Dino Rossi(R) 1,347,865
Some 14,000 plus votes were added to the total today, with a -27% spread for Rossi, a loss of 3,674 votes. Gains elsewhere offset a portion of the loss - now Rossi + 1,920. (as of 6:28pm PST)
As of now (see below for caveat) only 11,000 King County ballots left to count - even breaking 2 to 1 for the D, that's a loss of 3,000 votes IF every provisional and absentee is valid and votes in proportion to the latest counts. Offsetting these votes will be Rossi margins in Benton, Clark, Pierce Walla Walla and Yakima - a total of 12,200 uncounted ballots among them and 2,500 additional Rossi margin (taking a conservative yield).
Still close enough to "steal" with late-found ballots or an undetected counting error, but the other side is running out of ballots to count. It is difficult to make truly accurate projections not knowing the proportion of provisional to absentee ballots among the uncounted and whether they produce dissimilar results in each county. (e.g absentees may be 60-40 D and provisionals 65-35 D in King County.)
I took a quick look at the absentee returns by legislative districts in King County and 2 districts have returns outside the mean + 1 standard deviation - in english - of the 17 districts, 15 have statistically "normal" returns - two have lower than expected returns - one (#11) is about 600 ballots short and the other (#37) is 1,200 ballots short.
The 600 ballot "short" (number 11) votes 65-35 Democrat based on lower level races. The 1,200 "short" votes 85-15 Democrat. If the "ballot return rate" increases to the statistical norm, the D's should pick up about 1,000 net votes.
The point is to watch not only the ballots being counted, but also the inflow of additional ballots "in the mail" up to and including November 17.
There may be valid reasons based on demographics for the lower return rate - someone with local knowledge would have to help on that. (e.g. college students may have a lower rate of returns)
Do you think that we will win in WA? Can you update these results later? Thank for all.
Alessandro
Do you think that we will win in WA? Can you update these results later? Thanks for all.
Alessandro