Recount by the numbers: partial results from WASHINGTON STATE hand-recount (Dino Rossi).

Counties reported: 10, representing ~4% of the statewide vote Rossi's lead over Gregoire in the counties that have reported: +683, or a margin of +0.6686% Net new two-party votes since the machine recount: +57, an increase of 0.06%

In the remaining 29 counties, Gregoire led the machine recount by 640 votes, or a margin of 0.0242%.

In order for Gregoire to win (or tie), she would need to increase that lead of 640 votes to 683 votes, a 6.7% increase. Simply put, either she has to get the same 0.0242% margin on a 6.7% larger pool of votes than there were in the machine recount, or she needs to get a 6.7% larger margin on the same number of ballots. To grow the unrecounted pool by 6.7% requires another 178,000 ballots. That's a little optimistic, even for Paul Berendt, who thinks there are 15,000 valid ballots in the REJECT pile. The reporting counties only grew their pool of two-party ballots by 0.06%, which would translate into 1,475 such ballots from the remaining counties. The machine recount produced 2,300 new ballots in those counties, so you never know. In any event. It's still a small enough increase that she would still need to increase her margin by essentially the same 6.7% to 0.0258%.

Here's where we do some of the math that will only produce horselaughs from those who try to make statistical arguments without using any actual numbers or formulas.

Gregoire's lead in the 29 remaining counties in the first count was 0.0163%. If you look at her leads in the two counts: (0.0163%, 0.0242%) you can calculate sample mean, standard error and a t-statistic of 1.41. This tells us that there is slightly less than a 20% chance for the next count to give Gregoire a lead of 0.0258% or greater. i.e, based on the information we have available today, we can be 80% confident that Rossi will win the 3rd recount.

Of course, this number will be revised (and can change significantly) as new information becomes available. A Supreme Court order to change the way that the recount is conducted could change this number by quite a lot. In the meantime, if you are a Democrat who is contemplating a job in the Gregoire administration, but you have another job offer that you have to decide on by today, you might not want to forfeit a 100% sure thing for a 20% long shot.

Manual recount results are not final or official until certified by the counties. The results posted on this site are unofficial as some counties have not presented results to the county canvassing board for final certification. The Secretary of State is projecting that all counties will have certified results by December 23, 2004. After all counties have certified results, the Secretary of State will file an amended abstract of the manual recount returns that will be the final count of the Governor’s race.

MANUAL RECOUNT RESULTS BY COUNTY

Machine Recount Results by County

NOTE: Gain/Loss results are only available for counties with 100% of precincts reporting.

GOVERNOR
County	Christine Gregoire(D)			Dino Rossi(R)			Ruth Bennett(L)
County	Manual Recount	Machine Recount	Gain/Loss	Manual Recount	Machine Recount	Gain/Loss	Manual Recount	Machine Recount	Gain/Loss
Adams	1,529	1,529	0	3,481	3,486	-5	81	81	0
Asotin	0	3,525	N/A	0	4,904	N/A	0	193	N/A
Benton	0	19,831	N/A	0	44,890	N/A	0	1,118	N/A
Chelan	0	10,077	N/A	0	18,437	N/A	0	523	N/A
Clallam	16,230	16,226	+4	18,836	18,832	+4	920	919	+1
Clark	0	72,800	N/A	0	85,894	N/A	0	4,123	N/A
Columbia	671	671	0	1,371	1,370	+1	37	37	0
Cowlitz	0	20,207	N/A	0	20,047	N/A	0	1,093	N/A
Douglas	0	4,359	N/A	0	8,666	N/A	0	219	N/A
Ferry	1,278	1,278	0	1,900	1,900	0	118	118	0
Franklin	0	4,967	N/A	0	10,619	N/A	0	227	N/A
Garfield	428	428	0	840	840	0	25	25	0
Grant	0	7,826	N/A	0	17,429	N/A	0	535	N/A
Grays Harbor	13,729	13,719	+10	13,457	13,449	+8	575	575	0
Island	0	16,888	N/A	0	19,997	N/A	0	814	N/A
Jefferson	10,650	10,642	+8	7,295	7,289	+6	466	466	0
King	0	505,836	N/A	0	351,127	N/A	0	18,936	N/A
Kitsap	56,236	56,164	+72	57,775	57,693	+82	3,097	3,090	+7
Kittitas	0	6,125	N/A	0	9,567	N/A	0	277	N/A
Klickitat	0	3,919	N/A	0	4,767	N/A	0	265	N/A
Lewis	10,247	10,245	+2	20,851	20,842	+9	757	756	+1
Lincoln	1,850	1,850	0	3,686	3,686	0	100	100	0
Mason	11,797	11,788	+9	12,519	12,507	+12	680	682	-2
Okanogan	0	6,101	N/A	0	9,450	N/A	0	465	N/A
Pacific	5,210	5,210	0	4,730	4,730	0	296	295	+1
Pend Oreille	2,567	2,567	0	3,368	3,366	+2	179	179	0
Pierce	0	145,199	N/A	0	157,704	N/A	0	7,241	N/A
San Juan	0	5,872	N/A	0	3,660	N/A	0	321	N/A
Skagit	0	23,266	N/A	0	27,224	N/A	0	1,267	N/A
Skamania	2,233	2,232	+1	2,525	2,522	+3	178	178	0
Snohomish	0	139,070	N/A	0	145,553	N/A	0	6,852	N/A
Spokane	0	90,573	N/A	0	105,569	N/A	0	3,878	N/A
Stevens	6,992	6,992	0	12,295	12,293	+2	566	566	0
Thurston	0	58,955	N/A	0	49,413	N/A	0	2,574	N/A
Wahkiakum	993	993	0	1,099	1,100	-1	61	61	0
Walla Walla	8,008	8,006	+2	14,290	14,277	+13	378	381	-3
Whatcom	0	44,056	N/A	0	41,978	N/A	0	2,177	N/A
Whitman	0	7,715	N/A	0	9,363	N/A	0	457	N/A
Yakima	0	24,735	N/A	0	46,044	N/A	0	1,351	N/A
Totals	150,648 (44.3761%)	1,372,442 (48.8702%)	+108	180,318 (53.1159%)	1,372,484 (48.8717%)	+136	8,514 (2.5080%)	63,415 (2.2581%)	+5

Results last updated on: 12/10/2004 4:26:00 PM

Sharkansky's math is great...but his politics is a bit lacking. This won't be about trends and math. It will be about King County. That's the only county that "counts" in this effort to steal. Berendt doesn't need 178,000 new ballots or even 15,000 new ballots -- because mathematical trends are rendered meaningless when the effort is strictly political. He needs half-a-hundred or so (give or take) of the right ballots from Seattle. King County will do things with their count and their interpretations of state law that no other county in the state will. We are now into the realm of "interpretation" -- and as LBJ always said, you keep counting and counting until you are ahead. Then you stop. The RATS know LBJ very well.

Reply from Washingotn State :) ANYTIME you want to come for a visit here, let us know! Great home page, BTW. The WA FReepers are heavily involved in working to keep our twice elected Governor, Dino Rossi. After 20 years of democrats running our state down the toilet, it is truly time for a change. We need some updated legislation and new judges as well. Yesterday, a judge threw out the testimony of a mother in a robbery case. Apparently she listened to her teenage daughter talk to a boyfriend about how he assualted and robbed an elderly woman; taking her wallet. The judge said since WA State has a law banning the RECORDING of a third person conversation, the two litle hoodlums had a "reasonable expectation" of "privacy" and he would not allow the mom's testimony. So the vicious little thief was released from jail. It is difficult sometimes to comprehend how messed up humans can become... Thanks for posting the article! And 3 cheers for Economics!

I observed the Kitsap County recount.

It could be our optical scanners are poor. Or...

I happened to watch a table of two older gentlemen, late 60's and 70's. In addition to the Republican one setting a Rossi vote into the overcount pile, the two men had many problems counting the ballots and batching them in groups of 25 as they were supposed to do. (I got the Rossi vote out of the overvote pile after talking with our county auditor)

Each party rep is supposed to count the other party's ballots first and batch them into groups of 25. Well the Republican party rep kept under batching the Gregoire votes creating a superficially increased count for her. The Democrat consistently overbatched the Rossi votes creating a superficially decreased count for Rossi. Now whenever the numbers they report don't match the machine count, the table's election official has to come back to the table and tell the two they need to count again. So the two switch and count their own party's ballots. This is where I observed the numbers changing and realized the batching problem. Towards the end of the day, the Dem had one precinct that he mistakenly hid 8 votes for Rossi. Now I don't think there was fraud intent there, just human error in a repetitive task hard for older hands to do.

But I certainly see now where there's room for human error.

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