Obama's odds of getting Nebraska electoral vote increase

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

BY ROBYNN TYSVER

Good news for Barack Obama supporters.

His odds of bagging an electoral vote in Nebraska grew stronger this morning, with word that 10,000 to 12,000 early ballots and 5,200 provisional ballots are left to count in Douglas County.

Obama won about 61 percent of the early votes counted before Tuesday's election. If that percentage holds with the early ballots left to count, Obama stands a strong chance of winning the Omaha-area 2nd Congressional District.

Republicans did not concede defeat this morning, but they acknowledged the long odds.


Read more: http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2835&u_sid=104802...

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Also see this post in GDP: Obama made inroads in Omaha and Lincoln areas

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[aquart]

1. WHAT? Nebraska's in play? When did this happen???????

I see Nebraska in red on Salon's map? Are any other states in play?

[The Hope Mobile]

3. Nebraska is the only state that is split up into smaller districts/regions.

The idea being to reflect the feelings of the people more accurately so the more rural areas together make up a geographically large district, but then there are a couple of small ones around larger cities. Omaha is the center of one of these and was still kinda in play Tuesday night and apparently still is.
This area is worth one electoral vote which is why the current total still isn't adding up to 538!!

[Goldom]

5. Actually ME too.

[tclambert]

9. YU too?

[The Hope Mobile]

23. Oops. I guess I couldn't see that on the electoral maps but I was

thinking as I wrote it that I probably should've done my homework just in case. My bad. I thought I remembered that there was another.

[Goldom]

4. a SINGLE EV

Omaha area gets a separate vote from rest of NE.

[David in Canada]

6. McCain won Nebraska

McCain won Nebraska. However, Nebraska and Maine allocate electoral votes differently than the other 48. In Nebraska and Maine, whomever wins the most votes in the state receives that state's two electoral votes. The person who gets the most votes in each congressional district (3 in NE, 2 in ME) wins one electoral vote per district won.

McCain got walloped in Maine and won Nebraska handily and the 1st and 2nd districts there by landslide margins. It looks like the 2nd District, which contains Omaha and environs, could go our way.

The 2nd District looks like it alone accounted for over 3/5 of Obama's vote in Nebraska although it only contains 1/3 of the population per the 2000 census.

[tclambert]

8. Nebraska is one of two states (Maine is the other) that does not do winner-takes-all

with their electoral votes. What the OP is talking about is the one electoral vote for Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. That plus North Carolina would give Obama a grand total of 365 electoral votes. I predicted around 369, close enough to brag about. There is still a slim chance that Missouri could wind up in Obama's column. That's another 11, which means the last and final totals might be: Obama 376, McCain 162.

But it's all just a mathematical curiosity at this point. Even at 349, it's a landslide.

[onehandle]

2. Ah, I see. A single electoral vote, not the whole state. nt

[Frances]

7. Nebraska and Maine

are the only 2 states that do not have a winner take all electoral vote decision. Nebraska has 3 electoral votes, but they are awarded based on the votes in each of 3 districts. Obama may get the most votes in one of these districts. If he does, then he will get 1 electoral vote while McCain will get the other 2 votes because McCain carried those 2 districts.

[tclambert]

10. Since we're picking nits, NE has 5 EVs

One of the earlier posts explained how it works. In Nebraska, winning the whole state nets 2 electoral votes. Then each of 3 congressional districts earns one EV. And you thought the electoral college was easy to understand!

Actually, I've come around to liking the electoral college. It tests the presidential candidates' game-playing skills by presenting them with a weird and artificial set of rules, different from any election rules they've dealt with at any lower level, and seeing who can play most adroitly.

[Frances]

13. Thanks for the correction

[Bill McBlueState]

26. heh

Well, that's an interesting argument in favor of the electoral college. It's undemocratic, but it's fun and challenging!

[damntexdem]

11. Good. It not only shows inroads in NE.

It would also split a state's electoral votes. Only symbolic; but even a symbol can be important to future efforts to do away with or attenuate the effects of the antidemocratic, Electoral College system.

[Stevepol]

12. Does NE still use ES&S machines that are unadited to count votes?

If so, that cd explain a lot about why NE seems so red. In fact, I suspect it's about as blue as IA is.

[Omaha Steve]

14. Yes we do

But Hagel was very pissed at his party. Who knows......

[ensemble]

18. well....

"I suspect it's about as blue as IA is"

Eastern IA leans blue, western IA leans red. Overall blue lean, I think more peeps in the east.
Eastern NE is like western IA. Western NE is way, way red, like Alabama with no blacks.

[Longhorn]

15. If I -- I mean, Obama -- gets that vote, then my prediction of 365

will come true. I will have exactly called the electoral college (assuming Missouri goes for McCain.)

[zelta gaisma]

16. UUUMMMmmmmmm

at this point does it even matter? Obama is still President with or without them right?

[StoryTeller]

17. Hey! It matters to us!

Lots of people in Omaha worked plenty hard for Obama, and being able to give him our EV would be a nice way to thank him for being the first presidential candidate since Robert Kennedy (I believe) to pay us a primary visit. Plus, he gave us the honor of opening three offices in Omaha. What Democrat would do that for such a hopelessly conservative state? And finally, we'd make history for something positive. We don't get that chance around here very often. We don't have much, but we do have one EV to give him, and I hope we succeeded.

[zelta gaisma]

19. Once he had enough to win I finally was able to breath easy and stopped counting :D

[bluesmail]

21. Mandates matter.

[matthewf]

20. As a former Omahan...

...I really, really want this.

Nebraska hasn't given an EV to a democrat since LBJ!

I want my hometown to join the 21st century!!!

Come on, Omaha!

(I'm now having a craving for LaCasa's pizza)

[yellowcanine]

22. "I will remain cautiously hopeful but not cautiously optimistic," said Hal Daub, state director for

McCain. Heh. Wouldn't want to stick your pencil neck out too far now would you Hal? I would like to play poker with that guy. You would not have to worry about him bluffing at all.

[struggle4progress]

24. Last happened in '64 according to your link

[Peace Patriot]

25. Home of ES&S--worse than Diebold as to its frightful rightwing ties.

ES&S's initial funder and major investor is reclusive rightwing multi-billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things).

ES&S is right there in Omaha. Bad, bad dudes. The 'TRADE SECRET' code for keeping Bush-Cheney in power in 2004, and doing so much other damage to our country, was written in those offices, and they hold that code very tightly, indeed.

In FL-13, in '06, ES&S election theft machines 'disappeared' 18,000 Democratic votes for Congress, in an election that the Puke 'won' by only 350 or so votes. When the lawyers for the Democrat, Christine Jennings, took the matter to court, and asked to review the code--to find out what happened to those 18,000 votes--ES&S refused, and argued that their 'right' to profit from our elections, with their 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY code, trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes are counted--and the judge agreed with ES&S! (The matter eventually ended up in Congress--which has the final word--and Pelosi deep-sixed it.)

See what Dan Rather has to say about ES&S. "The Trouble with Touchscreens," www.HD.net . They outsource the manufacture of the touchscreens to sweatshops in the Philippines!

Scumbags, traitors, nazis. That's ES&S.

My Dad's from Omaha, and I know how progressive he and his family are. I have always had a good impression of Nebraskans, and I simply DO NOT BELIEVE any numbers that ES&S comes up with, about this or anything else. Their voting system is 100% non-transparent.

It would be sweet, indeed, if at least one part of Nebraska outvoted the secret code.

And I absolutely do not understand the comment of a poster, above, who yawns over this and says, "What does it matter?"

An ignorant attitude like that is how this country got into so much trouble.

IT MATTERS! IT MATTERS A LOT! STOLEN VOTES ARE THE WHOLE GODDAMN STORY OF OUR DOWNFALL AS A COUNTRY. And nowhere should this be tolerated. Not in one precinct. Not in one county. Not in any state. Nowhere!