Just The Numbers: Behind Sanders-Wiggins 2010: Tuesday's Results

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Tuesday's Results

Sorry for the late reaction to last night's numbers. School is a killer right now.

Here's a quick break down on the results from yesterday. We had a total of 12 counties report results: Yakima didn't report (although they posted new numbers this morning), and Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, and Klickitat updated their numbers unexpectedly:

Wiggins picked up 2,867 less votes than expected. The quick answer is that Yakima didn't report, and King County reported far fewer ballots yesterday that we were expecting (49,017 instead of 71,915). Of course, this is readily explainable if the ballots now being worked through are the more problematic ones (incorrectly filled out, write-in votes, voter affidavits, etc).

But it's got me thinking that there's definitely some useful data in here about the speed at which different counties are working their way though the EBOH pile. Some have been very quick, some have started fast and slowed down, and others appear to be pretty uniform. Once the speed of the daily returns slows down, I'll probably take some time to look at that data and see if there are some discernable trends that can be modeled for the 2012 election to predict return data.

In the last column, I compared the SMOV% from yesterday to the "progressive" SMOV% model that I've been using so far to see how the results different from expected. The 12% number in Klickitat might raise some eyebrows... but we are only talking about 74 votes, so I think we can write that off to statistical insignificance.

The Pierce number is a little misleading. The progressive model that I've been using still has Pierce's SMOV% at 54.73%, which is based on their total from last Thursday. There haven't been enough ballots counted on each of the successive days (10% of total) to shift that number more towards Wiggins. But over the four following days of returns (Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday), the SMOV% has stayed pretty consistent, between 52.27% and 53.06%. With 53.03% yesterday, Pierce continues to show the same ~2% shift toward Wiggins that nearly every other county experienced, but that trend has stabilized. Makes me think that the progressive SMOV% model really needs to give more credit to several days of stability, as opposed to an early lump-sum number.

The shift in King County's SMOV% is interesting, but relatively insignificant. King was at 38.32% on Monday. Yesterday, at 38.51% (+0.19), King has reversed what was otherwise several straight days of declinining numbers. In practical terms, this 0.19% increase moved about 64 votes from Wiggins over to Sanders. It'll be interesting to see where the SMOV% moves in today's results -- which should be posted shortly.

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Terminology

The Terminology post is quickly working its way down the page, so here it is, reproduced at the top, for all time. A quick introduction to the terminology I use on this blog:

SMOV: Sanders Margin of Victory (%). Within a defined universe of ballots (say, one particular county's ballots on one particular day), it refers to the percentage of ballots cast for Sanders. [Ed. Note: I'm not expressing an ideological preference: as of this posting, Justice Sanders is leading the race; and using the leading candidate makes the math easier.] Accordingly, a SMOV of 51% means that if 100 ballots were cast, Sanders received 51 and Wiggins received 49.

VCR: Votes Cast in Race (# or %). Not every ballot contains a vote for Sanders or Wiggins. Indeed, on average so far, just under 77% of all ballots cast have contained a vote for either candidate. Some voters may have chosen to write in a candidate -- it's even possible that they may have chosen to write in Sanders or Wiggins, which creates some interesting possibilities (which may be explored in a later blog post). But largely, it's because people chose not to vote in this particular race. They may have been single-issue voters (i.e. the U.S. Senate race), or they may have only cared about the initiatives; I have several friends who only cared about I-1100 and I-1105. Or they may have just stopped at the first page and decided to go do something else. Either way, the VCR% plays a big role in our analysis.

EBOH: Estimated Ballots on Hand (#). This refers to the number of ballots that each county is estimating still remains to be counted. EBOH x VCR% would yield the total number of votes that still remain to be allocated between the two candidates. Note that EBOH is not a static number. Each day in which votes are counted should result in a net decreate in the EBOH total, as votes from that category are counted and allocated to the candidates. However, some ballots may be disqualified for any number of reasons; further, disqualified ballots may be later added back to the EBOH pile if they are later verified by affidavit. Furthermore, ballots may still be arriving, which would increase the EBOH total. Although most of these ballots will be disqualified for being postmarked after election day, some may be from overseas military voters or may be correctly postmarked and will be counted.

SAND or WIGG: I sometimes refer to the candidates as SAND (Sanders) or WIGG (Wiggins) for short. I intend no disrespect.

KPS: A reference to King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, the three largest counties in Washington in terms of registered voters. There are 3,601,152 registered voters (as of Election Day 2010) in Washington; King has 1,069,791 (29.71%), Pierce has 410,081 (11.39%); and Snohomish has 377,739 (10.49%), for a total of 51.58% of all registered voters in Washington.

KPSS: Same as KPS, but add Spokane county; it has 261, 250 (7.25%). KPSS together has 58.84% of the total registered voters in Washington.

KPSSCTKW, or THE BIG EIGHT: Yes, this probably seems a little ridiculous, but stay with me. Same as KPSS, but now add the counties of Clark (219,616, 6.10%), Thurston (149,024, 4.14%), Kitsap (143,796, 3.99%), and Whatcom (116,576, 3.24%). The Big Eight are the counties with over 100,000 registered voters each, and together, they comprise 76.31% of the total registered voters in Washington. [Ed. Note: Yakima is very close to joining this club at 99,568; sorry Yakimanians, I had to draw the line somewhere. Go sign up 432 more voters, and you're in! (next time)]