Posted on 11/12/2004 10:38:24 AM PST by montereyp1
Dirty Harry's blog "Stranded On Blue Islands" is going to be all over every aspect of the burgeoning Ohio recount. From the liberal loons to the media coverage.(Same thing really,)
Please boomark for updates and send tips and news. We'll have it all in one place.
Should be fun beating these RATS again in Ohio.
Here's the web address: http://mytwocommoncents.blogspot.com/
Besides, if Kerry knew he had the votes to force a recount or win in Ohio, I don't think we would have conceded the election at all...
People,
We don't have any firm numbers for this thread. The only thing official we know is the SOS website listed 155,000 provisionals statewide.
The "spoiled ballots" are ballots temporarily shelved because they did not show a vote for prez (undervotes) or they showed two votes for prez (overvotes).
A process has been underway the last few days to identify which of the 155000 PVs are valid votes by validly registered voters. We have only rumor as to how that evaluation is going In Total. We do have a partial count earlier this week that suggested about 66% of them would be ruled valid votes. That 66% were scattered all over the state, though there are rumors about that though scattered they are concentrated in urban areas of various cities. That would imply a leaning towards Kerry for them.
It is not clear if the 88000 number earlier in this thread is the actual count of the 155,000 PVs that are ruled valid or some additional number of potential votes.
Bush's lead is about 132000 after deducting the known error reported earlier of 3800 votes.
In the worst case of interpretation of all the rumors, there are 155000 + 88000 votes available to make up that gap. That's 243000 votes. The way to perform the calculation for what is needed is to deduct 132K from 243K and get 112K. Kerry needs 132K + 1/2 of that remaining 112K to catch up. This is 66K + 132K = 198000 votes. This is 81% of the total worst case interpretation of what total is available to extract votes from.
Bush's odds of victory remain good.
I am eager to know how many provisional ballots in Ohio were accepted and how many were rejected. Does anyone have a source/Link on how to find this out.
I am kind of confused. There seems to be a lot of contradictory information here.
Were ballots discarded, were they not? Overvote yes, undervotes not?
Provisional ballots?
Also you are assuming that all the provsional ballots and spoiled ballots will be counted, which is impossible.
Ack, minor math error. 56K not 66K. That changes the needed win % for Kerry to 77%, not 81%. Still a very steep mountain to climb, state wide.
I am indeed. That is what "worst case" means.
John Fund is apparently reporting that about half of the provisionals are being tossed.
If that's true, then there is no way Kerry could win.
However according to this thread, they link to http://mytwocommoncents.blogspot.com/2004/11/today-in-ohio-thus-far.html#comments, and this guy is claiming that in his phone conversation today with the Ohio Secretary of State official, the official does not know anything about what John Fund is reporting regarding the number of rejected Provisional ballots.
John Fund may be reporting what he is hearing from the Republicans on the county boards. The Sec-of-State official won't know anything until it is officially reported to him.
Or, Fund is full of crap.
I don't think Fund is full of it. Usually he's the opposite - Pesimistic.
I think if Fund was concerned that sKerry might take this away, Fund would say so.
Why the Ohio Election board are taking so much time to qualify the validity of the provisional ballots and count them. We are 10 days after the election and they still taking it so slowly.
Actually, the Ohio statute (section 3515.03) makes it pretty clear that county boards MUST conduct a recount upon request:
"Upon the filing of an application, ... the board shall promptly fix the time, method, and the place at which the recount will be made, which time shall be not later than ten days after the day upon which such application is filed or such declaration is made."
As a practicing lawyer, I can tell you that "shall" ordinarily leaves no room for discretion.
For the full statute, see:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/procedures_recount_os.html#351503
I called the SOS on how many provsisonals were accepted or not and they didn't know. It's happening in each of the 88 precincts. John Fund on Brit said HALF were disqualified but the guy I talked to said that seemed unlikely it's ususally 10% disqualified.
SHALL applies to the margins set forth in 3515.011.... less than 1/2 of 1%
Gramatically, "shall" applies to both alternatives (separated by "or") -- the automatic recount and the recount upon application. Otherwise, the part having to do with the recount by application is a subject without a verb.
Yes, but what I see is the SHALL applies when the margin is less than 1/4 of 1% of the vote. I doubt this has ever been tested before.
However in 2004 there are more restrictions to "accept" a provisional ballot and this will lead to more disqualification. For example AP has news story two or three days ago where they said that In Cuyahoga county (Cleveland), the election board there did the first batch of 2667 ballots and 917 of them were disqualified and this amount to 35% of the total first batch. I do not know if this % of disqualification will increase or decrease for the remaining 24000 provisional ballots in Cuyahoga County.
Also the Toledo Blade has a story two days ago where they reported that in the first batch of provisional ballot in the county where Toledo is located , 45% of the provisional ballots were disqualified in this first batch. Again I do not know if this % of disqualification will increase or decrease for the remaining provisional ballots in this county.
I understand that more provisional ballots are being disqualified under HAVA, which is a new federal statute that governs such things. Wasn't the rejection rate for provisional ballots in New Mexico as high as 50%?
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