The OTHER Election Night Story in Georgia: No Early Votes Included in Reported Results
Wednesday, November 05, 2008 http://savdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=19&ArticleID=20488 As the nation watched election returns come in state by state, and national, state and regional television stations began to report the numbers, every major news outlet reported that Georgia had voted heavily for McCain -- all except for the Associated Press Atlanta office, the news organization that is rooted in the print, newspaper business. They held back. At 10:35 p.m., The Savannah Daily News appears to be the first news organization in Georgia to begin to report that the results made no sense - how could all of the political polls that had Georgia as a McCain/Obama toss up be so wrong? And how could the Secretary of State be reporting that the majority of the votes were in, but the total was just over 2.8 million, when there are more than 4.8 million registered voters in Georgia? It looked like Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) was handily winning reelection, defeating Jim Martin (D). All of Savannah's TV stations were providing similar analysis. At 11 p.m., a news analyst at Atlanta's WSB-TV also posted a short story saying that something appeared to be wrong with the election results on the Secretary of State's Web site, noting that early voting figures for metro Atlanta counties did not appear to be in the totals that were being reported. There are 4,978,704 registered voters in Georgia, up more than 500,000 since December 2007 as interest in this year's presidential race grew. At 2 a.m., only 3,339,278 votes were counted, a turnout of only 67.07 perccent, appearing that at least another 10 percent was still not uploaded by a number of counties. The Atlanta Journal & Constitution went to bed with the wrong story, saying that McCain had a huge win in Georgia. "Georgia's Republicans appeared to withstand the strongest challenge Democrats have offered in a generation, delivering the state's 15 electoral votes to John McCain," the AJC posted on its Web site as late as midnight. Wrong analysis. The story had changed by 8:30 a.m. today, with reports that a runoff is likely. All the national TV networks called Georgia for McCain early in the evening, with sweeping numbers. Wrong. Only the Associated Press, with the Georgia story being reported by its Atlanta office, did not call Georgia for McCain. As of 1:15 a.m., its news team said that it were still trying to get the story, with a growing realization of how many of the early votes were not in. One of the first counties in Georgia to get the early voting numbers reported was Chatham County. At about 10:40 p.m., Russell Bridges said he'd get them up in five minutes, and he delivered. At that point, only 55,000 votes were in, but it looked like 89 of 92 precincts had reported. David Locke was winning the District Attorney's race in Chatham County, in that scenario, and other candidates looked like they were well on the way to victory. And then Bridges uploaded the 47,000 early voting results, and the total votes cast jumped to 102,000 - and results changed dramatically. Now Obama was carrying Chatham County handily. Larry Chisolm (D) was the new district attorney-elect, and Al St. Lawrence (R), running for sheriff, was only ahead by a mere 1,100 votes with 7,450 true absentee ballots still not in. How did it happen? A spokesman for Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel's office said the office was only reporting what the counties sent in, with the usual disclaimers on the web site that the results were unofficial and incomplete. Counties are required to report in to the state on election night at three intervals, but certification of the election results at the county level comes days later. Early voting was vastly expanded in Georgia this year, with ballots beginning to be cast as far as 45 days in advance of the election. But early voting does not mean early tallying - the ballots cannot be counted until after voting closes officially. Nor, the Secretary of State's office pointed out, is the matter over yet - those who cast provisional or challenged ballots because of voter ID problems or other matters have until Thursday to resolve the situation, and mailed absentee ballots from the military will be accepted until Friday. Technology has greatly speeded up the reporting of election results. The old manpower intensive deadline process has now been reduced to looking at a Web site ( www.chathamcounty.org , www.sos.ga.gov ) or watching a slow rollboard on Chatham County's public access channel on Comcast. But that speed can be deceptive, since it is acknowledged throughout that the results are unofficial. That's how election results can literally change overnight. 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