It's simpler to just declare McCain the winner in Washington
So this is interesting. Saturday was the Washington, Kansas, and Louisiana state Republican primaries. McCain lost handily in the eastern states: Louisiana and Kansas. Polls closed in Washington and the votes started getting counted. McCain and Hucabee traded spots as the leader and with 87% of the precincts reporting in... nothing happened. The tally left McCain beating Huckabee by 1.8% with 13% of the votes remaining, and no further votes were tallied. The GOP press release simply announced that McCain was the winner with final results not available until Monday.
It's Monday, and results are still not available. State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser explained that "he declared McCain the winner after calculating what Huckabee would have to win in the remaining precincts in order to take the lead". "Maybe it would have been safer if I hadn't said anything. But it was an exciting and historic day for the state and I thought if I was confident about what the outcome would be I should share that with the people who had gone out to their caucuses."
Let's do the math. "The difference between Senator McCain and Governor Huckabee is a mere 242 votes, out of more than 12,000 votes counted-with another 1500 or so votes, apparently, not counted." There's been a bit of a ruckus about this, and the Washington Republicans have announced that they're going to try to get as "close as we can to 100 percent". Hey, that's cool, don't knock yourself out or anything. Esser said this would happen "some time next week" and when the Huckabee campaign requested that a lawyer be present when the remaining votes were counted, Esser hung up on them.
Tonight the Washington State Republican Party is reporting that 93.3% of the votes have been counted with McCain leading 25.4% to 23.8%. McCain says this means "it's clear he won Washington". Huckabee seems like he still has a chance. Heck, even Ron Paul still has a chance in theory:
McCain: 3048
Huckabee: 2856
Paul: 2484
Huck Needs: 192
Paul Needs: 564
Remaining: 804
Now I'm obviously leaning to the Democrats more than the Republicans these days. And I'm definitely leaning toward McCain more than Huckabee as well. If I was using rational self-interest I'd shut up and let McCain sweep the state, but I gotta say this stinks like crazy.
Update: Holy crap. These "votes" they're reporting aren't even the right votes. Republicans have been reporting a check mark by "preference", not final votes. "Republicans in Snohomish County say ... they just felt that the sign-up sheets were more accurate than trying to guess what the delegates were going to do later." rwx says that Snohomish is a heavy Libertarian/military district, which probably means Ron Paul is getting shafted.
It's Monday, and results are still not available. State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser explained that "he declared McCain the winner after calculating what Huckabee would have to win in the remaining precincts in order to take the lead". "Maybe it would have been safer if I hadn't said anything. But it was an exciting and historic day for the state and I thought if I was confident about what the outcome would be I should share that with the people who had gone out to their caucuses."
Let's do the math. "The difference between Senator McCain and Governor Huckabee is a mere 242 votes, out of more than 12,000 votes counted-with another 1500 or so votes, apparently, not counted." There's been a bit of a ruckus about this, and the Washington Republicans have announced that they're going to try to get as "close as we can to 100 percent". Hey, that's cool, don't knock yourself out or anything. Esser said this would happen "some time next week" and when the Huckabee campaign requested that a lawyer be present when the remaining votes were counted, Esser hung up on them.
Tonight the Washington State Republican Party is reporting that 93.3% of the votes have been counted with McCain leading 25.4% to 23.8%. McCain says this means "it's clear he won Washington". Huckabee seems like he still has a chance. Heck, even Ron Paul still has a chance in theory:
McCain: 3048
Huckabee: 2856
Paul: 2484
Huck Needs: 192
Paul Needs: 564
Remaining: 804
Now I'm obviously leaning to the Democrats more than the Republicans these days. And I'm definitely leaning toward McCain more than Huckabee as well. If I was using rational self-interest I'd shut up and let McCain sweep the state, but I gotta say this stinks like crazy.
Update: Holy crap. These "votes" they're reporting aren't even the right votes. Republicans have been reporting a check mark by "preference", not final votes. "Republicans in Snohomish County say ... they just felt that the sign-up sheets were more accurate than trying to guess what the delegates were going to do later." rwx says that Snohomish is a heavy Libertarian/military district, which probably means Ron Paul is getting shafted.