The 200K Solution?

****Better*******Than******Newseek******Retraction*******

With Sources and everything.......

Our conclusion, based on an unamed source (well, sort of, unattributed on the Elections BC Website) was wrong......

The I-Ching King, his named Ian-ness, has given us the story straight from the E-BC spokesthingy's mouth on the threads (although it still sounds a little bit loosey-goosey):

"Ross -- talked to Elxns BC earlier today on this subject. Advance polls are included in the total, because those ballots are collected in normal boxes instead of by mail or ther other means by which absentee votes get collected. Their spokesthingy can't say for sure how many absentee votes are out there, but there were 80,000 in 2001, and anecdotally, it seems that there are more of them in 2005. Those votes won't be counted until May 30."

Thanks Ian!

****************A thousand million apologies***********but we do hope that Eddie The G is disappointed with us regardless**********



Original post below.
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"More than 200,000 people voted in four days of advance polling leading up to Tuesday's B.C. election.

Elections B.C. spokeswoman Jennifer Miller said Monday that the 205,000 total is 81 per cent higher than the 113,000 who voted in advance polls in the 2001 election."

Canadian Press, May 16, 2005

So, have those votes been counted yet in the Initial Poll results?



"The Initial Count is the preliminary count of the votes on the ballots for an election, other than those contained in certification envelopes. In 2005, Initial Count will also include a preliminary count of the votes on referendum ballots that are not in certification envelopes. Candidate ballots will be counted first and then the referendum ballots will be counted once the candidate results are reported.

Ballots are placed in certification envelopes if a voter votes at a voting opportunity other than either their assigned voting station on General Voting Day, or an Advance Voting location in their electoral district of residence."

Elections BC Website, Frequently Asked Questions, May 18, 2005

If those votes have not yet been counted, we say......'Bring 'Em On!"

But we must admit that the language is a little confusing....it implies that regular advance polls (ie. if you vote in your electoral district) also go in the certification envelopes, but it might be the other way around.

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The quoted Elections BC statement does however explain, in more straightforward terms, why the referendum results were so late in coming last night (ie. they were counted after the candidate votes). Too bad all the high-priced waterheads on both TV and Radio didn't read that, it would have eliminated all that uninformed, some might say stupid, speculation re: why they were so late in coming.
Thanks to redrivergirl over on the Tyee Election Blog thread for bringing this issue to our attention.
Update 4:30 May 18th; Poster Martin on the Tyee Election blog thinks that regular advance poll ballots have already been counted (will try to get an answer directly from Elections B.C.).
DoubleSecretProbationUpdate: Bree points out in the comment threads that Global did have the right explanation for the late counting of the ref. ballots. But I'm not going for the Exacta Retractor here because there were all kinds of waterheads opining about all manner of things including colour blindness and the difficulty from telling grey from brown....

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