We can win Ohio easily with provisional ballots. Here's why.

[gavodotcom]

1) The ballots counted today show Bush is leading in Ohio by 137K votes.

2) Blackwell said that the last election's provisional ballots were 90% legitimate. I'll assume these number carry over into 2004.

3) KE04 say they think at least 75% of these provisional ballots are Kerry. I think that's a conservative estimate of the percentage of Kerry votes, based purely on gut instinct and what appeared to be Republican intent to turn away Dems from the polls.

Now, crunching the numbers:

If there are 175,000 provisionals, Kerry needs to take the provisionals by ~94%

With 200,000 provisionals, Kerry needs to take ~88%

With 225,000, it's ~84%

With 250,000, it's ~80.1%

I'm pretty sure these numbers are right (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though). If they are right, then really what it comes down to in Ohio is how many provisional ballots have been cast, and how many turn out to be legitimate. I haven't included any assumptions about the absentee vote, because I really haven't heard anything about them. I did hear Blackwell say that in Ohio absentee ballots tend to be counted first, but I really can't say anything about it one way or another. Of course if they haven't been counted, then these numbers could prove fairly worthless.

What I'm saying is, I'd feel very comfortable with the provisional ballot count anywhere above 250,000. Since it might be some time until we get the exact number, I bid you all to keep the hope.

[regnaD kciN]

1. Of course, the White House is now saying...

...that the Ohio SoS has told them that, gee, there are only 130,000 provisional ballots after all! Therefore, there's no point in even counting them. Nothing to see here...move along...

:grr:

[NorthernSpy]

3. actually, even the guy in charge of Ohio's elections doesn't know...

... how many provisional ballots were cast. No one does. And an Ohio state law prevents doing anything about them until eleven days have elapsed since the election.

So this could go on for a while.

[in_cog_ni_to]

2. I knew Blackwell would be involved in the final election bullshit.

I knew it.

[henslee]

4. I dont beleive a word blackwell says.