From Stark
After the counting of less than 3,000 additional city ballots, former state legislator Kelli Linville increased her lead over Mayor Dan Pike by 35 votes, for a total of 423, although Pike’s percentage of the vote total did increase by about one-tenth of one percent.
While Pike sounded less optimistic than he did on Tuesday, he wasn’t ready to concede. Nor was Linville readyto start preparing her State of the City speech for next January.
We’re going to have to do this again tomorrow.
Was Pike being an optimistic, or just arrogant? I am sure readers will have many opinions. You decide!
Statistically speaking, the two city mayoral vote counts, if used as random samples of the entire vote show a trend that is pretty high (99%) that it will remain fixed at 48.75% for Pike.
Or, using a handy web based stat calculator.
Use a really high Confidence Factor of 99% (95% is commonly used) , use a very small 1% Confidence Interval and a eventual vote population say 25,000. One would need a sample of at least 9991 people to confirm that the next batch of votes, should be within 1% of 48.25/51.25%
The current reported votes counted is way higher than 9991 (16,889). So, statistically speaking, it is 99% likely that the next batch of votes should show a similar split.
In fact, plugging in the actual 16,889 number it shows that there is a 99% confidence that the split will probably not deviate +- 0.6% for the remainder of the votes in the mayoral race.
If Pike is to win and there are say 7000 more votes left to be counted, he would have to improbably jump to a 53%+ level from his current 48.25% to pick up the extra 423 votes
Statistics of course, never lie.
I said that yesterday on here. But not so snooty.
Math,
Your point is valid if your underlying assumption is valid. That is, you assume the sample is a valid random sample of the entire voting population. In fact, it is not. We already know, for example, that the Republican vote was heavier earlier, and faded a bit in later voting. Similarly, there are differences in the voting behavior of procratinators versus early voters.
I do not know for certain how those differences will play out in the vote counting, but I would be very surprised if the proportions remained the same. I expect the vote will get closer; I do not know for certain. Like everyone else, I am awaiting tonight’s report for better insight.
If I remember correctly, in the last county council race there was a little surge with a ‘left hook’ on the first count after the vote, then a ‘right jab’ the until the count was finished… Anyone else have that recollection? Stark?
Sorry, Clayton…I don’t remember. It might not matter, since the dynamics of this election, with the hard campaigning by anti-coal forces that Dan McS mentioned, may be different. We won’t have to wait that long to find out.
Yes Clayton.
Dan McShane was up by something like 150 votes on election night, gained a few on the second count, and then the votes came in from people who lick a stamp and put their ballot in the mailbox on election day. He lost by 300 votes, once the late counts were in.
Cue Riley Sweeney to explain that the new local drop boxes around the county are so convenient, that the late voting phenomenon may not occur so much, and that the Democrat volunteers seem to do a heavier last minute vote drive (probably due to what they learned in the McShane/Kershner race of 2009).
So, it’s hard to tell.
“We’re going to have to do this again tomorrow.”
And tomorrow.
Argh.
Would htat it had been in Lynden. Will we ever learn?
Meaning the last minute drive.
Good memory Richard. I remember very well. Election night I had a lead and presumed that lead would go away. That presumption was correct but at one count my lead moved up to something like 500 then went away as predicted. Kathy Kershner and I had a very nice chat after our roller coaster ride. That said – that was a county wide-race where precints and swings are a bit wilder than what I have seen in the city.
As for the hard coal train campaign impact, I suspect it has already played out and late votes will not be swayed into a wild swing.
The way I see it at this point, the last count didn’t change things much:
There’s been 51,499 counted. There is an estimated 17,000 left according to the auditor’s website. The mayoral race had 19,332 of the 51,499 counted so that’s 37.54%. Assuming the same ratio of Bellingham votes, and the same amount of people vote in the mayoral race, there should only be about 6,382 mayoral race votes left. Using that 6,382 people, and making up the (new) gap plus 1 person is 407 votes, divide the rest in half for Dan to win by 1 and he must capture 53.2% of the remaining vote. I don’t think it will happen.
There was a big push at the last weekend to hit the 7000 Anti Red Light Camera voters with phone calls.
When these late ballots get counted on Saturday, Mrs. Linville may get a nice boost.