The numbers keep shifting in the still-unresolved race for Attorney General, and Democrat Creigh Deeds just keeps gaining on Republican Bob McDonnell. UVa Democrats president David Wasserman just commented:
Everyone look at the sbe.vipnet.org site and look at the magically changing numbers in the AG race, which seem to be updated every five minutes by the SBE. MCDONNELL’S LEAD WAS JUST CUT IN HALF! The reason?
Henrico County can’t count.
In the heavily black Fairfield precinct, they recorded 16 votes for Creigh instead of 610, so that was just a 594 vote swing. There’s still hope for Mr. Deeds, folks…
The gap has shrunk a great deal in the past day, from 1,486 votes to just 960. The Deeds campaign is extremely confident that they’ll come out ahead — I can only assume it’s because they know about irregularities like the Fairfield vote and, as they get those ironed out, they project they’ll come out ahead.
I’m confused – how many more counties do they have to count? Any inside info?
I have no inside information, but I do have an assumption — that is, I know how I would be doing this if I were in their shoes.
I expect that the Deeds campaign has a big spreadsheet of how every precinct voted four years ago. They take both the turnout and the spread and compare it to the turnout and the spread this time. Any differential that is greater than might reasonably be expected — a difference of, say, 5% — is flagged for the Deeds campaign to review. Any results that are statistically unlikely presumably warrant investigation that may be resolvable without a recount.
I was just told the gap has closed to 300 but I don’t see that on SBE’s site. Has anyone else heard this too?
It looks to me that the gap is sixty votes. Can this be? Does anyone else see this?
I think you’re just misreading a 9 as a 0, Julie. The SBE lists the gap at 952.
Waldo, you are kind. Remind me not to make my first post on a great blog while I’m still pretty wound up from Tuesday night, not to mention more than a little sleep-deprived. Oops!