I'm an actuary. I do number crunching. I've gone back to 2004 and looked at some of the states and what they reported on election night and the final totals.
And, the conclusions I've drawn, are that any comments on turnout by state or what counties did better or worse are PREMATURE.
Take California for example. A week ago, total votes were 11.1 million. Today -- 12.2 million. A week ago, we would have thought turnout was down 10%. Today - 1.6%. But, we know there are still 1 million votes to count, so turnout will be up 6-7%.
New York is similar. 10 days after the election, total votes for Kerry in NY were at 4 million. Final certified total - 4.3 million.
Illinois currently shows only a 1.8% increase in total votes from 2004 to 2008. Maybe that's real, but considering other states showed 20%+ increases, is it possible the 2008 totals are just not complete?
If I had to guess, I'd estimate there are another 4 million or so votes to count (not including the roughly 1.1 million that have been reported on SOS sites across the nation but not reported in the AP totals yet).
So before we write any articles on turnout was down or this county did that or that state did this, can we wait for the official results please?
Rant off.