Mexico election too close to call (exit poll released)

Reuters ^ | 7/2/06 | Kieran Murray and Alistair Bell

[lauriehelds]

Kieran Murray and Alistair Bell

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's presidential election is too close to call between a leftist anti-poverty campaigner and the conservative ruling party candidate locked in a tie, a respected exit poll said on Sunday.

The extremely close vote raised fears of a political crisis if any of the main candidates challenge the results and call street protests.

Pre-election polls had showed Felipe Calderon of the ruling party and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the left-wing former mayor of Mexico City, in a virtual tie. Exit polls from Mexico's two main television station and the El Universal newspaper said they could not declare a winner.

El Universal said the race was between Lopez Obrador and Calderon. Neither of the TV stations mentioned Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century.

The Federal Electoral Institute was expected to announce official results at around 11 p.m. If it is unable to call a winner, Mexico could face days or weeks of legal wrangling and protests similar to the fight that followed the U.S. presidential election in 2000.

[Codename - Ron Benjamin]

What they did was to take a representative sample of the whole vote, then use some math voodoo-fu and see if there's any combination where one side has something like 99.95% of certainty of having at least one vote more than the closer rival.

That was not the case, there's no high probability for none of the top runners, therefore the IFE says "We better take the whole sample".

What happens (at least up to what we know right now) is, any of those two could have won.

[BurbankKarl]

I think the lefty won it.....running out of the ballots is one sign....

[Heartofsong83]

I'd love to see what Mexico's "red states" and "blue states" are?

[Will_Zurmacht]

here's Calderon...

[Torie]

About 50%. Cheer up. Tijuana has not reported much, and that dump loves PAN apparently.

[Reaganez]

Thanks AdianR and Torie.

I am glued to my monitor and TV.

Waiting for the next projection. LOL.

[AdrianR]

The first column is the gap between the two. The second column is the number of votes for Calderon. I didn't keep the % reporting but it roughly corresponds to Calderon vote.
260K 2.779M
280K 3.184M
292K 3.599M
317K 4.041M
331K 4.482M
351K 4.937M
364K 5.163M
365K 5.377M
375K 5.601M (35.65% reporting)

[LdSentinal]

375,000 Calderon lead with 37% in.

[ArmstedFragg]

Thanks mucho.

I recall your projections from prior elections have been solid.

[onyx]

LOL

[AdrianR]

And the most recent update:
375K 5.817M

[ArmstedFragg]

Thanks.

[Will_Zurmacht]

Calderon is pounding out all their victories...maybe he won?

This is oddly familiar...hehe.

[Reaganez]

BTW How retarded is it to be so anti-Mexican you hope for a result than hinders American interest?

[Heartofsong83]

The picture is not as bleak as the percentages look. It should level off as the votes come in. (Obviously the AMLO camp doesn't see it that way and has not done the math...)

[nj26]

"The picture is not as bleak as the percentages look. It should level off as the votes come in. (Obviously the AMLO camp doesn't see it that way and has not done the math...)"

If AMLO was confident of a legitimate victory, he would have no reason to get on television and declare victory early. He is setting himself up to contest the election.

[Bogeygolfer]

AMLO would know the numbers based on the 98% count...not the numbers we have. I'm hoping this is similar to when I felt like throwing up around 2:00 PST when Kerry had won.

[Codename - Ron Benjamin]

Calderón is talking about polls. IMHO he should've kept quiet until official results. Now he's saying he won too.

[Torie]

Voila:

                Calderon Dino   Socialist
Aguascalientes	76,564	35,273	31,769
Baja California	45,517	19,880	21,360
Baja Cali Sur	5,620	3,636	8,799
Campeche	20,361	14,045	20,679
 Coahuila	203,625	111,316	107,096
    Colima	14,032	8,532	7,609
    Chiapas	67,472	76,872	132,410
    Chihuahua	149,725	93,834	66,599
Distrito Fed	544,465	165,057	1,106,292
    Durango	95,176	42,897	45,028
    Guanajuato	418,715	115,658	105,111
    Guerrero	54,675	63,503	149,426
    Hidalgo	72,807	55,658	109,022
    Jalisco	519,847	233,210	198,723
    México	673,838	344,154	867,134
    Michoacán	204,838	87,171	219,413
    Morelos	83,627	38,573	113,184
    Nayarit	9,712	17,440	25,428
    Nuevo León	451,529	223,952	136,884
    Oaxaca	55,883	61,709	132,041
    Puebla	273,650	116,521	203,850
    Querétaro	120,210	37,435	58,140
Quintana Roo	43,978	30,160	47,006
San Luis Potosí	136,589	40,216	56,175
    Sinaloa	99,382	61,511	88,354
    Sonora	25,387	7,367	12,482
    Tabasco	8,537	84,551	131,556
    Tamaulipas	194,596	108,067	128,962
    Tlaxcala	34,040	15,166	45,411
    Veracruz	292,884	169,379	322,623
    Yucatán	109,977	63,991	41,531
    Zacatecas	55,881	28,705	59,646

[AdrianR]

Yes, I should do it by State, but that would really freak out my excel speadsheet.

My Excel is working better but the projection by state is essentially the same.

Calderon Dinosaur Socialist
0.411378598 0.206778985 0.381842416
There must be some intra-state factor because projections get closer.