Voting Clusterf_ck of mass proportions in Tampa

FIRST, this is what the Board of Elections reports for Hillsborough County, FL – 87% counted so far:

PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT	Vote type summary	Precinct detail map
384 of 384 Precincts Reporting
Percent Votes John McCain (REP) 46.60% 228,323 Barack Obama (DEM) 52.40% 256,753

NOW, read this fromTBO.com and notice where they decided to skew the story and do the math:

Count Resumes With Hillsborough Elections Chief Race In Limbo

November 5, 2008 TAMPA – More than a dozen Hillsborough County elections office workers hunkered down in a glass-walled room in Brandon this afternoon and started to count what could add up to about 70,000 ballots that have yet to be tabulated.

They started with 6,000 absentee ballots that came in on Election Day, and it took most of the afternoon to count them. By late afternoon, workers were expected to begin counting the ballots from two precincts that didn’t flow through the optical scanning machines. They numbered about 4,000.

That likely would take them through the rest of the day. The counting would stop when the last ballot passed through the counter, and that could be 9 p.m. or later.

“Time frames are fluid,” said Hillsborough County Judge James Dominguez, who leads the canvassing board, which is overseeing the process.

Thursday, the counting continues. Dominguez said the remaining votes to be counted are about 60,000 early votes that went untallied on Election Day.

Even though the counting will continue for another day, every vote cast will be counted, he said.

“It is just a question of when they will get counted,” the judge said.

Provisional ballots were to be counted Thursday night and overseas absentee ballots, next week.

Absent during the process early Wednesday afternoon was Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson, who himself is caught in the recount web. His election hangs in the balance as challenger Phyllis Busansky is less than 4,000 votes behind in a 400,000 ballot race.

Now I could give two hoots about Buddy Johnson and Phyllis Busansky.  What I care about it that there are 70,000 abstentee and overseas ballots to count and there’s a 28,430 ballot difference between John McCain and Barack Obama, yet there are 70,000 ballots that are still not counted. That means that McCain can win Hillsborough still.  The question begs to be asked is: with so many absentee, early voting and Election Day ballots left to count, how many other places have the same problem as Hillsborough County?

With an election so close and with many states not done counting so many ballots (like here in FL), why was it so necessary to declare Barack Obama the winner on Tuesday?  Why are exit polls from corporate owned media more valid than actual ballots?  What is the rush of declaring a winner the same night on Election Day?  Why can’t the winner be declared one week later after every ballot is verified and tallied?   Why did the reporter choose to concentrate on Johnson and Busansky instead of McCain and Obama?

Something in the milk ain’t clean!

(Crossposted at LiberalCrat)