Nate Silver: Uncounted Votes May Push Begich Past Stevens

[jefferson_dem]

Uncounted Votes May Push Begich Past Stevens

Although Ted Stevens currently holds a lead of approximately 3,200 votes in ballots counted to date in Alaska's senate contest, there is good reason to believe that the ballots yet to be counted -- the vast majority of which are early and absentee ballots -- will allow Mark Begich to mitigate his disadvantage with Stevens and quite possibly pull ahead of him.

The reasoning behind this is simple: some early ballots have been processed, and among those ballots Begich substantially leads Stevens. A tally of Alaska's 40 house districts as taken from Alaska's Division of Elections webpage suggests that Begich has won about 61% of the early ballots counted so far, as compared with 48% of ballots cast on Election Day itself.



(Notes: Totals and percentages exclude ballots cast for minor-party candidates. Data for District 3 was incomplete on the Divisions of Elections website and is extrapolated from returns in the Young-Berkowitz in that district. Percentages are not calculated in districts with fewer than 100 early votes have been counted).

As you can see, there is an essentially linear relationship between the percentage of regular votes received by Mark Begich in a particular district and his percentage of early votes, with his share of the early vote generally running 10-15 points higher:

<SNIP>

There are currently at least 9,500 early votes remaining to be counted in Alaska. In addition, there are more than 50,000 absentee votes, which are essentially early votes conducted by mail. Lastly, there are at least 18,000 "question" or "questioned" ballots, which consist principally of voters who may have cast ballots away from their home precincts.

Let's go about allocating these votes in the following way:

<SNIP>

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/uncounted-votes-may-push-begich-past.html

[ej510]

1. Please let this happen I do not won't Palin in the senate.

[Lorentz]

2. Did Palin actually say she wanted to be in the Senate?

Where is this coming from?

[Seen the light]

3. Someone posted an article earlier where it said that Palin wants to run for Senate

She was going to challenge Murkowski from within the party, but is eyeing the Stevens seat now or something like that.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. WTF?

Palin wouldn't be in the Senate; the Alaska governor doesn't appoint a replacement. The law governing replacement of a Senator in Alaska was changed after Frank Murkowski appointed his daughter to replace him; there would be an election, and if Palin were a candidate she'd very possibly get BEATEN by Begich (her approval rating in Alaska has dropped precipitously since her emergence on the national stage).

[Marsala]

6. You forget that Begich (almost?) got beaten by Stevens...

...AFTER his conviction. I figure that it's damn near impossible for a Democrat to win a Senate race in Alaska. Palin has lost popularity but she should still be above the critical 50%.

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. YOU forget that a significant portion of the absentee ballots were likely cast before the conviction

And also that Stevens has been a Senator since Alaska was a state; a significant number of the people voting for him were probably doing so out of habit...Palin doesn't have that kind of built-in constituency.

[Bonn1997]

5. So we still could have anywhere from 57 to 60 Dems

[Marsala]

7. Yeah, we can in theory win all three remaining races

Lieberman's probably gone, though. Good riddance.

[Bonn1997]

9. I'd rather have 59 than 60 anyway

The 1 vote difference is minimal but the expectations of the Dems with a "filibuster-proof" majority would be huge.