On our election scoreboard to the right we’re showing a 10 point margin for Sen. Clinton. But we’re hearing from a lot of Obama supporters saying that isn’t right. Many of them are pointing to the official Pennsylvania Secretary of State website which has …
Clinton 1,237,696 54.26%
Obama 1,043,174 45.74%
Only one problem. Those numbers are out of date. Sorry to disappoint. But they’re out of date. It may sound weird that the media sites have more up to date numbers than the state itself which is holding the election. But that’s completely normal.
AP’s current numbers, which most media sites (including TPM) are showing is …
Clinton 1,258,245 54.69%
Obama 1,042,297 45.31%
So according to TPM numbers wizard Eric Kleefeld, that’s actually a 9.39 point spread, not 10. I trust this has acquitted us of our mathematical responsibilities for the day.
Late Update: Above I said that the state numbers were out of date and that AP (the second set of numbers) are more current. However, a number of you have noted that Obama has about a thousand more votes in the state numbers than the more current AP numbers. So that doesn’t compute. The explanation is this. In pretty much every election the state itself and the AP are getting numbers at slightly different rates. Not just that one is faster but they’re receiving them differently. So for instance, the state could have one precinct in that AP doesn’t and vice versa. How can that be? Basically the AP has people contacting the precincts directly and the state is waiting for the counts to be reported directly to the state official charged with running the elections. Basically it should all sort out over the course of the day. But with that caveat the AP number has a higher percentage of the vote tabulated and should, at least for now, be viewed as the more accurate number.
