totals.”

Sadly, there may not be any official news of any kind about Bernie Sanders running in the 2016 presidential race until after the Democratic National Convention makes their official announcement during or after their July 25 to 28 event.

As it appears, until that time, there should be no official news about Bernie Sanders losing or winning the nomination to be the 2016 Democratic Presidential Candidate.

[Picture by Seth Wenig/AP]