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I'm not making any judgment as to the truth of the report, merely doing the arithmetic based on it.

Oh, no-no-no ....I never thought YOU were. Oh my, not in the slightest. You were answering someone else who posted about the count. I was just making a comment to your comment, but not in judgement of what you said. My statement was about the issue.

From what I recall reading, the Cardinals cannot tell the actual count on the way the votes were split/not split, etc. I will have to check on that again. I know it has been said over and over that they cannot say who they voted for, etc. or - before the vote show favoritism, make predictions or assumptions, etc. That means immediate excommunication. I thought I read that the same was true if they made any public statement of the actual count and the way the vote fell.

Regardless of how many votes,one way or another, however, it was God's vote that mattered.

It was the Voice of God who spoke through the Holy Spirit to the Cardinals...and those who listened, voted according to God's wishes. Those who did not, were - obviously - not receptive to the word for some reason. The selection of the pope is made in Heaven...not on earth, so the actual count is totally and utterly immaterial. And those who are unhappy with the selection should complain to God, not the Cardinals, or the Church, or the Catholics.

Those who have no faith have no understanding of the Catholic Faith and just cannot find a way to come to grips with the spiritual aspect of electing a Pope. For them, everything is about the human aspect: polls, counts, opinions, theories, predictions, and politics. Their instant misinformed comments, fast talking, off-the-cuff statements show their ignorance. They are (mostly) not deep thinking people who spend a great deal of time studying or researching. They spout their quickly put together theories and echo each other's current, popular "themes," which changes sometimes even from hour to hour. For them, everything is on the surface, or should be, they believe. They want everything to be explained and if it is not, they make up answers to questions, or questions for things that were not questioned, or they make-up stories or "what-if" comments to advance their agendas.

It appears that most do not have the slightest belief in a connection to or even acknowledge the existence of the soul of man. How can one who doesn't believe in his own soul reach deep inside to understand or accept the workings of the Spirit and the great mysteries of faith? They have no mechanism for allowing this to happen. It's like trying to get a person to taste an orange who has no taste buds. They might be able to see and touch the fruit, but the true flavor of it is lost to them.