A sobering look at the numbers

Here is a link to CNN's vote tallies for Ohio:

CNN.com Election 2004

As it stands, with 100% of the precincts reporting, President Bush has 2,794,346 votes
John Kerry has 2,658,125 votes. That gives President Bush a lead of 136,221 votes.

The votes that are yet to be counted in Ohio are the provisional ballots, which are hard to get an exact number on but seems to be at least 250,000 ballots.

Let's assume these ballots are all counted and that they are all counted fairly (perhaps a naive assumption with a small army of lawyers on both sides). However, I am going to consider what I can predict.

With 250,000 ballots in play and a Bush lead of 136,221 votes it is clear the provisional ballots need to break resoundingly for Kerry. Traditionally new voters break 2:1 for the incumbent, which would produce these results:

Bush: 2,877,679
Kerry: 2,824,791

That means Kerry would need to do better than that to win. In fact he would need to grab about 194,000 (77%) of the 250,000 provisional ballots to defeat the President at this point.

This would produce these numbers:

Bush: 2,850,346
Kerry: 2,852,125


I, therefore, propose this to President Bush. Let them count the ballots without fight and ask Kerry to do the same for the good of the country. If Kerry refuses he looks bad, and if he accepts your victory parade seems all the more imminent.

Otherwise, it will come to light that Ohioans have been getting phone calls for people that don't live in their homes. Someone calls, for instance, and asks for Joe Smith where only Jack and Jill Smith reside. Apparently Jack is on the voting lists and the callers want to offer them rides to the polls. I have confirmed this with people I trust in Ohio.

In other words, it could be deja vu all over again.