Question. Early votes. how are they counted?

[sarahdemva]

for instance in north carolina, as soon as the polls close will we see the early vote totals immediately show up?

[SheilaT]

1. My understanding is that

the early votes are counted first.

[sarahdemva]

2. lets hope obama has a big early lead!!

[CoffeeCat]

3. I think it goes something like this....

One, two, three, four, five, six...

;)

[jamesb2004]

4. A beter question is not how, but if!

They know mostly Democrats vote early beause we're the ones with jobs so they know that throwing away our votes will help them.

[NoPasaran]

5. In Texas they start counting them when the polls close on Election Day

So those numbers are posted quickly after 7 PM. We don't start seeing the actual Election Day returns for a while. And of course if people voters are still in line when the polls close that further delays those results.

[truthstream]

6. In florida they are counted right away

There was just an article about this in the Orlando Sentinel ( http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-central-florida-voting-problems-102108,0,2411278.story ). In Florida, as soon as you put your ballot in the machine, it is technically counted, however the aggregate count from all polling stations are not added up until after polls close on Nov 4. So, for instance, there are 4 machines at the Kaley office in Orlando...each one keeps a running tally through the early vote, then on election day, their final count is added to the final count of all other machines in the county after polls close on the 4th to give a final county total. Hope this helps!