Vote counting update thread

[DINGO Joe]

Ohio gets to start counting Monday.

California still has 800,000 to a million votes to count even above David Wasserman's numbers,  with 340,000 in LA county alone.  It's likely that Romney will go below 47.5.

[DINGO Joe]

Looks like Maryland is done and Obama picked up enough votes to push him over the 64 million mark (per DW spreadsheet)  Also, Maryland became the fifth state where Obama's share of the vote increase over 2008.

Not much vote counting in CA yesterday, but Riverside county flipped to red by 4000 votes with 33000 left to count. 

[DINGO Joe]

Obama's vote in Missouri just fell by 60,000 while Romney's vote remained the same.

I think someone has been pressing the wrong buttons: [see official Missouri elections result page. I can't link to it].

Obama was previously on 1,215,418. Now he's on 1,155,736.

They somehow botched Jackson County results

Obama had 78000+ votes in Jackson not 18000+

[DINGO Joe]

Obama's vote in Missouri just fell by 60,000 while Romney's vote remained the same.

I think someone has been pressing the wrong buttons: [see official Missouri elections result page. I can't link to it].

Obama was previously on 1,215,418. Now he's on 1,155,736.

They somehow botched Jackson County results

Obama had 78000+ votes in Jackson not 18000+

Thanks for pointing that out - although that doesn't quite add up either because Obama went down by about 60,000 and the error in Jackson County was about 100,000. ..

For whatever reason Missouri reports vote totals for Kansas City and Jackson county separately.  Dave has them together.   

[DINGO Joe]

Obama's margin of victory in Colorado (now 5.17%) is greater than his margin in PA (5.02%). This means that at this point, Pennsylvania was the tipping point state (that gave Obama his 270th electoral vote).

That means the tipping point in this election was a state that the Republicans haven't won for President since the 1980s, one of the Kerry states, and a state where the Dems have a registration advantage of over 1 million

Pennsylvania is one of the three swing states with a bunch of ballots still uncounted (along with Ohio and Michigan), so this may change back. (At least, turnout is way down in those three states from 2008, while it's not down in any other swing state.)

I know New York and NJ  had turnout hurt by Sandy, but NY will still have 500,000 or so more votes in their final canvas.  I have no idea about NJ.  

Not sure if Penn and Mich have many ballots to report,  to the extent that they were swing states, they were Hail Mary swing states.

WV had a horrible turnout too, granted it wasn't a swing state, but it arguable is in the most desperate shape of any state given it's reliance on the coal industry (not that Romney would have really done anything to help them).

[DINGO Joe]

Some of the Ohio counties have started posting their final results.  Not sure if it'll be indicative of the whole state but Butler Co went from 62.43-36.20 Romney election night to 61.68-36.58 in final results  (final results include write ins)

In relative small Pike county Obama trailed by 45 votes on election night and in the official count he lost by one vote, better than 2008 when Obama lost it by 129 votes in 2008

[DINGO Joe]

Looks like Obama will crack 65 million and will win by about 4.5 million votes.

State by state turnout looks like it'll be all over the place

[DINGO Joe]

So is Obama doing better or worse in PA than what Wasserman has him at (leading by 5.02%)?

Slightly worse I think, around 4.9%.

Pretty depressing... hopefully the last ballots to come will push Obama up.

Are they from Philly?

Don't think there are many votes left in PA to count despite the low turnout vs 2008, however Philly did have some problems election night which resulted in 27,000 provisional ballots being issued vs 12,000 in 08.  Thus it is likely that the bulk of votes left in PA to be counted are in Philly.

[DINGO Joe]

He almost hasn't made any update since Wednesday.

It a Holiday, not much to update.

[DINGO Joe]

Is California >60% Obama yet? It looks like it won't swing Democratic (Romney did well enough in rural NorCal and made some gains with rich white people), but it's clearly had a D trend this time around.

The latest vote dump from LA County took Obama to 59.8%

Where are the outstanding votes from?

I guess there are roughly 500,000 votes left to count with a little over 150,000 in LA and 57,000 in San Diego, 27,000 in Sacramento.  Believe it or not there are a few counties that haven't provided any updates since election night and I guess won't until they're certified.  Most of those counties are democratic counties though they aren't huge population centers.

[DINGO Joe]

As for Ohio, it seems that the counties provide update after each county Board of Election certifies the results.  About 20 counties have completed the process, mostly smaller and most Republican counties.  Most of the big counties with the most votes left are slated to meet either Mon or Tue, so by Wed it'll be known.  The counties that have provide final results have only been accepting about 2/3rds of the ballots outstanding so overall that means closer to 200000 votes to be added overall vs the 300000 ballots outstanding.   Of the votes added Obama is running roughly 10% or more ahead of what election night results were.  For example the largest county to report thus far is Butler county which Romney won with about 62% of the votes, Obama won 3100 to 2950 in the votes added in the final results.

I'd guess that the margin of victory for Obama will increase to above 150,000 votes and will be close the 3%

[DINGO Joe]

Is California >60% Obama yet? It looks like it won't swing Democratic (Romney did well enough in rural NorCal and made some gains with rich white people), but it's clearly had a D trend this time around.

The latest vote dump from LA County took Obama to 59.8%

Where are the outstanding votes from?

I guess there are roughly 500,000 votes left to count with a little over 150,000 in LA and 57,000 in San Diego, 27,000 in Sacramento.  Believe it or not there are a few counties that haven't provided any updates since election night and I guess won't until they're certified.  Most of those counties are democratic counties though they aren't huge population centers.

Absolutely. New York hasn't updated its figures since election night.

Current figures:
Obama 3,875,826; Romney 2,226,637; Total 6,186,881

2008 figures:
Obama 4,804,701; McCain 2,752,728; Total 7,640,640

I don't think turnout will drop by more than a million votes which means a minimum of 450,000 votes still to come and as you say the vast majority of them will be for the Democrats.

Actually, I was referring to California--Mendocino, Humboldt, Lake and a few others haven't provided any updates since the election.

New York is notorious for being this way and obviously Sandy means it's quite likely that that an above average number of votes remain.  NJ I have no feel for whatsoever.  Could be that a million votes between to two remain to be added.

[DINGO Joe]

As for Ohio, it seems that the counties provide update after each county Board of Election certifies the results.  About 20 counties have completed the process, mostly smaller and most Republican counties.  Most of the big counties with the most votes left are slated to meet either Mon or Tue, so by Wed it'll be known.  The counties that have provide final results have only been accepting about 2/3rds of the ballots outstanding so overall that means closer to 200000 votes to be added overall vs the 300000 ballots outstanding.   Of the votes added Obama is running roughly 10% or more ahead of what election night results were.  For example the largest county to report thus far is Butler county which Romney won with about 62% of the votes, Obama won 3100 to 2950 in the votes added in the final results.

I'd guess that the margin of victory for Obama will increase to above 150,000 votes and will be close the 3%

What do you think will happen to Obama's lead in Pennsylvania as the last votes are counted?

It will be interesting if the gap between Obama's lead in PA and OH is pretty small, such as less than 2% for example.

I don't think PA will change much--maybe back to 5.0 to 5.1%

[DINGO Joe]

He almost hasn't made any update since Wednesday.

It a Holiday, not much to update.

But California has, and he hasn't been keeping track of it.

There aren't that many nerds obsessing over the whole right now though--I count three, you, me and Andy.  Turkey is notorious for inducing sleep, so  let him enjoy his nap.

[DINGO Joe]

Philly and other counties in PA are dropping their final vote counts into the interwebs and PA is up to a 5.4% margin.  Colorado actually had some R number come in that pulled it down slightly  to 5.4%.

[DINGO Joe]

There are 958,311 unprocessed ballots in California according to the official website. Obama is currently on 7,525,158 in CA compared to 8,274,473 in 2008. He might not quite reach the same number of votes this time but I think he could get pretty close.

Unfortunately much of that info is outdated.  Probably less than 300,000 ballots left to be counted

[DINGO Joe]

Is it possible for Obama to overtake in Fresno County or is it too late?

The county website doesn't say how many votes are left to count, but based on statewide turnout vs 2008, I'd guess about 20,000.  Possible, yes, it'll be close .

[DINGO Joe]

Percentage-wise (rounded up), is it safe yet to conclude that President Obama won with 52% of the popular vote, and Romney is now Mr. 47%?  How close are we? 

The final percentage will be about 51.0-47.2.

[DINGO Joe]

Why did Obama just go under 50 in Florida again?

Dave includes about 15,000 write-ins that the state doesn't seem to include in their official results

[DINGO Joe]

Are Ohio results now final?

Not quite, about 10 counties left to report, maybe 15,000 votes or so.

[DINGO Joe]

New vote dump in some California counties. Notably, Santa Clara County (San Jose) has now cleared 70% for Obama, while Stanislaus County (Modesto) has cleared 50%. Additionally, Stanislaus, San Joaquin (Stockton) and Merced Counties have now swung to Obama--that's a sign of really dramatic change in that part of California. Los Angeles County and Kern County (Bakersfield) have now also swung to Obama. Not sure if San Francisco County had swung towards Obama before, but it has now.

When it's updated, San Bernadino will also swing to the D.  I expect Fresno will flip to D (though not swing) as they have apparently waited to the absolute end to count provisionals.

[DINGO Joe]

According to Wasserman, Utah is final.  It had the biggest % swing to Romney (10.1) and the second highest numerical vote increase vs McCain's number in 2008--an increase of 144,570 votes (Wisconsin had the biggest increase 148,473).

[DINGO Joe]

Ohio is final--final vote margin  166,214  50.67-47.69.

[DINGO Joe]

The RCP average was actually 2.9%, exactly the result.

The Atlas says it's only a 2% margin

Atlas just hasn't updated.  The final margin was actually 50.67-47.69

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AjYj9mXElO_QdHpla01oWE1jOFZRbnhJZkZpVFNKeVE&f=true&noheader=true&gid=19

[DINGO Joe]

Looks like NY and NE are done as well and nothing has been added in NY ...

http://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/elections/2012/General/PresidentVicePresident12Provisional12102012.pdf

I thought Dec. 17 was the certification day in NY ? Or will they update later ?

NYC and about a dozen other counties still haven't provided final results

http://www.elections.ny.gov/2012ElectionResults.html