Burke vs. Adams: some numbers

I was a little surprised to read, here, that there are still 50,000 votes being counted in Multnomah County. Last night they got through only 127,000 or so. They're supposed to be announcing more results at the end of the business day today.

Just doing some crude math based on the results so far, of 50,000 ballots left, about 43,500 would include votes for county commissioner. Of which about 12,500 would be in District 2, where it's neck and neck between Jessie Burke and Sam Adams for a runoff slot. About half of that, or 6250, would be votes for either Burke or Adams. (Shannon Singleton is a lock for first place and the runoff opponent.) For Burke to get the 279-vote edge she needs to get ahead of Adams out of 6250, she'd need to win by 3265 to 2985. That's a 52.24 percent to 47.76 percent run.

Again, we're talking crude, crude math, but that's what it's going to take.

The uncounted votes are the late votes. Are they more likely to be disgusted and disgruntled, which would be good for Burke, or name-familiarity types, which would favor Sam the Tram? I guess we shall see this evening.

If it's really close, we won't know for sure until at least the end of the week, because any ballot postmarked by yesterday from anywhere in the country counts if it gets to the elections office by Tuesday.

If you think this is slow, wait until November, when the supreme folly of "rank choice voting" kicks in. Things may be up in the air for quite a bit longer.

UPDATE, 2:58 p.m.: Meanwhile, out in East County, can Vince Jones-Dixon avoid a runoff? I estimate there are 7523 votes left to be counted out there. For VJD to get to 50 percent plus 1 vote overall, he'd need 3970 of those, or 52.77 percent. So far he's at 48.91 percent.

UPDATE, 5:43 p.m.: New numbers! Discussed here.