Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Still counting votes in California

There were hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots in CA. Conventional wisdom was that earlier-cast votes would go for HRC. That does not appear to be the case. The margin, while still significant, is shrinking. It now stands at HRC 51.3% to 43.1% for Obama (4.1% for Edwards).

5 comments:

Dr. Strangelove said...

They are also counting provisional ballots. In California, among other groups first-time voters who did not bring ID were required to use provisional ballots. (Non-first time voters were NOT required to have ID.) Since Obama attracted many young voters to the polls, this may explain a preponderance of Obama support in the later count.

Dr. Strangelove said...

It's now 51.9 to 42.7 (2/16/08)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I can't help but get pissed off when I walk out of the polling place at 10:30 pm, get in the car with my polling inspector to deliver our ballots to the Court House and hear them calling CA for a Candidate. What they hell did I just work all day for? They really ought to stop that sort of thing. We complain about it every election, and nothing changes. This, BTW is important because CA is proportional representation at the convention.

The Law Talking Guy said...

I know, I know. It's not sports. Who "wins" a state is not really relevant. What matters is the score. In New Mexico, for example, Clinton was declared the "winner" yesterday after more than a week of counting that put her a few hundred votes ahead. The delegate count was fixed early last week as even-steven. Same in Missouri that was "won" by Obama. The victories that matter are the ones that show dramatic differences between the outcomes for candidates.

It still sucks in presidential races that they usually will "call" the race before the west coast is done voting. Many Democrats in CA are still angry that there were close losses of local contests in 1980, and they blame this on the media announcing early for Reagan (5pm, as Democrats were leaving work) discouraging them from bothering to vote.

Anonymous said...

Yes, LTG. It is frustrating enough when in a national election they start calling CA votes at 5pm. But when CNN calls an election that is taking place in the state of California only when California is just closing its polls, it is even more frustrating to me. They are basing that on exit polls- no more. They don't start counting absentees until after polls close on the night of the election- at least that is how I understand it. And if they do, they don't release numbers until after the polls close.