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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 5:37pm PT  

Though Ohio got all the Florida-like attention this year from the mainstream media (who can't seem to focus on more than one thing at time, and at that, for only mere seconds) back in Florida --- where nobody is looking, and yes the results were close though less so than in 2000 --- something also doesn't add up.

Kathy Dopp has been crunching hard election result numbers and a strange --- yet very clear pattern --- is emerging.

Using the very rough gauge of comparing Republican and Democrat registrations county by county to the actual final voting results, she finds that the percentage change of "Expected Votes" versus "Actual Results" are fairly consistent in counties that used E-Voting machines.

But in counties that used Optical Scan Voting the "Expected Votes" versus "Actual Results" are wildly discordant to say the least.

For example, look at just one sample from Baker County, FL...

Registered Voters
REP: 24.3% DEM: 69.3%

Actual Votes
REP: 7,738 DEM: 2,180

Change from Expected Results
REP: 220.4% DEM: -68.4%

That's a sample from just one county, but the majority of counties that used Opti-scan systems, particularly those systems made by "Election Systems and Software (ES&S)" show the same wildly discordant pattern.

Such a disparity between Actual Results and Expected Results (based on voter registration) could well be explained if the voter turnout was simply far and away in favor of Bush in Florida due to any number of factors. But why then do virtually none of the Electronic Voting counties in Florida show anything like those kind of disparities in the Expected versus Actual Results?

She's been updating her data throughout the day, adding info as it's made available by the state of Florida.

(Thanks reader Teri K. for the tip)

UPDATE: ES&S, together with Diebold Election Systems, are responsible for tallying some 80% of votes in the U.S. The CEO of Diebold Election Systems is also the founder of ES&S according to this interesting report from July 2003. It's also an interesting report because it seems to describe yesterday's results "to a T" in many ways...More on that soon...

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 4:32pm PT  

If the mainstream media is reporting their data from Exit Polling as being accurate in regards to who voted on Election Day (for example: "Christian Conservative" voters showing up in increased numbers) why was the information from those same polls concerning who people were voting for so wildly different from the reported Final Results?

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 2:16pm PT  

From an email yesterday from Jaime:

PS. if Kevin Bacon can change the attitudes of theo-conservatism with his positive disposition and upbeat dance moves...so can we.
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Pay Attention...Or Not.
By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 2:02pm PT  

I'm sorry if there are some of you who would rather "move on". I'll err on the side of accurately counting "the will of the people in a Democracy". If, like so many of the wingnuts out there, you'd rather not examine such matters accurately (and I can hardly blame the wingnuts), you are welcome to read other blogs more likely to repeat to you what you wish to hear.

To that end, there are continuing questions about the results in Ohio, New Mexico, and yes - Florida. Since Democracy demands both vigilance and an accurate reflection of the will of the people, I will do my best to stay on top of these matters as so many of your Emails have requested of me. I hope to have more information for you about those states later today.

In the meantime, here's a report just released by AP concerning at least 4,500 votes that Election Officials admit were lost in North Carolina in just one county due to inaccurate information provided by the makers of the E-Voting machine in use there:

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

Expecting the greater capacity, the county used only one unit during the early voting period. "If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the county election board.

Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost.

[UPDATE]: The link to the AP story is now dead. Here's another one with the same info.

That was just one county in North Carolina. Pay attention...

UPDATE: More problems with UniLect machines now reported! This time in Ohio where they used thousands of UniLect machines:

"I don't know what happened," said James Bennington, who had been assured Friday that all 250 of the county's touch-screen units had been checked and rechecked. The county has 100 voting precincts.

Keith Jenkins, director of the county's computer department, agreed that it was a software malfunction and said repeated calls to UniLect Corp., the company that sold the machines to the county in 2001, failed to resolve the problem.

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The One President-Elect Bush Won't be Viewing.
By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 1:28pm PT  

What America actually looks like in regards to this election. States sized proportionally to their population...

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 12:20pm PT  


JON STEWART: Ed, the election is over, what's happening there in Washington today?...What's the focus?

ED HELMS: Well, John...The president is focusing on his agenda for the next four years. 1) Finishing the war in Iraq. 2) Starting the war in three other places...TBD, of course. 3) The Supreme Court has got some vacancies to fill...The constitution still has a few loose ends that need tightening...And, I'm not going to say "prayer will be mandatory"...but, let's just say thine loom and churn best be still on the sabbath, goodman.

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 12:12pm PT  

From President-Elect Bush's press conference today:

"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the --- after the 2000 election."

Any questions?

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The Bush Legacy: 1124 and Counting...
A Photographic Tribute
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2004 5:59pm PT  

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Democracy Requires Vigilance
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2004 5:43pm PT  

One more note or two on some Ohio anomalies previously reported, but which may have gotten lost in last night's crush.

The final vote, apparently, was cast in Knox County, Ohio last night (this morning) at 3:55am after loads of student voters (who broke heavily for Kerry) at Kenyon College had stood in line to vote for as many as ten hours due to a shortage of electronic voting machines. Do you suppose there were many who chose not to wait that long to cast their vote and simply left?

The still-open polls, of course, did not keep Fox from making their call for Bush in Ohio at 11:41pm last night, a full four hours before the polls in Ohio had closed.

Apparently their protestations of "media bias!" back in 2000, when some of the nets called Florida for Gore in 2000 before voting had ended in conservative Tallahassee, was just another piece of bullshit at the time meant to go down the Memory Hole once that battle-cry became no longer operative. (UPDATE: Murdoch's NY Post also called Bush the winner in it's 2am issue, before polls had closed, according to Drudge. Surprised? Didn't think so.)

As well, if you missed it last night, see AMERICAblog's photo and story of Ohio ballots being carted away yesterday in a "Bush-Cheney '04" truck. The photo and incident was confirmed with multiple witnesses and they are reporting today that some in the media are investigating. I hope so. Though, again, I'll not be holding my breath.

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Only E-Voting Results Appear to Have Varied Wildly from Exit Polling.
Now why would that be?
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2004 4:29pm PT  

As I was trying to get to sleep this morning, I wondered about the wild differences between the Exit Polling numbers, which strongly favored Kerry, versus the Final Results which narrowly favored Bush.

Given the statement in August of 2003 by Walden O'dell, the CEO of Deibold Inc., the Ohio-based company and the nation's #1 maker of Electronic Voting Machines there is reason to be suspicious.

He wrote in a fund-raising letter to Ohio Republicans last year that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

As I lay in bed, trying to make sense of what still makes little sense, I had hoped to look today into how much the Exit Poll results varied from the Final Results in states and districts where there was Electronic Voting versus the difference in states where paper ballots etc. were in use.

Looks like Raw Story has begun to do exactly that. UPDATE: Here is a graphic representation of the information that the Raw Story article details.

Their early investigation shows that in states where E-voting with no paper trails were used, there was an enormous difference --- always in favor of Bush --- between the Exit Polls and the Final Results. Whereas in the states with paper ballots or E-voting machines that provided a printed paper trail, the Exit Polling was within .01% of the Final Results. Look at those numbers yourself.

Perhaps the mainstream media will discover a sense of civic duty and look further into that. For some reason, I'm not holding my breath, and it'll probably fall to folks like us to do their heavy lifting for them.

Look also at the bizarre numbers that Oliver Willis discovered amongst the vote tabulations as they were coming out of Ohio's website last night. He supplies pictures, so it should be simple for you wingnuts to understand.

And on Nov. 1, the day before the election, BlackBoxVoting.org --- a site which has been warning for some time of such concerns - issued an urgent release which began:

MONDAY Nov 1 2004: New information indicates that hackers may be targeting the central computers counting our votes tomorrow. All county elections officials who use modems to transfer votes from polling places to the central vote-counting server should disconnect the modems now.

There is no down side to removing the modems. Simply drive the vote cartridges from each polling place in to the central vote-counting location by car, instead of transmitting by modem. �Turning off� the modems may not be sufficient. Disconnect the central vote counting server from all modems, INCLUDING PHONE LINES, not just Internet.

I am pleased to see that that group has now filed "Freedom of Information Act" petitions for the audit logs of Electronic Voting machines in many states, given that they found some three hours of missing data from such audit logs six weeks ago on a central computer in Washington during their primary elections there.

Finally, I wonder if anyone will follow up with Karl Rove's statement to Sean Hannity on Sept. 29th when he said "We've got a couple of surprises that we intend to spring."

Now that the election is over and won, perhaps Mr. Rove could elucidate on what those "surprises" actually were.

Anyone in the media willing to take your job seriously enough to ask him?

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A Divider Not a Uniter
The Long National Nightmare Continues...
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2004 2:54pm PT  

It's only been an hour or two, but the spinning and cynically opportunistic misinterpretation by the zealots of President-Elect Bush's victory has already begun. As expected.

Never mind that a man who received a "free" all-expense-paid four-year campaign commercial masquerading as "President" could claim only a slim 1% victory over his contender, with more Americans voting against him than any candidate in history, the Right has already begun the spin (as evidenced in comments here) that even the moderates in America support Bush.

Andrew Sullivan quotes Noam Scheiber putting some truth to that earliest of lies:

Not only did Kerry win by an 86-13 margin among self-described liberals, he also won by a 55-45 margin among self-described moderates. So how'd Bush pull it off? He won 84-15 among self-described conservatives, and, more importantly, he made sure conservatives comprised a much bigger chunk of the electorate than they did in 2000. (Conservatives comprised about 34 percent of the electorate yesterday, versus 29 percent in 2000--a huge shift, raw numbers-wise.) Anyone anticipating a conciliatory second Bush term should stop and consider how much Bush owes his base.

Adding to that, I associate myself with Josh Marshall who saw the Bush/Cheney statements today claiming a "a broad, nationwide victory" as ominous writing on the sleaze-room wall:

This is the touchstone and the sign. A 'broad, nationwide victory'? He must be kidding. Our system is majority rule. And 51% is a win. But he's claiming a mandate.

"A broad, nationwide victory"?

It would almost be comical if it weren't for the seriousness of what it portends. This election cut the nation in two. A single percentage point over 50% is not broad. A victory that carried no states in the Northeast, close to none in the Industrial midwest is not nationwide, and none on the west coast is not nationwide.

And yet he plans to use this narrow victory as though it were a broad mandate, starting right back with the same strategy that has already come near to tearing this country apart.

I'll have more on that "same strategy" and the ugliness it required to win a 1% majority victory as the day goes on...

CORRECTION 11/4/04: As pointed out by reader "Jeff", I said above that Bush "could claim only a slim 1% victory over his contender" I should have said "a slim 1% victory over his contenders" since Bush received 51% of the popular vote. As well, "Jeff" pointed out that I said Bush had "more Americans voting against him than any candidate in history". That was misleading as well. What I should have said was Bush had "more Americans voting against him than any Republican candidate in history". A seemingly good source to check on these matters is right here. BRAD BLOG regrets both the errors and the sleepless haze in which they were written.

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Shame on us.
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2004 1:51pm PT  

For some reason I decided to get in a few hours of sleep this morning. So I'm just beginning to catch up on all that's transpired since I went to bed. Much analysis and opinion to come today no doubt.

There will be plenty of time for the hand-wringing and discussions of the Right's Victory of Hate and Fear over Hope and Courage.

For the moment though, as I begin to get caught up, read the ominous tea-leaves of what Bush's statement today foretold, and catch up with comments and email here, I think the words of The Freeway Blogger say it best:

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It may set a good example...
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2004 2:07am PT  

It's incredible to be saying it again four years later, but here we go again.

Fox "News" pulled the rope-a-dope. After laying back all night and calling most of the close states about an hour later than everyone else, they threw one good sucker punch at 12:41am ET. While folks were still, apparently, in line voting in Ohio --- where some some precincts were reported having to stay open to accomodate voters until 1am ET --- Fox called Ohio for Bush. Drudge quickly followed, announcing "BUSH WINS" with siren, and the storyline of the night and the morning papers was set. Before the votes were counted. Just as in 2000.

Though clearly I'm disappointed that my predictions of a decisive Kerry victory and a Democrat Senate majority have not come to pass, I am pleased to see that the Dems have promised this time to make all attempts to ensure that every vote gets counted. I think that's a fine idea for the world's oldest and most important Democracy.

Of note, in 2000, the GOP proved rather unimpressed with the fact that Gore received the majority of the Popular vote, arguing instead that only the Electoral vote mattered.

They were correct in that at the time. Like it or not, the Electoral College is our system. Though I wonder however, with the apparent if majority Popular vote this time, if they may come to regret that ardent 2000 position. Or if, as is their pattern, they'll soon begin claiming the "voice of the people has spoken" and develop their usual case of amnesia to "all that went before".

In 2000, Gore had the popular vote as the moral wind beneath his wings to press forward and request the counting of the ballots in Florida. Today, it seems, Kerry may not have the Popular vote in his favor. But he does have Bush's own disregard for that Popular vote in 2000 beneath his wings which he would be correct to remind folks about as he makes his case to continue until an acccurate Electoral vote can be determined.

Additionally, it seems a reminder is in order that it was the Bush campaign who brought a lawsuit to the Supreme Court to challenge the counting of ballots in Florida. It was not those "litigious Democrats" as they seem to enjoy inferring. Again, with disregard to facts, history, and all of the pesky truths from the Reality-Based World.

I'll need more time, of course, to make full sense of exactly what happened in America today, as it seems to me there's much more of this story still to come. Clearly, no matter what the final results, they are a good deal short of what I had hoped for and expected.

In short, however, if the numbers hold up, and if indeed Kerry loses, it will have been a sad, yet stark victory of Hate and Fear over Hope and Courage.

And at the shameful and dirty heart of it all...a case of good old fashioned American homophobia that will have won the day.

More details on that...and everything else, no doubt...in the days to come...after a few hours sleep.

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Here we go again...
By Brad Friedman on 11/2/2004 5:22pm PT  

LATEST...
· 12:31am PT: AMERICABlog: "ABC News just reported at 3 in the morning that people are still lined up and voting in at least TWO precincts in Ohio --- including predominantly college students at one polling area."
· 12:15am PT: None of the nets have called NV, but Yahoo has a few mins ago. For Bush. First time they've called one before the nets.
· AMERICABlog: Witnesses/Photos in OH, "the truck the ballots for 40 precincts were loaded into - had a big Bush-Cheney 2004 sticker in the back window". Follow link for photo and details.
· Oliver Willis: Early OH website count showed big irregularities. Why? Graphics at his site.
· Even if NV, NM, and IA all go to Bush, Kerry wins if he takes OH, 272 - 266!
· SALON: Thousands turned away without provisional ballots in OHIO
· 11:39pm PT: Current Electoral: BUSH 249 - Kerry 242
· 11:35pm PT: Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, "If every state leaning Bush goes Bush, and every state leaning Kerry goes Kerry, Bush DOES NOT WIN without OHIO"!
· 11:28pm PT: Edwards statement/appearance "We can wait one more night. We will fight for every vote!"
· 11:20pm PT: Bush team talking "acceptance speech". 2000-style GOP PsyOps in full play!
· Only 50% of Las Vegas counted. 5,000 vote diff. Raw Nevada Data
· 10:59pm PT: Counting machines broken down in IA. No final count can be made until Wed! - CNN
· 10:58pm PT: CNN - "As many as 600,000 uncounted votes still out".
· 10:52pm PT: CNN calls OH "Too Close to Call" - Apparently won't be calling it tonight.
· 2000 DEJA VU: FOX calls it for Bush before anyone else, Drudge gives Presidency to Bush. Meantime, OH vote still out. Even without OH for Kerry, a 269-269 tie possible. Not necessarily probable, but possible. Kerry statement: "It takes 270 win".
· 10:22pm PT - OH: 86.69% precincts counted. 124,449 adv. Bush and getting smaller. CNN reports 150,000-200,000 provisional ballots uncounted.
· NBC and MSNBC call OH for Bush at 12:50am.
· FOX and FNC (only ones) call OH for BUSH! 15 minutes before polls close there! MMFA Reports: FNC calls at 12:41am ET; FOX calls at 12:44am ET - People still voting until 1am in OH!
· Do the math yourself right here.
· Raw State Website Results: Oh my OHIO!

CURRENT ELECTORAL: (270 needed to win)
BUSH - 254 ..... KERRY - 252

(According to Yahoo, who has given Nevada to Bush for some reason. 2:19am PT)

Graphic should update when you refresh the page. Click it for details...

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LIVE Election Day Blogging...
(Scroll down for UPDATES throughout the day...)
By Brad Friedman on 11/2/2004 1:52am PT  

UPDATE: 11:10am PT Reporting the same that we're hearing everywhere. Lines at my polling place were like none I've ever seen. I did, however, vote much earlier than I usually do, so I asked a long time poll worker what it's been like in comparison to the past. Their reply; "It's been non-stop. I've never seen it like this".

One more notable observation - In my decade of voting at the same polling place, I don't believe I've ever seen a single poll worker under the age of 75. Today, however, I was signed in by someone who was 20 if he was a day, confirmed by a woman who was mid to late 30's, and there were at least twice as many poll workers total as I've ever seen before.

It's a great day for Democracy. So far.

Here's my prediction for today from Oct. 11th, that I am still standing by. It's called "The Blueing of America".

UPDATE: 11:23am PT Let's hope Drudge --- with siren --- has this one right!

KERRY CAMPAIGN FINDS COMFORT IN FIRST BATCH OF EXIT POLLS
Election 2004 has been rocked with first wave of exit polls which show Kerry competitive in key states, campaign and media sources tell DRUDGE...National Election Pool --- representing six major news organization --- shows Kerry in striking distance --- with small lead --- in Florida and Ohio..."

If accurate, that report is extremely notable as the first wave of exit polls usually favors Republicans since they historically vote earlier. On the other hand, with Drudge running it, it could be a warning shout-out for the wingnuts to get to the polls! Rush is already discounting the report as "unimportant". :-)

UPDATE: 11:48am PT Rush going out of his way to find any way to discount those exit polls! Including a report from a "Republican Insider" source who he "cannot name" who says they cannot confirm the above report. Right.

UPDATE: 12:27pm PT Hannity in a panic on the radio, though trying to keep up a good game face. Drudge now modifies his report to add "...But early sample was based on a 59- 41 women to men ratio" and both Rush and Sean are sticking with that part of the story.

Here are the actual early numbers as reported by Drudge, but quickly taken down from his site. They were also reported elsewhere:

_ _ _ AZ CO LA PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH
Kerry 45 48 42 60 52 51 51 50 58 52 49 57
_Bush 55 51 57 40 48 48 47 48 40 43 49 41

UPDATE: 12:41pm PT Newt on Sean reports again on the already discredited Philly E-machine story. Desperation at work.

UPDATE: 12:57pm PT Slate has slightly different numbers on a few states than the ones posted above. They seem more in line with reality to me. As well, they have notable reports for Nevada and North Carolina!

_ _ _ CO PA FL OH NV NC
Kerry 46 54 50 50 48 49
_Bush 53 45 49 49 50 51

UPDATE: 1:30pm PT "A VIEW FROM THE RIGHT....Panic at The Corner" via Kevin Drum.

CRIMINEY! [Jonah Goldberg]
I went out for a brief lunch with missus and I come back to discover things are going south? What the...? From what I'm hearing, Florida's an uphill climb right now and New Hampshire's a lost cause. Trying to nail things down.

Keep an eye on the live panicky monkey chatter here.

UPDATE: 2:11pm PT Third round of exit polling data. This time from Raw Story.

_ _ _ CO PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH ME NV AR NC
Kerry 49 58 52 52 51 49 57 53 50 58 49 48 45 47
_Bush 50 42 47 48 48 49 42 47 48 41 49 49 54 53

These look very good. Though I believe I've been deficient in cautioning against irrational exhuberance and to encourage you to take these numbers with several grains of salt. None the less, the early words seem well in favor of Good over Evil.

UPDATE: 2:35pm PT Zogby's Final Call (as of 5pm ET):

Bush: 213
Kerry: 311
Too Close To Call: NV(4) and CO(9)

(Thanks Jaime for all various updated!)

UPDATE: 2:50pm PT 4pm ET exit poll data from Slate. Kerry's lead is holding and improving if these numbers are any good. Note that states like CO and NV are seriously in play. Not a good sign for BushCo by any stretch of the imagination.

_ _ _ CO PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH ME NV CO AR NC
Kerry 46 58 52 52 51 49 57 53 50 58 55 48 49 45 47
_Bush 53 42 47 48 48 49 42 47 48 41 44 49 50 54 53

UPDATE: 3:02pm PT Mystery Pollster gives good reason to be very cautious about these exit poll numbers! Consider yourself warned. Stop reading these numbers and GET OUT THE VOTE! :-)

UPDATE: 3:09pm PT "Nothing is real" --- an apt phrase from the monkey corner:

THIS IS WHAT MATTERS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This, by way of he who is, in my humble opinion, one of the smartest polling minds around (I won't tell you who that is so no polling mind is offended): Nothing is real. I repeat, Nothing is real until the precincts start coming in. So the results are not real until much later. This smart person is not at all paniced, because what matters, isn't here yet.

Nope. No "panice" there.

UPDATE: 3:29pm PT Again from Slate...And not as wide a national margin as I'd like it to be! Get to work peeps!:

In the national exit poll, Kerry leads Bush 51-48. In Wisconsin he's up by three and in Ohio and Florida he leads by one.

UPDATE: 3:46pm PT Drudge, who had previously stopped reporting exit data, has resumed with a bit:

KERRY, BUSH TIED IN OHIO SHOWDOWN, EXITS; KERRY +2 IN FLORIDA

First real poll closing and possible real numbers in 15 minutes...Developing...

UPDATE: 4:02pm PT First official calls from MSNBC...

PROJECTED FOR BUSH:
Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky

TOO CLOSE TO CALL:
Virginia
KY Senate race
SC Senate race

TOO EARLY TO CALL:
South Carolina

UPDATE: 4:12pm PT Final 6pm ET exit poll numbers from Raw Story...

_ _ _ CO PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA CO NC MO AK LA AZ
Kerry 48 53 51 51 51 50 54 52 49 48 48 46 47 43 45
_Bush 51 46 49 49 47 49 44 47 49 50 52 54 53 56 55

UPDATE: 4:24pm PT From Drudge now...in red...

ENOUGH OF THE MEDIA EXITS; LETS COUNT THE PEOPLE'S VOTES!

What does that tell you? :-) --- By the way, the fact that Virginia and the KY senate races are too close to call should tell you much.

Ohio real numbers in 5 minutes...DEVELOPING...

UPDATE: 4:30pm PT From MSNBC...Notable tea leaves...

TOO CLOSE TO CALL:
Ohio (no surprise)
North Carolina(!)
Virginia(!)
North Carolina Senate Race(!)
South Carolina Senate Race(!)
Kentucky Senate Race(!)

Yo, Vegas peeps! Get to work!

UPDATE: 5:04pm PT From MSNBC...

KERRY WINS!
Illinois
New Jersey (no surprise, despite last week's fake psyop spin from the monkeys)
Massachussetts
Maryland
Connecticut
Maine
Delaware
D.C.

BUSH WINS
Tennessee
Alabama
Oklahoma

TOO CLOSE TO CALL:
Florida (surprised? ;-)
Missouri (!)

CURRENT ELECTORAL: (on both MSNBC and FOX)
Bush - 66
Kerry - 77

UPDATE: 5:15pm PT A little help from your friends? Fox calls South Carolina for Bush! Haven't seen it called anywhere else yet though....DEVELOPING...

UPDATE: 5:39pm PT LIVE and REAL Ohio Numbers here. I don't like the current percentages, but I don't know the order of reporting precincts.

CNN calls North Carolina and South Carolina for Bush (not a surprise, but would have been nice to win)

CNN's CURRENT ELECTORAL:
Bush: 102
Kerry: 77

UPDATE: 6:56pm PT Begala on CNN reports that absentee ballots from the three biggest FL counties (Palm Beach, Broward and...Volusia?) won't be counted until Thursday! Have forgotten how many votes he said that was, 400,000 or so? Urgh...

UPDATE: 7:43pm PT | NEW UPDATES WILL BE UP IN THE NEXT ENTRY...Nail-biter, huh? :-)

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