R.I.P. Precinct Reporting

[cinyc]

Well, for many states, there are state elections websites that will still report precincts reporting.

This may make modeling things easier.

[cinyc]

By the way, does anyone know the url for the AP's 2010 general election results sites?

[cinyc]

Theoretically the AP should be able to get figures from the county elections departments as to how many voters have cast ballots by the close of polls. I don't know whether they're attempting to do this or whether they're just creating some model. Hopefully the former.

I don't know how they could possibly do that in a technologically backward state like New York that doesn't appear to keep a computerized list of how many voters voted at the time you sign the book.  In theory, the counting in New York should have been quicker in the primaries than ever before due to the new scan machines.  In practice, it still took some counties like Westchester and Nassau a day to report results for all precincts.

[cinyc]

FWIW, I think I finally found the AP by County pages, and they appear to still report county-level results by precincts reporting. 

[cinyc]

Does West Virginia's SOS have a calculator to do the division?

The West Virginia SoS' election results page actually isn't that bad.  It's supposedly all-knowing, super "progressive" states like New York that have crappy elections results pages - or, in New York's case, none at all.

You know which state sets the absolute standard for an elections results website?  Louisiana.

But old prejudices die hard, I'm afraid.

[cinyc]

From NJ.com, home to many NJ newspapers:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2010/general/by_county/us_house/NJ.html?SITE=NJNEWELN&SECTION=POLITICS

I'm sure other newspaper websites will have their own direct link.

[cinyc]

Here's the template for any House page:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2010/general/by_county/us_house/POSTALCODE.html

Still trying to figure out what it is for Governor/Senator

EDIT: Ballot measure template is:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2010/general/by_state/statewide/POSTALCODE.html

The ballot measure template also gives you minor races like NY AG and Comptroller. 

[cinyc]

It would be nice if AP made it clearer....

From what I can tell, the AP seems to be updating their whole results package, perhaps adding maps and the like.  Maybe the Gubernatorial and Senate races are the guinea pigs for their new non-precinct reporting system.

[cinyc]

Wait so are television stations going to have like Paul +5 or something like that rather than reporting the total votes and percentages in? Because that sounds like a very stupid way of reporting results, especially if the wave is big enough that candidates thought save by their expected vote are thrown out.

?

The only difference is that the "% of vote in" statistic will be based on "total votes in"/"expected votes to be cast" as opposed to "precincts reporting"/"precincts in total".

If they even do that.  I still can't find the AP's Senate by-county charts anywhere, but this AP map at myfoxboston.com suggests they might still be reporting Senate races by percentage of precincts reporting, too - unless they change that in the next few days.