Participação eleitoral

Em O Tempo das Cerejas, discute-se qual terá sido realmente a participação/abstenção eleitoral nas eleições americanas. O problema é complicado, e o Number's Guy no WSJ.com discute-o hoje.

Curtis Gans, do Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, explica por que é tão complicado e por que razão as estimativas de participação são tão diferentes (tão maiores) do que o número de votos contados até ao momento (cerca de 124 milhões, esta manhã):

"This is complicated this year by the enormous number of ballots which were cast before election day. Some states are better equipped than others to count those ballots in a timely fashion. But California, for instance, often does not fully complete its counting of a massive number of absentee ballots until three weeks after the election. Oregon and Washington can take up to two weeks. None of those states are battleground states but both Oregon and Washington have close statewide contests--Oregon for Senate, Washington for governor. In some of the battleground states, complete or even nearly complete may not be available tonight. Any reporting that I and CSAE do will make note of the states like the western ones for which the early tallies are not indicative of the actual turnout when counting has been completed."