Is the Hospital Board race over?

Someone emailed me this morning to report that with 1000 or so remaining absentee ballots containing the Hospital Board race is not over.  Apparently it has been reported as a done deal in the local papers and elsewhere.  I haven’t read the reports, but there is at least some reasonable chance that the third position could change as the remaining ballots are counted.

As of the final election report, Barb is definitely out of range with 1348 votes.  Marie Krissei Branzei is in second with 782 votes, and unless the remaining sample is statistically independent in a big way, she is probably safe. Gary Wellborn is in third place with 726 votes.  Judith Gonzales and Corrine Stromstad are tied in 4th with 682 votes.  Michael Hoffman is next with 636 votes.  A hundred vote difference is pretty big at these numbers.  44 votes?  I would much rather have those 44 votes than not, but one thing about the lower numbers is that statistical averages are more subject to larger variations.

If you look at the results (scroll way down) you’ll note that the mail-in votes fell differently from the precinct votes.   Corrine was actually ahead of Mary.  Now, in the liberal-conservative continuum, early mail-ins which are counted early tend conservative, while late mail-ins tend to break more along the lines of precinct patterns.  However, the liberal-conservative divide doesn’t really apply to this race, and I have no idea how the late submitted mail-ins will fall.  Generally speaking, the provisionals tend to fall along the lines of precinct votes.

So I wouldn’t say it’s anybody’s race, as I said I would much rather be in Mary and Gary’s place than not.  But it’s not over.

Jon Stewart debates Rachel Maddow on noise and false equivalencies

Very interesting discussion, that goes back to Stewart’s slamming of Crossfire.

Rachel Maddow Clashes With Jon Stewart, Civilly…, posted with vodpod