something like 1.6 million absentee ballots - not enough to turn it alone.

You may be in for a shock in Florida. At this time, the Republican counties are 80-100 reported. In Miami-Dade and Broward and also in the northern heavily Democratic counties they are all less than 50% reported. Expect a late Kerry surge.

I'm no CNN but if you add all the states where W is leading (assuming the completion of the counts continues the same trend) he is still the president.

On the Florida issue, the split is roughly 200K votes but (reportedly) there are some 140-150K mail in votes which are still being counted. Thus the reason no one will call it yet.

Mort is sounding tired...

...and we're gonna' carry Alaska, and were gonna' carry California, and we're gonna carry New Mexico and Washington all the way to the White House...YEEHAW!

Don't know why they haven't called Florida (27 electoral votes) for Bush already. Seems obvious, unless uncounted absentee ballots are a large factor.

Ohio (20 electoral votes) genuinely looks too close to call. Based on precincts reporting so far, Bush is ahead. But most of the precincts that have reported so far are from small counties. The three largest counties by far (I assume these are the most urban ones, but I don't know) are leaning Kerry, so far: Cuyahoga (17% reported, 60% Kerry 40% Bush), Franklin (68% reported, 51% Kerry 49% Bush), and Hamilton (9% reported, 51% Kerry 49% Bush). The next two largest counties (Montgomery and Summit) are also leaning Kerry, so far.

Looks like Kerry and Bush are splitting the other Great Lakes states - Wisconsin Michigan (leaning Bush, but <20% reported: 27 electoral votes) Iowa and Minnesota (leaning Kerry, but <20% reported: 17 votes), Indiana (called for Bush, 11 votes) and Illinois (called for Kerry, 21 votes). So this group of state might well end up 38 votes for Bush, 38 for Kerry.

Assume Montana (3 votes), Colorado (9 votes), New Mexico (5 votes), Nevada (5 votes), Idaho (4 votes) and Alaska (3 votes) all go to Bush, while New Hampshire (4 votes), California (55 votes), Oregon (7 votes), Washington (11 votes) and Hawaii (4 votes) go to Kerry.

That would make Bush 286 and Kerry 231, before Ohio is counted.

So, my math is:

To win, Kerry must win Ohio and carry all the other states that are currently leaning to him, as well as OR and WA, and a couple of states currently leaning to Bush.

To win, Bush must either win Ohio, or simply carry the states that are already leaning to him.

EDIT: I think this is right - I hunted up a calculator . . .

another round of states coming up here at the top of the hour...

Geeze, cali already... that puts Kerry up to 188, bush 197

They just called Kalifornia for Kerry.

Bush 197
Kerry 188.

It ain't over until the fat lady votes!

-Z.

They are still voting in Florida (miami/Dade)

Fla 91% in. . .Bush +5% .. .

In that case,

It ain't over until the fat OLD lady votes!

Not that there's anything wrong with fat old ladies...

-Z.

are you serious?? Polls should've closed there hours ago... like, 3 hours ago... what's the deal? Do the local voting places have the power to stay open like that?

As long as people are in line (And got in line when the polls were still open) they have to stay open until the last one votes.

Oh, crap, I can't keep up with this. MI and NV just flipped to lean Kerry and it is too early in the counting to say if they'll flip again. WA is darn close, and NH remains so. Ignore my attempt at math (above), I'm just going to open a beer and listen to the talking heads on TV for a while.

Piece of florida detail:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1099455790.gif

AZ and MT are projected for Bush.

FL and OH are too close, but Bush has the overall lead in both...

Talk about nail biters....

Worse..it's a toenail biter

I hate California politics. I'm sure they called the state for Kerry after a single vote. "Yup. Kerry."

Looks like we'll spend 3 BILLION dollars in a drug company subsidy for stem cell research that THEY WERE DOING AT THIER OWN EXPENSE ANYWAY!!!!

I know it's late, but I better get back to work to start paying for this crap.

WTF? Yahoo is showing Washington 49%-49% with 3% reporting and they're giving it to Kerry?