New developments in ballot-counting

05 Nov 2008, Posted by Naureen Khan in News, election 2008, 1 Comments

Update #1 (via AP):

North Carolina’s election chief says he wouldn’t be surprised to see Barack Obama’s slim lead in the state increase as counties count thousands of provisional ballots.

State Board of Elections director Gary Bartlett estimated Wednesday there are about 40,000 provisional ballots, cast by voters whose eligibility to vote must be confirmed.

He said history suggests that about 65 percent of those ballots will be eligible and they are likely to break toward the winner in numbers similar to that of Election Day.

Unofficial election results show Obama with 12,106 votes more than Republican rival John McCain. Obama has already won the race to the White House, even without North Carolina’s final results.

Update #2 (also via AP):

Republican-leaning Rockingham County still has 18,000 votes to count after a glitch at five one-stop polling sites left the results out of the county’s total.

Rockingham County election officials said Wednesday they hoped to finish counting and reporting the remaining ballots by 5 p.m.

Returns from all Election Day precincts, mail voting and a one-stop site in Reidsville show that some 22,488 ballots have been counted. The early numbers there favored Republican presidential hopeful John McCain by a margin of 5,412.

Translation: It doesn’t look like we’ll be any closer to an answer anytime soon.

NC counties that flipped from red to blue

05 Nov 2008, Posted by Zachary Tracer in News, election 2008, 0 Comments

Filed at 2:29 p.m.

2008 Electoral Map - CNN

2004 Electoral Map - CNN

CNN changed their coloring techniques between elections, but these maps should give you an idea of the changes in the North Carolina political landscape.

While we wait for the final word as to who will capture North Carolina’s electoral votes, let’s take a look at the 12 North Carolina counties that changed from red to blue in this election. Yadkin and Durham counties retained their statuses as the most conservative and liberal counties in North Carolina, respectively.

List of flipped counties:

Alamance County

Buncombe County

Caswell County

Cumberland County

Forsyth County

Granville County

Hyde County

Jackson County

Pitt County

Wake County

Watauga County

Wilson County

Still waiting….

05 Nov 2008, Posted by Naureen Khan in News, election 2008, 1 Comments

A conspicous absence in the (Raleigh) N&O as to the uncertainty surrounding North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes and where they will go. The only information available is a short piece by Associated Press’ Aaron Beard. The article includes a statement by State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett saying that provisional ballots are currently in the process of being counted.

With Obama holding a razor thin lead over John McCain of about 12,000 votes, according to unofficial election results, it is perhaps within the realm of possibility that provisional ballots will make a difference. But is a possible recount in order?

Missouri with its eleven electoral votes is the only other state that most news sources have not called. 

Although Obama has decisively won the election and transformed the electoral map since 2004 (beautifully illustrated on the home page of the NYT), North Carolina residents at yesterday’s Democratic celebrations indicated that they would still like to know the results in their home state. It would mark a significant shift in N.C. politics. If you somehow missed this fact, included in every article and broadcast regarding its new swing state status, no Democratic presidential candidate has been able to carry North Carolina since former president Jimmy Carter’s win over Gerald Ford.

The Chronicle’s own news editor, Shuchi Parikh, is in the process of investigating. Stay tuned to The Chronicle’s election blog and www.dukechronicle.com for updates.

Headlines from around the world

05 Nov 2008, Posted by Zachary Tracer in News, election 2008, 0 Comments

Filed at 1:54 p.m.

A Syrian Newspaper

Photos of president-elect Sen. Barack Obama covered the fronts of major newspapers throughout the world, from Prague to Panama, from Recife to Dubai. Though I can’t translate the language of every headline, and I can’t even begin to pronounce some of them, I’ll try to give you a sense of what people are writing around the globe. Readers, if you speak a foreign language, post some headlines in the comments.

LUZ NA AMERICA – Diario de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

BAM! – The Ottawa Sun, Ottawa, Canada

OBAMA: CHANGE HAS COME TO AMERICA – Haaretz, Jerusalem, Israel (English Edition)

Obama slibil revoluci… McCain veril v zazrak – Mladá Fronta DNES, Prague, Czech Republic

La lunga notte di Obama – Corriere Della Sera, Milano, Italy

YES! HE DID. OBAMA MAKES HISTORY – The Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica

Historico – Critica, Panama, Panama

Si, Pudo! – Correo – Piura, Piura, Peru

OBAMA JUZ BLISKO – Gazeta Wyborzca, Warzsawa, Poland

SiYAH DEVRiM – Sabah, Istanbul, Turkey

LONG WAIT FOR CHANGE – Gulf News, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (English-language newspaper)

Un negro en la Casa Blanca – Ultimas Noticias, Caracas, Venezuela

Thanks to the Newseum’s collection of newspaper front pages.

Hello White House University

05 Nov 2008, Posted by Troy Shelton in News, election 2008, 0 Comments

Very interesting nota bene over at the Chronicle of Higher Education today. This will be the very first election to usher in a White House where the commander in chief, his VP, and both their spouses have all worked in the higher education field. Obama worked in Chicago Law until 2004, and it seems Biden has been an adjunct professor at a law school for the past 17 years.

But what does this mean for us who are now and will continue to be in the higher education establishment when Obama is inaugarated?  The article doesn’t offer too much speculation–mainly because higher education has been such an underplayed issue in this election as a result of the urgencies of the tumultuous financial markets. The Chronicle does believe that research funding to universities will increase, but I suspect that within the first year of a Democrat-controlled Congress and White House, we will see some very important legislation being decided tuition costs, federal aid (e.g., Pell grants), and science funding, especially to stem-cell research (which is a very big issue over at the techie magazine Wired).

The Chronicle of Higher Education also lays out a warning. Woodrow Wilson was also a Professor in Chief, but he served only one term, seeming very distant to the American electorate. While Obama has told a very compelling narrative in this election compared to McCain, a first-term president must not forget to always keep policy discussions relevant to the lives of Americans.