They’re not ahead. If they were ahead, the Politico/CNN/FOX numbers would be repeating themselves on the SOS site however many minutes they were ahead. These two sets of numbers are coming out completely different.
If CNN's numbers are simply coming in faster than the official election site then why....if you select a similar "numbers point" are things so off?
What I mean is, we have tracked the official vote totals from the Florida department of elections as well as the vote totals on CNN. We thought CNN was simply getting their totals faster than the official site. It showed early leads for McCain that did not correspond to the official vote when the official sites number caught up to CNN's.
For example, when CNN was reporting:
McCAIN 198k
MITT 178K
The official site caught up at a similar "numbers point" and reported
McCAIN 182 k
MITT 181 k
In other words, if CNN was simply reporting the info faster, then when CNN shows it 198k-178k, then 10 minutes later the official site should show it the same 198k-178k. Instead, as the official site catches up with the total numbers of votes CNN has counted, it shows it as 182k-181k.
At a nother simialr "numbers point" the "slower than CNN" official site had
Romney 236k
McCains 232k
CNN had listed it earlier at that "numbers point" as
McCAIN 241k
Romney 219k
Not saying CNN is faking vote totals, but much of this McCain lead was reported while the Panhandle of Florida (which is in a different time zone) was still voting.
Was CNN trying to influence the panhandle vote that closed one hour later than the rest of Florida?