Election results by Tuesday bedtime: yes or no?

[Dennis S]

Let the kids stay up all night. Make a big deal of it so they remember it and have a touchstone in the future. This will do more for their education than be a little groggy a few hours will hurt it.

[$tevie]

I need to know how we are defining "bedtime". I fully expect the results to be final before my bedtime. YMMV.

[cbelt3]

Here's my reasoning:

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/ind...ncart_2box

[wave rider]

Maybe not by your bedtime, probably by my west coast bedtime...

=wr=

[Gutenberg]

Yes. We will know about midnight Eastern time, 9 pm Pacific time. All of the tossup states are in the East.

Edit: It's not going to be that close in Ohio, Belty. The last 500,000 votes aren't going to matter.

[cbelt3]

Gute... uhm... assuming that by now there are 8 million voters in Ohio, your comment assumes that one candidate will have a more than 12% lead over the other for the 500K votes to 'not count'. (Assuming the provisional votes are all for one canidate, which is of course not the case).

So I disagree.

[rjmacs]

We'll probably know by 0100 EST on the 7th. Once Colorado and Nevada are clear, it will almost certainly be finished.

[mikebw]

No announcements before 11:00pm EST - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/busine...lamor.html

[prymsnap]

$tevie wrote:
I need to know how we are defining "bedtime". I fully expect the results to be final before my bedtime. YMMV.

Yes, I did leave that open to interpretation. Personally, I think I can make it to about midnight or 1am Central without chewing my arm off.

[Gutenberg]

cbelt3 wrote:
Gute... uhm... assuming that by now there are 8 million voters in Ohio, your comment assumes that one candidate will have a more than 12% lead over the other for the 500K votes to 'not count'. (Assuming the provisional votes are all for one canidate, which is of course not the case).

So I disagree.

The 500,000 votes aren't going to matter because the differential is going to be about four percent, and four percent of 500,000 is not going to make up the difference of four percent of eight million. Check the figures from 2008--the absentee and provisional ballot spread pretty much mirrored the spread at the polls. The 500,000 won't matter unless that nice Secretary of State of yours is fiddling the numbers.