The Oregon vote was also slowed because of flooding in the
basement at the Multnomah County Elections Office, including
some nasty sewage overflow. It required some extra care to keep
the ballots dry. Oregon's vote-by-mail system did not slow the
count by one minute, as the law here voids all ballots received after
8 p.m. on Election Day (since states with polling places have to wait
for people who were in line at closing time, one could argue that
the vote-by-mail system improves the speed of counting).

On the other hand, Washington law requires that all ballots
postmarked by 8 p.m. Election Day will be counted, whenever they
are received -- so the slowness of results in a close race cannot,
despite what Mr. Hamilton says, be blamed on the individual
counties.

The latest info on the Minnesota Secretary of State has Al Franken down by 236. The recount is scheduled to start 11/19. As they continue to certify the vote here that number can still change.

Mr. Murder: Sure, the absentees by active duty military helped with Gregoire's win, but none of those were part of the recounts. It was that bundle of, what, 750 uncounted votes that they found in King County that ultimately provided Gregoire with the push she needed to get over the top. Thankfully, the bloom was completely off the Rossi rose by this election. He got beat much more thoroughly than I thought he would.

Biggest squeaker is right here in GA though we won't know for sure until Secretary of State certifies final results next week if we will have a runoff for U.S. Senate seat on 12/2.

If we do, we will need help from all over U.S. to get out the vote for Jim Martin to beat Saxby Chambliss and will welcome all who want to do it again for Obama and perhaps help give the Democrats that elusive 60th seat in the Senate.

Current count on Perriello/Goode has him 834 votes ahead. Provisional Ballots went overwhelmingly to Tom.

Absentee ballots by veterans who were in active service is what won the Gov. seat for Democrats in the state of Washington when the GOP tried to steal that race.

Don't you forget that fact either.

I also neglected to mention that the Darcy/Burner race straddles two counties, King and Pierce. Pierce County is also having it's tabulating issues this election, and is slowing this thing down ridiculously.

Steve: The Burner/Reichert count cannot be blamed on the state, but rather on King County. They are notoriously slow, and also have a pretty sketchy reputation based on their performance in the past two elections. It was ballots discovered in King County that ultimately gave the governorship to Chris Gregoire back in '04. Not that I'm complaining with the result, mind you, but it's a black mark on my home county.

Virgil Goode is my congressman, but I hear Larry Sabato predicts that Perriello would not last more than two years, being subject to what always happens in Congress at year two in a new administration.

I believe Franken wouldn't be in this position were it not for his final debate performance. I didn't see the whole thing (in fact, just a snippet) but he came across poorly and a bit shrill. It was an occasion where a bit of Obama coolness would have be more appropriate. When I saw that, I sid to myself that this could spell trouble.

I hope he pulls it out, but it was avoidable.

Steve

According to 'The Oregonian' last night around 7:30 PM, the
cause is due to extremely heavy voting. There were 360,551
ballots cast in Multnomah County - the largest county in the
state.

Besides the number of returned ballots was the size of the ballot
-- at 17 inches it was 3 inches longer than normal. The longer
ballots contained an extra fold that county workers had to
smooth out, an extra step in the process. Those ballots take
longer to move through the county's six high-speed tabulating
machines and are more prone to mechanical glitches during the
process according to Multnomah County Elections Division
Director Tim Scott.

Thanks so much for your blog. It's one of my favorites.

Jim

Steve asks: "Why is the Oregon count so slow?"

Oregon votes by mail-in paper ballots. (OLE!!!)

A downside of this is that the two most populous counties (Multnomah-large part of Portlandand Lane-
Eugene and UofO) lag behind the rest of the state.
Don't know much more than what I hear from a few friends and the Daily Kos blog that Sarahlane- Merkley's netroot director runs. They can only count about 6,000 votes/ hour, hence the lag in those two counties, with a 38% and 20% edge

Also the Oregonian's count @ http://www.oregonlive.com

is many hours more current than what one finds at the NYT.

Because the uncounted votes are in Merkley strongholds, most are declaring Merkley the winner.

"I have a house out in this district -- in Chestertown, Maryland --
and we really need to avoid spending time with Andy Harris in
Congress."

But Steve! Liberal ideas just don't work! That's what the folks on
the campaign commercial said!

Seriously, though... I hope they call this race in Kratovil's favor
pretty soon.