Was It Worth It?

That's what Helen Jones-Kelley must be asking herself.

The director of the Department of Jobs and Family Services and Obama campaign contributor came into the news when she admitted she approved the background checks on Joe the Plumber.

She has now been suspended for possibly using a state computer and e-mail account for political fund raising.

UPDATE: The Dispatch has now obtained the emails in question.

The state e-mails show that Jones-Kelley provided the Obama campaign with the names of 17 potential Dayton-area contributors ahead of the candidate's July 11 appearance there.

On July 8, the director offered to write a $2,500 check to the campaign to join Obama at his appearance, volunteered to contact would-be contributors and offered to help arrange an event for Obama's wife, Michelle.

At least one of the potential donors identified by Jones-Kelley contributed $9,600 to the Obama Victory Fund and Obama for America on July 31, according to Federal Election Commission records. Jones-Kelley also gave $2,500.

Ohio Election Post Mortem

Twenty four hours after the Ohio polls closed, with 98.76% of the precincts reporting, a clear picture of the 2008 election is beginning to emerge. And reality is going to go against the conventional wisdom on a number of fronts.



Ohio had record turnout in 2008. FALSE.
Ohio had a turnout of 71.59% in 2004. In 2008, turnout was a little over 65%. To put this in perspective, Bush/Gore in 2000 had a turnout of 63.6% and Clinton/Dole in 1996 had 67.8%.

Ohio had a record number of votes cast in 2008. FALSE.
There were almost 400,000 fewer votes cast in 2008 compared to 2004. Ohio had 5.6M votes cast in 2004 compared to 5.2M this year.

Residents in Democratic counties were motivated and had a turnout similar to the Republican counties. FALSE.
Turnout in Democratic counties was 62.9% vs. 67% in Republican counties for a gap of 4.1%. This was even worse than the 3.4% gap in 2004.

Obama won Ohio thanks to his large margins in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincy, and the other big cities. FALSE.
Obama expanded his victory margin in the Democratic counties from 38.5% - 61% in 2004 to 36% - 62.6% this year. This was offset, however, by the larger turnout gap described above, especially in Cleveland where turnout was only 58%. These two factors essentially canceled each other out. In the end, Obama's performance in the Democratic counties ran within 10,000 votes of my projections he needed to tie Ohio, not to win it.

McCain's GOTV effort was outperforming Bush's in 2004 in the last week of the campaign. FALSE.
Despite an additional 165,000 registered voters in Republican counties, 100,000 less votes were cast in these counties. Turnout dropped from 72.2% to 67% in these counties. McCain's margin of victory in these counties dropped from Bush's 21% to 14%. In the end, this lower turnout combined with the smaller margin of victory in Republican counties cost McCain 200,000 votes. This essentially was the margin of Obama's victory.

Obama won Ohio in the Republican counties. TRUE.
This was absolutely the case and was one of the keys to the election I noted on Sunday.

Rural Counties – This is where the election will be won. More than have of the new registered voters came from Republican counties. If we start to see Obama really closing the gap on Bush's margin of victory in 2004 in the rural counties, this election is over. This basically means Obama went into the heart of Republican counties and got new voters. If you don't see Obama making inroads here, the election is going to be very tight.

In the end, lower turnout and a smaller margin of victory in these counties combined to cost McCain the election. McCain had a very small margin of error in these counties and in the end, he couldn't duplicate the results of 2004 and it cost him the election.

A summary spreadsheet of all of this analysis is here.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt points out a similar observation that Obama basically ran even in the traditionally Democratic counties.

Real Time Ohio Election Results & Projections

This post will contain real-time election results for the 2008 Ohio presidential election as well as my projections for the final result.

7:35 - awaiting results from Ohio Sec of State...
7:56 - still waiting...
9:00 - still nothing from Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincy... McCain holding in rural areas.
9:19 - Fox just called Ohio for Obama. Interesting..
9:46 - Yep, Obama vote really developing now. Sandusky county went for Bush now went to Obama, other counties w/ similar trends
10:30 - McCain underperforming in all completed Republican counties. Minimal reporting from Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincy.
11:25 - Calling it a night. Will update final info in the next day or and take a larger look.

Wed 9:20 - Final analysis published.



Full County Projection Method: Projected Obama Victory / (Defeat) Margin


Partial County Projection Method: Projected Results


Got questions, read the FAQ.

Here is a link to the detailed Ohio Election Projection Spreadsheet which will be updated in real-time as the Ohio Secretary of State releases results. It provides the projected results as well as detailed comparisons to the 2004 election.

Ohio Early Voting Results

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that 25% of registered voters in northeastern Ohio have already voted early.

The Columbus Dispatch is estimating that the early votes have gone to Obama by a 56% - 42% margin.

With a little over 8 million registered voters, that would mean around 2 million Ohioans have already voted and have give Obama a lead of around 280,000 votes before the polls opened today.

If turnout runs around 75%, there will be about 4 million votes cast today. That would mean McCain has to win today by a 53% - 46% margin across the entire state.

I'll be updating the Ohio Voting Results projecting the final vote totals this evening as they come in.

Ohio Voter FAQ

What is the basis of your projections?

My projections are based on past turnout and margin of victory trends for each of Ohio's 88 counties. The Cleveland Plan dealer has an excellent overview at http://blog.cleveland.com/pdgraphics/2008/10/03WGWATCH01.pdf which illustrates quite well how the individual counties in Ohio trend. The accompanying article at http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2008/11/tracking_ohio_vote_on_election.html is also a very good rundown of the Ohio counties and their trends. I don't buy into their bellwether counties however.

I use similar data from the Ohio Secretary of State website to build customized targets for each county. Then, if McCain or Obama outperform their targets, they start to gain an advantage.

What's the difference between Full and Partial county projections?

The Full County projection doesn't give McCain or Obama an advantage for a county until 100% of the precincts for that county are reported. This provides a much better basis for determining whether or not McCain or Obama is outperforming their target for a county. Full County projections are slower to develop but should be more stable. The Full County projections predicts the net number of votes Obama will win or lost Ohio by.

The Partial County projection doesn't wait until 100% of the precincts for a county are reported to give McCain or Obama an advantage. It uses a combination of past performance and the actual results of reporting precincts to project a vote total for each candidate. This projection assumes all precincts in a county behave the same and this is not correct. For this reason, it will develop quickly but can have a lot more variance. Obviously as more precincts report, the stability increases. It starts out assuming Ohio is a tie until either McCain or Obama begin to outperform their targets and then adjusts their totals accordingly. Absentee ballots may also cause these results to swing.

How the heck can McCain be leading in the raw vote totals and Obama be projected as having a winning margin, or vice-versa?

Go back and look at the Cleveland Plain Dealer link in question #1. There are counties where McCain must win big to have a chance at winning Ohio. It's possible for him to win these counties, but still not win them by enough, and then when the Obama county results come in, Obama will probably take the lead. The same is possible for Obama, although in 2004, the rural county results (which favor McCain) came in quicker than the urban counties (which favor Obama).

What assumptions did you build into your projection model?

I developed my projection model so that it at the start, it projects Ohio to end up in a tie. Then, as results come in and McCain or Obama outperform the model, it projects them to win Ohio. I started the projection using the individual turnout and margin victory ratios for each of Ohio's 88 counties.

Turnout in Democratic counties has traditionally lagged Republican counties but I adjusted it up in my model to the same level as seen in Republican counties. My model assumes a turnout ratio of 72.3% in all counties, which is higher than 2004's turnout of 70.5% but lower than Ohio Secretary of States estimate of "up to 80%." If actual turnout is lower in Democratic counties compared to Republican counties, my model will over forecast Democratic strength until more results come in. This only amounted to 25,000 votes so it won't make much of difference and will self correct as actuals come in anyway.

After I adjusted for increased turnout in Democratic counties, I then reduced Bush's 2004 margin of victory (or increased Kerry's) by 0.85% in each county. At that point, Ohio became a tie. What this means if McCain has to be within 0.85% of Bush's margin of victory in each county to win Ohio. If Obama eats into it more than that, he will win.

How will early and absentee voting impact the projections?

This is the big question mark and why the partial county projections could have large swings. The Columbus Dispatch has early and absentee voting going to Obama 56% - 42%. Estimates are that 20% - 30% of the votes were cast early, so these votes will have an impact on the results.

The county election boards will not be counting the early and absentee ballots in a consistent manner. Some of them will count them first, and then begin reporting other precinct results. Other counties will report the precincts first, and then include the early and absentee ballots at the end. This could cause Obama to take large leads in early results, or it could give McCain a large early lead that he will have to defend as the absentee votes are counted. The problem is, it will be tough to tell whether the absentee votes will be counted first or last for each of the counties. This is why the full county projections may be more stable and telling.

Can't you just project at a precinct level instead.

I could, but there are over 11,000 precincts in Ohio and it would be a nightmare. Besides the same problem with absentee ballots still exist. Also, I can't remember if the Ohio Secretary of State publishes results at a precinct level in real-time.

What impact will provisional ballots have?

Provisional ballots have tracked traditional ballots to within 0.1% of a percent. They should not come into play and my methodology does not do anything special for them.

Why do you have the Full County projections based on Obama's margin of victory/defeat instead of McCain's?

The graph came up with a blue bar and I couldn't figure out how to change it's color. Blame Google Docs.

Keys to the Ohio Election

I'll be focusing on setting up things to project the results for the Ohio election over the next day but wanted to post a couple of quick thoughts on the Ohio election and results.

If the polls prove out, it could be a very quick night. If not, watch for these items.

1. Turnout – Turnout will be higher in Democratic counties from a percentage perspective. This won't be that big of a deal. Turnout was lower in Democratic counties than Republican counties in 2004 but this was driven by a lot of invalid voter registrations that have since been purged. That means the same number of voters could turn out and it would still result in a higher percentage turnout. Even bringing the turnout up the the level's seen in Republican counties only nets Obama 25,000 votes. This isn't where the election will be won.

2. Rural Counties – This is where the election will be won. More than have of the new registered voters came from Republican counties. If we start to see Obama really closing the gap on Bush's margin of victory in 2004 in the rural counties, this election is over. This basically means Obama went into the heart of Republican counties and got new voters. If you don't see Obama making inroads here, the election is going to be very tight.

3. Provisional Ballots – If Obama's team is talking about provisional ballots, that's a good sign for McCain. Provisional ballots mimicked traditional ballots within 0.1% in 2004. If either side wants to win the election by counting on provisional ballots, it's over.

4. Absentee ballots and early voting – In the past, absentee ballots also mimicked the general election results. This was the first year where early voting was encouraged and the Democrats focused on it extremely hard. This is the big unknown this year and we will have to watch.

McCain's Army Unleashed

The ground war has begun. And in full force it appears. The robocalls have been going for quite a while but now but this weekend has brought calls from local McCain supporters combined with a visit to the house as well.

Unseasonably warm 80 degree weather in November will only help the foot soldiers.

Biden In Town? Yawn!

Joe Biden wasn't exactly packing them in during his tour of midwest Ohio yesterday.

The Lima News reports on the "crowd of hundreds"...

A crowd of several hundred people slow to warm in a chilly Lima Senior High School roared into gear this evening for Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The Dayton Daily News notes a half-filled high school gym...

Biden drew a crowd of about 1,600 to the arena, which seats 3,600 and can hold 4,500 if people are standing on the floor. The crowd was much smaller than a Monday event at the arena with McCain, which drew an estimated 3,600.

Biden would have had bigger crowds if he'd have crashed the football fields hosting the first round of Ohio's high school playoffs.

The Polls Must Be Tightening: R Word Is Coming Up Again

The polls must be tightening, after a several week absence, the "R" word is starting to show up again:

The only way all these polls could be that far off is if people are lying in numbers never before seen in American politics.

Why would they do that?

You tell me it has nothing to do with race. I'll laugh. What else could it possibly be?

Oh brother!

State Employee Contradicts Helen Jones-Kelley

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that a state employee is contradicting Helen Jones-Kelley's account of the background check on Joe the Plumber.

Vanessa Niekamp said that when was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

Niekamp didn't know she just had checked on "Joe the Plumber," who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain's example in a debate of an average American.

The senior manager would not learn about "Joe" for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry.

The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Jones-Kelley stated it is common practice to do background checks on people who have money and appear in the news.

Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. "I've never done that before, I don't know of anybody in my office who does that and I don't remember anyone ever doing that," she said today.

And if that's not bad enough...

On Oct. 23, Niekamp said Doug Thompson, deputy director for child support, told her she had checked on "Joe the Plumber." Thompson "literally demanded" that she write an e-mail to the agency's chief privacy officer stating she checked the case for child-support purposes, she said.

Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland who previously denied political motivations had no comment.

I Made A Difference, So Can You

Stickers reading "I Made a Difference, So Can You, Vote" are taking on a completely new meaning as investigations continue to find out-of-state-voters, underage voters, and duplicate registrations in Ohio.

Sounds like Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner knew exactly what she meant when she spent $28,000 on 4.6 million "I Voted" stickers.

Maybe some of that money could have been used to check those 200,000 mismatched voter registrations.

Patrick Wang Californian Who Voted in Ohio?

The Columbus Dispatch has reported that a "native Californian" voted in Ohio.

• A 33-year-old native Californian voted in Ohio on Oct. 4 using the address of a German Village house. The current resident of that house and the Californian were roommates at UCLA in the mid-1990s. The California native is registered as a permanent vote-by-mail voter in San Francisco County, meaning that he can vote there as well. He had utilities connected at his new business address in San Francisco on Sept. 1. His MySpace account, last updated in August, lists his address in San Francisco.

A review of the Franklin county Ohio voter registration records reveals that a Patrick Wang, 33, registered to vote on Oct. 4, 2008 at an address in German Village.

There is also a MySpace page set up for a Patrick Wang that indicates that he attended UCLA from 1993 - 1997. The last login to the account was on 8/17/2008.

It isn't clear how the Dispatch was able to match the two Patrick Wang's definitively but this certainly appears to be the vote they are referring too. It is also not clear if Wang cast the vote or if someone using his identity did. Either is obviously a problem. The Dispatch stated that he could not be contacted.

Meanwhile, Brunner asked the state attorney general to investigate get-out-the-vote phone calls made by the GOP. Sounds like she's got her priorities straight.

UPDATE: Wang also has a LinkedIn account and is a member of the group "Obama for America."

Election Officials: Alzheimer's patient's vote "odd" , non-resident votes "system that works"

As the Columbus Dispatch continues to identify suspect votes that have been cast in Ohio, no longer can Jennifer Brunner claim that problems with registered voters don't lead to votes being cast. She is now left to calling the votes "odd" and the problem "miniscule."

The Dispatch identified a Alzheimer's patient who has voted.

In Highland County, 95-year-old Mildred Meddock registered and voted for the first time in her life despite her advanced Alzheimer's disease.

Her granddaughters learned of her newfound patriotism when they visited the nursing home where Meddock lives and saw an "I voted today" sticker on her clothing.

Records show that Meddock registered Sept. 26 when two Highland County Board of Elections employees visited the home, Heartland of Hillsboro, about 65 miles south of Columbus. Four other residents also were registered and voted that day.

"I'm hot. I'm livid," said granddaughter Chrystal Brown. "A month ago, she couldn't tell you her name she was so bad, and, depending on what time of day it is, her name is the only thing she can tell you."

Brunner characterized the vote as "odd".

The Dispatch also found votes cast by apparent out-of-staters living in New York, Kentucky, and California.

• A man who most recently lived at Rescue Mission in Syracuse, N.Y. He listed his address as 154 E. Long St. Downtown. There's no such address. The 49-year-old man never has registered to vote in New York.

• A 27-year-old man who has lived in Kentucky since 1998 listed his address as 2462 Parsons Ave. That address, if it existed, would fall somewhere below the Rt. 104 overpass near the railroad tracks in a heavily industrialized area of the South Side.

• A 33-year-old native Californian voted in Ohio on Oct. 4 using the address of a German Village house.

Brunner said the problem with of non-Ohioans voting in Ohio was "miniscule."

Matthew Damschroder, deputy county elections director, went even farther:

Damschroder agrees. In a county with nearly 850,000 registered voters, "One (double voter) is not indicative of systematic problems. It's indicative of a system that works," he said, referring to the California man with ballots here and there.

I'm not quite sure what system is supposed to be working, but I think ACORN and the Obama campaign know what he's talking about.

Helen Jones-Kelly: Joe the Plumber Checks "well meaning"

The Columbus Dispatch continues to dig into multiple stories it is breaking.

Helen Jones-Kelley, the registered Democrat and Obama contributor, OK'd the background checks on Joe the Plumber in her role as the Ohio Director of Job and Family Services. The checks were even more extensive than originally revealed.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed yesterday that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

She is sticking by her story that it's her duty to do background checks on anyone in the news who says they have money.

"Given our understanding that Mr. Wurzelbacher had publicly indicated that he had the means to purchase a substantial business enterprise, ODJFS, consistent with past departmental practice, checked confidential databases ," she wrote...

Jones-Kelley wrote the checks were "well-meaning," but misinterpreted amid the heated final weeks of a presidential election.

Jones-Kelley stated that the results remained confidential. Anyone want to take a bet on how confidential they would have remained if they had turned up something?

And people wonder why the source of the L.A. Times tape won't come forward and provide it to someone else.

UPDATE 10/31: A state employee contradicts Jones-Kelley's account: "I've never done that before, I don't know of anybody in my office who does that and I don't remember anyone ever doing that,"

Obama Supporters Behind Joe The Plumber Info Searches

The Toledo Blade reports that Toledo police have identified a clerk as accessing Joe the Plumber's information illegally.

Julie McConnell, has been charged with Gross Misconduct for allegedly making an improper inquiry into a state database in search of information pertaining to Samuel Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16.

Wurzelbacher came under the spotlight after being spoken about during the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

The inquiry into Wurzelbacher's record is a violation of department and state policy governing the use of the Law Enforcement Automated Data System. The clerk is under fire for making the inquiry for a non-law enforcement purpose.

Julie McConnell is a registered Democrat in Lucas county.

Meanwhile Helen Jones-Kelley confirmed that she authorized the check on Joe the Plumber. Jones-Kelley, who donated $2,300 to Obama's campaign, said it wasn't politically motivated.

Amid questions from the media and others about "Joe the Plumber," Jones-Kelley said she approved a check through the Support Enforcement Tracking System to determine whether he was current on any ordered child-support payments. She said the check was not politically motivated.

It is unclear whether Wurzelbacher is involved in a child-support case, and Jones-Kelley said such information cannot be publicly shared. Reports state that he lives with a 13-year-old son in suburban Toledo.

"Our practice is when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight, we often take a look" at them, Jones-Kelley said, citing a case where a lottery winner was found to owe past-due child support.

Just doing their duty as public servants.

McConnell a Registered Democrat

Michelle Malkin points out that a quick search of campaign donor records doesn't turn up Julie McConnell's name. A quick search of Ohio's registered voters in Lucas county shows McConnell is a registered Democrat though.

McConnell is the Toledo police records clerk who improperly looked up Joe the Plumber's information. Just doing her duty as a public servant.

2008 Ohio Vote Projections By Precinct

In a previous post, I ran a 2008 vote projection assuming the 2004 turnout percentages and 2004 margin of victories for each county. Using the 2008 registered voter list as a base, all things being equal to 2004, McCain would actually win Ohio by 125,000 votes, which was slightly more than the 119,000 Bush actually won Ohio by in 2004. This is because counties that went for Bush in 2004 actually had a larger increase in registered voters in 2008 than counties that went for Kerry.

At the time I said I would run another projection at the precinct level instead of at the county level. My assumption was that Obama was registering new voters in Democratic friendly precincts in the Bush counties. By running the projections at a precinct level, I expected my projections to narrow considerably.

I have completed my analysis and the results and the exact opposite of what I expected. Running the projections at a precinct level (there are over 11,000 precincts in Ohio) and summing them up increases McCain's margin of victory to over 147,000 votes.

I used the same method as I did at the county level in my previous post. I took the current number of registered voters for each precinct, multiplied it by the turnout factor for that precinct in 2004 and then applied then gave McCain and Obama the same percentage of the vote that went Democratic and Republican in 2004. This netted McCain an additional 22,000 votes over doing the same thing at a county level.

It should be noted that approximately 1% of all precincts in Ohio appear to have been redefined since 2004. In cases where the precinct did not exist in 2004, I applied countywide factors to make the projections.

What this means is that the new voters did not just come in primarily Republican counties. They came from the most Republican precincts in those counties.

Even in Democratic leaning counties, precincts with some of the largest increases in registered voters went Republican. For example, Monclova Township Precinct 11 is in Lucas county, increased by over 1,000 registered voters in 2008. In 2004, Lucas county went for Kerry 61% - 39% but this particular precinct when for Bush 54% - 44%.

The opposite is also true, some of the largest decreases in registered voters came in precincts that lean heavily Democratic.

All of this would appear to be good news for McCain, but obviously the polls don't show this.

This means one of three things are happening:

• Obama went into the heart of the Republican strongholds and found Democratic voters and registered them.

• Voters who voted for Bush in 2004 are crossing over and voting for Obama this year or not voting at all.
  

• The polls are wrong and are assuming a larger turnout of Democratic voters than has occured in the past and will occur this year.

If it's 1, that's bad news for Republicans and Ohio could be blue for a long time.

If it's 2, it will be interesting to see if the voters who switch will stick or not in future elections.

If it's 3, hang on to your hats, it could be an interesting election night.

UPDATE: Geraghty at The Campaign Spot notices the same thing in Virginia.

Government Computers used to Find Dirt on Joe the Plumber

The Columbus Dispatch is investigating why, after the last debate, his information was accessed by someone in the Ohio Attorney General's Office, Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency, and the Toledo Police Department.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. "It's outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama's allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question," he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay's statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. "Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully," he said.

Of course the Obama campaign doesn't have anything to do with this. Just like they don't with the invalid voter registrations from ACORN, the illegal votes cast from the out-of-state Vote From Home volunteers, or the invalid campaign contributions made to the Obama website itself.

The breadth of the inquiries is really scary when you consider all he did was ask a presidential candidate a question.

"We're trying to pinpoint where it came from," she said. The investigation could become "criminal in nature," she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16...

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show...

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

This will just show again how far Obama supporters are willing to go to get thier man elected. In their case, the ends always justify the means.

Country first. What's that?

What is up with these polls?

Fox has McCain up 2: 49-47.

Quinnipiac has Obama up 14: 52-38.

Ohio Early Voting

The Akron Beacon Journal reports that early voting is leaning heavily Democratic.

Democrats are dominating early voting so far, using a broad strategy to get as many ballots as possible cast ahead of Nov. 4's elections. Republicans have been using a more narrow approach, going after specific targets, such as young voters with hunting licenses.

In Franklin county, Democrats have cast 9,000 more votes than Republicans, for example. These votes will give Obama a lead going into the election but at this point it doesn't appear to be insurmountable.

I'm trying to find early voting numbers for each county now.