Note to self: election analysis on four hours of sleep sounds easier than it is…
I think the worst part of watching last night’s results, for me personally, was going into it with high expectations. I feel like Bart in the opening credits of The Simspons, needing to write, “I will not get my hopes up” 100 times on the chalkboard.
Around 5 pm yesterday, after seeing the exit polls, plus John Zogby’s 311 EV projection for Kerry, plus BC04 officials looking rather dour on TV, plus seeing the right’s blogs start to make excuses for losing, plus seeing every Fox News’ anchor looking morose, I started feeling pretty darn good. I need to remember not to do that anymore.
So, let’s skip to the chase: Is it time to give up hope and resign ourselves to (gulp) another four years of Bush? Not yet, but we’re getting there.
Most of the networks have given Wisconsin to Kerry, but have New Mexico, Iowa, and of course, Ohio, undeclared. The EV total, with these three pending, is Bush 254, Kerry 252. With this and arithmetic in mind, forget New Mexico and Iowa — Ohio’s 20 electoral votes will go to Bush or Kerry, pushing one or the other past the 270 threshold.
With 100% of the precincts reporting, Bush leads by 136,221 votes. There are provisional and overseas ballots pending, which could, in theory, make up the difference. How many ballots are we talking about? There have been wildly conflicting reports, but as of this morning, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell says there are about 135,000 provisional ballots. The overseas ballots are largely military voters. I think you see where I’m going with this.
Does this mean it’s time to give up? Well, not quite.
It’s not ridiculous to believe that most of the provisional ballots will get included in the vote totals (four years ago, 90% of provisional ballots in Ohio were reviewed and accepted). It’s also reasonable to assume that the overwhelming majority of these ballots will support Kerry. By virtue of the fact that these ballots are provisional in the first place, it means that Republicans likely challenged the vote, which suggests we’re talking about Dems.
But even if all of those ballots were counted, and all of them went to Kerry, the numbers don’t appear to add up. On the other hand, the gap could be narrowed to a few thousand votes in Bush’s favor. Ohio voters cast 5.4 million ballots yesterday and if provisional ballots narrowed the gap to 10,000 votes or less, we’re talking about a margin of victory for Bush in Ohio of 0.001%. Even if it’s a 50,000 vote gap, that’s a 0.009% margin.
I know literally nothing about Ohio’s election laws, but if a final vote tally shows a difference of 0.01% or less, a recount and lawsuits sound inevitable. And if that occurs, all bets are off.
How likely is this? It sounds a little far-fetched, but it’s still a little too soon to tell. Hang in there.