I'm reassured.
I've just gone through all the partial results for Montana on a county-by-county basis. My approximations are that (a) the proportion of precincts declared is the same as the proportion of votes declared in that count and (b) the remaining votes in the county will split in the same proportion as the votes declared so far. On that basis, the Republicans will close the gap by about 2,000 votes - but the gap is about 5,000 so I'm no longer as stressed. The only heavily-Republican counties that aren't 100% declared are Fergus and Meagher, and both of those are tiny. The rest - Cascade, Gallatin, Lake and Yellowstone - are 50-50 counties on their results so far.
Update 11:11 GMT: Less reassured.
My predictor now says a Republican lead of about 1,100. This is attributable to Cascade County's completed results.
Update 12:30 GMT
R lead on my predictor down to approx 900 (702 plus an estimated 200 for Meagher County where there are no results yet).
Update 13:00 GMT
Democrat lead on my predictor now 1,000 - Yellowstone county has come in with a slight D lead, where my predictor was pointing to a big R lead.
Update 13:30 GMT
All counties have now completed counting apart from Meagher. Democrat lead is 1,586 - which is more than the total number of voters in Meagher County. Congratulations, Senator Tester (D-MT).
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
US Midterm Elections
I've been following these all night, as, I'm sure, have many other Lib Dems.
CNN have just "called" Missouri for the Democrats, which leaves just two seats to be decided in the Senate, and, while there are twenty-odd undecided House seats, the trend in that body is pretty clear.
The Democrats have won back control of the House of Representatives, which they lost in 1994. They have won a victory of near-landslide proportions. Getting on for one in ten of the seats have changed hands, which is amazing when you consider how many seats are gerrymandered to be safe for one party or the other. At the time I type this, CNN have 26 Democrat gains from the Republicans with 27 seats undecided. Essentially all the "undecided" seats were Republican in 2004, and all of them are 50-50. Assuming they split evenly between the parties, that's 39 or 40 Democrat gains, in a chamber of 435 Representatives. Like I said, near-landslide.
Turning to the Senate, which has been close all night, there are 100 seats in the Senate. 67 Senators - 40 Republicans and 27 Democrats - are not up for election this year. Of the 33 that were up, 15 were Republican and 18 Democrat (a reflection of the strong Democrat year of 2000). The Democrats have lost two seats: Vermont to Bernie Sanders, a Socialist, who will sit with the Democrats in the Senate, and Connecticut to Joe Lieberman, the sitting Democrat Senator, who lost in the primary election, but has committed to sit with the Democrats in the Senate. Lieberman is a moderate, so will not be a sure Democrat vote - but that was the case even when he was officially a Democrat.
The Democrats have gained four seats: Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island and have held the other 16 seats that were up for election. The Republicans have successfully retained only nine seats. That puts the state of the parties overall at 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two Independents who are allied with the Democrats.
The two remaining states are Montana and Virginia. While Montana is very close, Jon Tester looks to have enough of a lead - 50%-47% with over 70% of the vote counted - that I would expect to see an official "call" made (the point at which the media organisations estimate that only one result is now probable) within the next few hours that the Democrats will win Montana.
Virginia is a completely different story. The official count shows that with 2435 out of 2443 precincts (polling stations) having declared their results, the election is insanely close. The Democrat, Webb, has 1,169,373 votes to the Republican's 1,161,739, a difference of 0.32%. Because Dick Cheney, the Republican Vice-President, has the casting vote in the Senate, 50 Republicans constitute a majority. Apart from Virginia, there are 49 Republicans and 50 Democrats (and allies). So the winner of this tightest of tight races gets to control the United States Senate. Virginia has an automatic recount if the result is within 0.5%. Guess what: 2.3 million votes are going to be counted again. And they're going to be scrutinised to within an inch of their lives. There are still those eight precincts to declare: two in Richmond City (D 72-26), one in Fairfax City (D 56-43), one in Loudon County (D 50-49), two in James City County (R
53-46), one in Isle of Wight County (R 57-41) and one in Halifax County (R 59-40). If there is any trend here, it's Democrat. Averaging those numbers out, the Democrats might expect to win the remaining eight precincts 53-46, which will extend their lead marginally, but is unlikely to be quite enough to get them over that 0.5% threshold.
I think it's unlikely that we'll see three or four thousand votes change hands on the recount, so my final prediction is that sometime in early December the Democrats will win Virginia's second Senate seat and control of the United States Senate - and therefore both houses of Congress.
W: You're a lame duck.
Update: 10:11 GMT Two more Virginia precincts have declared, and they're the key Richmond City precincts. They broke D: 1,313; R: 588 so extending the lead to 0.36%. That will now come back down, but I'm now pretty confident of a Democrat lead going into the recount.
However, I'm starting to worry about Montana, the 3 point lead at 0700GMT is down to 1 point at 1000 GMT with only 15% more reporting - 70% to 85%. Assuming the 70%-85% tranche is representative of the 85%-100% tranche (which is likely), then there's enough momentum to hand the state to the Republicans.
CNN have just "called" Missouri for the Democrats, which leaves just two seats to be decided in the Senate, and, while there are twenty-odd undecided House seats, the trend in that body is pretty clear.
The Democrats have won back control of the House of Representatives, which they lost in 1994. They have won a victory of near-landslide proportions. Getting on for one in ten of the seats have changed hands, which is amazing when you consider how many seats are gerrymandered to be safe for one party or the other. At the time I type this, CNN have 26 Democrat gains from the Republicans with 27 seats undecided. Essentially all the "undecided" seats were Republican in 2004, and all of them are 50-50. Assuming they split evenly between the parties, that's 39 or 40 Democrat gains, in a chamber of 435 Representatives. Like I said, near-landslide.
Turning to the Senate, which has been close all night, there are 100 seats in the Senate. 67 Senators - 40 Republicans and 27 Democrats - are not up for election this year. Of the 33 that were up, 15 were Republican and 18 Democrat (a reflection of the strong Democrat year of 2000). The Democrats have lost two seats: Vermont to Bernie Sanders, a Socialist, who will sit with the Democrats in the Senate, and Connecticut to Joe Lieberman, the sitting Democrat Senator, who lost in the primary election, but has committed to sit with the Democrats in the Senate. Lieberman is a moderate, so will not be a sure Democrat vote - but that was the case even when he was officially a Democrat.
The Democrats have gained four seats: Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island and have held the other 16 seats that were up for election. The Republicans have successfully retained only nine seats. That puts the state of the parties overall at 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two Independents who are allied with the Democrats.
The two remaining states are Montana and Virginia. While Montana is very close, Jon Tester looks to have enough of a lead - 50%-47% with over 70% of the vote counted - that I would expect to see an official "call" made (the point at which the media organisations estimate that only one result is now probable) within the next few hours that the Democrats will win Montana.
Virginia is a completely different story. The official count shows that with 2435 out of 2443 precincts (polling stations) having declared their results, the election is insanely close. The Democrat, Webb, has 1,169,373 votes to the Republican's 1,161,739, a difference of 0.32%. Because Dick Cheney, the Republican Vice-President, has the casting vote in the Senate, 50 Republicans constitute a majority. Apart from Virginia, there are 49 Republicans and 50 Democrats (and allies). So the winner of this tightest of tight races gets to control the United States Senate. Virginia has an automatic recount if the result is within 0.5%. Guess what: 2.3 million votes are going to be counted again. And they're going to be scrutinised to within an inch of their lives. There are still those eight precincts to declare: two in Richmond City (D 72-26), one in Fairfax City (D 56-43), one in Loudon County (D 50-49), two in James City County (R
53-46), one in Isle of Wight County (R 57-41) and one in Halifax County (R 59-40). If there is any trend here, it's Democrat. Averaging those numbers out, the Democrats might expect to win the remaining eight precincts 53-46, which will extend their lead marginally, but is unlikely to be quite enough to get them over that 0.5% threshold.
I think it's unlikely that we'll see three or four thousand votes change hands on the recount, so my final prediction is that sometime in early December the Democrats will win Virginia's second Senate seat and control of the United States Senate - and therefore both houses of Congress.
W: You're a lame duck.
Update: 10:11 GMT Two more Virginia precincts have declared, and they're the key Richmond City precincts. They broke D: 1,313; R: 588 so extending the lead to 0.36%. That will now come back down, but I'm now pretty confident of a Democrat lead going into the recount.
However, I'm starting to worry about Montana, the 3 point lead at 0700GMT is down to 1 point at 1000 GMT with only 15% more reporting - 70% to 85%. Assuming the 70%-85% tranche is representative of the 85%-100% tranche (which is likely), then there's enough momentum to hand the state to the Republicans.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Slowest Western Election in decades
The USA has been following a doleful British trend of late - postal voting, or as they call it "absentee voting". I've recently seen figures that the normal proportion of absentee votes is about 5%, that 2004 was about 10%, but that it's expected to be 25% or more this time.
The rules for postal votes in the UK are that they have to be received by the Returning Officer by the close of poll - normally 10pm on Polling Day.
The rules in for absentee votes in much of the US are that they have to be posted on or before Election Day. This is a unversal rule for military voters using the Defense Department postal system (which includes their families).
This means that there are going to be literally millions of votes that are going to take days - maybe even a couple of weeks - to get to the electoral officers. Given that the American system is to make the official declaration only after counting all the votes (normally several weeks after Election Day), my prediction is that it will be impossible to be sure who will win in many races overnight. Unless the Democrats get a landslide of 1994 (US) or 1997 (UK) proportions, there is no way that control of the House will be settled overnight.
Anyone planning on staying up might want to reconsider.
The rules for postal votes in the UK are that they have to be received by the Returning Officer by the close of poll - normally 10pm on Polling Day.
The rules in for absentee votes in much of the US are that they have to be posted on or before Election Day. This is a unversal rule for military voters using the Defense Department postal system (which includes their families).
This means that there are going to be literally millions of votes that are going to take days - maybe even a couple of weeks - to get to the electoral officers. Given that the American system is to make the official declaration only after counting all the votes (normally several weeks after Election Day), my prediction is that it will be impossible to be sure who will win in many races overnight. Unless the Democrats get a landslide of 1994 (US) or 1997 (UK) proportions, there is no way that control of the House will be settled overnight.
Anyone planning on staying up might want to reconsider.
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