Here's our starting point:
160,915 (48.9%) for Frank Kratovil (D), and
160,000 (48.6%) for Andy Harris (R).
There were a total of 32,535 requests made for absentee ballots in the MD-01. So far, 25,539 have been returned and 11,371 have been from Democrats, 10,924 have been by Republicans, and 3,244 have been by Other/Unaffiliated.
We know that 18,963 of the absentees requests come from the Eastern Shore, counting Cecil County. Frank Kratovil won all those counties. Using the same county by county percentages for Frank Kratovil and Andy Harris as they performed on Election Day, Frank should expect 10,364 absentee votes from the Eastern Shore, and Andy should expect 8,152. That assumes the same percentage of votes for 3rd party candidates. Again, that's assuming the same performance as Election Day. Typically, absentees favor Republicans, but there were slightly more Democratic requests this year than Republican requests.
Since there's only 13,335 absentees from the Western Shore still due, even using a percentage of 57% for Andy and 40% for Frank (that's Frank's low water mark and Andy's high water mark on the Western Shore), Frank can expect 5,333 votes and Andy can expect 7,734 votes from the Western Shore.
So what do all those numbers mean? Let's take a look.
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