Josh Marshall's latest, including clarity on absentee ballots...edited to add his recent paragraph

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-story-for-tonight

The Story For Tonight
By Josh Marshall | March 13, 2018 11:15 pm

We have what is probably the final data for tonight. (Actually, see below. Maybe not.) Almost all the final election day votes were reported just a short time ago. Those ballots brought Connor Lamb’s lead to just under 100 votes. But then a short time later, Allegheny County reported its absentee ballots. Those came in overwhelmingly for Lamb, leaving him with an 847 vote lead. The remaining counties are all red counties and all plan to count their absentee votes tomorrow. It looks hard for Saccone to make up that margin. But it’s definitely possible.

The latest we heard is that one of those counties may count their absentee ballots tonight, just because it’s so close. If that happens, we might have a pretty clear sense tonight of who won. Stay tuned.

Late Update: Watching the number crunchers whose opinions I most respect, the consensus seems to be that Lamb wins, absent sole counting error as yet unknown.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Why aren't absentee ballots the first ones counted?

[brewens]

3. That would be a good idea wouldn't it. You wouldn't want to try and cheat somehow

and risk getting busted if you didn't need to. Count them first then, not at the end when the real losers get desperate.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. I live in a state that has excellent early voting,

which would be more or less the equivalent of absentee ballots. I'm under the impression that the early votes are tallied when early voting ends, three days before election day, although the numbers are not released until the polls close and everything else is being counted.

[grantcart]

4. I assume because they have to be opened, examined and counted by hand

They have to check the signature on the outside envelope and then count it by hand and not machine

but not sure.

[Awsi Dooger]

2. Washington County will count the absentees tonight

Along with a hand count.

Several hours until results will be released. That's fine with me.

[Lucky Luciano]

5. I wonder what percentage of absentee ballots in Allegheny wentvto Lamb...

...versus the percentage of non-absentee votes in Allegheny.

Could be a decent benchmark to estimate the red country absentees.

[Beakybird]

7. It looks like Saccone is winning 4/7 of the vote in this county

If there are 3000 ballots, that makes 1714 for Saccone and 1286 for Lamb which would bring Saccone 570 votes closer. He needs 850 to catch up. It's certainly possible, but it's unlikely. There is definitely going to be a recount.

Saccone needs approximately 64% of the remaining votes to catch up.

[radius777]

10. good analysis, hopefully you're correct. /nt

[lindysalsagal]

8. End of the article he says experts predict Lamb win.

Hang in, there.....

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. kicking for the edit/update to my OP - last para