RE Recall. Please explain this to me.

[dionysus]

I've tried to keep my foil in the kitchen drawer but this is bugging me. The polls in Kahl-ee-fornia :shudder: closed at 8pm (11pm EST). All the networks called it for Arnold at 11:01 EST.

Does anyone find it unusual that it seemed that the votes were "tallied" so quickly? Weren't there 2 million absentee ballots?

Did the networks call it on exit polls alone? I've never seen an election instantly called on all the networks based on early exit polls before.

This smells rotten.

[Drifter]

1. Rest assured ...

that exit polls are the ONLY thing anyone has ever called an election on. Technology is speeding up the process of counting the real votes. not sure what they do if the results differ ... Oh wait ... that's right, the supreme court gets involved.

Cheers
Drifter

[dionysus]

3. yeah, it just seems odd

no exit polls all day, then one second after the polls close, victory is declared...

[Frodo]

2. Happens all the time.

Any time an election isn't close, they'll call it right after the polls close.

Think of 2002 or 2000. As soon as the polls close ni the first east-coast state they start calling winners. They don't call the close ones anymore because of "recent boo boos", but this wasn't close.

Just watching Davis' people yesterday evening, you could tell it was all over (long before the polls closed).

[dionysus]

5. OK

I don't have a tv, so I wasn't able to watch anything. There wasn't anything I saw on the net other tan the Smudge story. It seems Gray was about 600,000 votes short.

Funnier still, more people voted NO on the recall than voted for arnold. guess you could say another example of the guy getting less votes and winning!

[Frodo]

7. We need a new spin on that.

We had prepared a number of plans for how we would handle a loss here. Most of them are still being parroted by our people on TV (like Jerry Springer last night) and you've picked up on part of it.

With 97% of precincts reporting, Arnold has 3,477,359 votes, and "no" on recall has 3,449,377. By percentages (because different numbers of people voted on each question) keeping Davis has 45.5%, Arnold has 48%.

There's quite a few absentee votes left to count (and I may have misread the effects of the groping/nazi reports), but since the majority of these were cast before that news cycle, I would assume that they would be somewhat more against Davis than the in-person numbers.

[Le Taz Hot]

4. The election was being called by 6:00 pm PST

not only on cable news but on THIS board. Followed closely by, "Fuck California," "California women deserve what they get," and "Let's boycott California."

Great. Nothing like workin' your ass off, 12-16 hours a day for the last 8 weeks, getting defeated by some brain dead movie star, having the election called 2 hours before the polls close and then coming here to DU and reading this kind of shit.

I'm disgusted on so many levels.

[dionysus]

6. Thank You for doing your best.

I appreciate you and all the Cali DUers hard work in this. Man I'm so pissed, I don't know what to say.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. But could the exit polls be faked as well?

tinfoil on!