Kansas City Star, Nov. 13, 2008
Nine days later, and Missouri’s presidential outcome up in the airBy DAVE HELLING, The Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/887821.htmlWhat are you waiting for, Missouri?
There you sit — a gray doughnut hole on the presidential election map, a when-will-you-show-me blank surrounded by a sea of red and blue.
Nine days after almost 3 million of your citizens cast ballots for John McCain and Barack Obama, you’re the ultimate outlier: The only state still too close to call, at least for most major news organizations.
“We’re still hanging, aren’t we?” Kansas City election director Shelley McThomas asked Wednesday.
Well, yes, at least until Tuesday, when local results are certified, and maybe until early December, when the state is required to officially add them up.
Eventually, though, we’ll know for the record what almost everyone assumes — McCain won Missouri.
The state’s 11 electoral votes won’t help him, of course. Obama has far more than the 270 votes he needs, leaving Missouri’s outcome of interest largely to historians and participants in Electoral College pools.
But campaign staff, party officials and at least some voters say they want to know who actually won as soon as possible.
“It certainly makes a difference to those of us who worked in Missouri,” said Pat McInerney, who helped organize legal oversight of the ballot for the Obama campaign.
They’ll have to be patient. Missouri’s counties are still adding up some 6,300 provisional ballots — votes cast, put in an envelope, and set aside until the voter’s registration status can be verified.
But the math is unavoidable: Obama needs about 90 percent of those uncounted provisionals to win Missouri, an almost insurmountable obstacle.
As of late Wednesday, unofficial Missouri returns showed Republican McCain with a 4,988-vote advantage over Obama, out of 2,921,869 presidential ballots cast.
It is closer than it was election night, when returns showed McCain with a 5,868-vote lead out of 2,917,621 total ballots.
More votes are in the tally, and McCain’s lead is narrowing, because some election boards are adjusting totals sent to the state Nov. 4, adding provisional and absentees to the count.
By late morning Wednesday, Kansas City election workers had labored through its pile of more than 500 provisionals, checking names against a statewide database, checking polling locations, making sure the voter passes muster with a bipartisan observer team.
If the answer is no, the vote won’t count. If yes, the envelope containing the provisional goes in a special stack, to be opened and officially counted Friday.
“If they are duly registered, it’s quick,” McThomas said. “If you have to start searching, it’s harder.”
Workers were expected to finish vetting Kansas City’s provisional ballots by this morning.
But Obama’s hope for a provisional miracle in Missouri seems far-fetched, because half to two-thirds of the ballots don’t qualify.
Even if they all counted, though, Obama would need nine out of 10 of the votes to win.
Not likely.
“It appears to us … that there are an insufficient number of provisional ballots to provide Barack Obama with a realistic opportunity to win” in Missouri, wrote analyst Nate Silver on www.fivethirtyeight.com last week. “So we are calling that state for John McCain for the time being.”
Other media — notably NBC News — have also declared the state a McCain victory.
The Associated Press has not, however. CNN has not. Real Clear Politics has not.
Obama’s electoral vote total is edging up, even with Missouri in electoral limbo. It sits now at 365, including Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.
(The Cornhusker state allocates three of its five electoral votes by district, not statewide.)
Hand-to-hand combat over election results isn’t restricted to the presidential race.
In Minnesota, voters gave incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman a victory over challenger Democrat Al Franken, but additional ballots — and a possible typographical error — have narrowed that lead to around 200 votes.
A legally required hand re-count, and duels between party lawyers, appear certain. Final results may not be known until mid-December.
In Alaska, incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Stevens is locked in a close battle with challenger Mark Begich, with several thousand absentees and provisionals uncounted.
In Georgia, incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss, also a Republican, faces a December runoff against Democrat Jim Martin. A runoff is required under Georgia law because no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote.
Those slow counts, though, involve Senate races — not the presidential race, which is closer in Missouri than in any other state.
Had the other returns across the nation not been so decisive, Missouri might have found itself in Florida 2000-like territory, with complaints about voting flaws, highly partisan news conferences, and ultimately, perhaps, court decisions.
Not this time. Obama supporters say they won’t ask for the re-count, even if they lose by a few hundred votes.
In fact, they’re willing to wait as long as it takes to color the state red or blue.
“It’s important to get it right,” McInerney said. “So I’ll sacrifice time for an accurate result.”
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
