Legal Commentary

Mass. Senate Election Returns: Live Thread

By Jeralyn

Update 9:30 pm: AP calls the race for Brown. 84% in, Brown with 53%. Post-mortem thread here.

Update: 9:19 pm: 1435 of 2168 precincts reporting - 66% of vote -- Brown still 53%, Martha 46%. CNN's 9:15 story. 9:21 pm: 1494 of 2168 precincts reporting - 69% of vote, Brown still at 53%. Do we call the race for Brown yet?

Update: 9:07 pm ET: Brown's lead widens to 53% with 57% of the vote in. (1234 of 2168 precincts reporting.) Coakely's got a good lead in Boston, Lynn, and Lexington.

Update 9:04 pm ET: 52% of the votes are in, including some from the eastern part of the state. Brown is still ahead 52% to 47%. (1119 of 2168 precincts reporting.)

Update 8:52pm ET: More than 1/3 of 2168 precincts are in, 38% of vote is in. Still Brown 52%, Martha 47%. But it's the Western part of the state coming in, not Boston, where Martha should do better.

Update 8:35 pm ET: 192 precincts, 9% of vote in: Brown 52%, Coakley 47%.

Update 8:29 pm ET: 146 precincts in (7%), Brown 51%, Martha 48%. CNN pundits are already doing a post-mortem for the Dems. They think Brown will win. [More...]

Update 8:22 pm: 16 precincts out of 2168 are in (1% of total): Brown 50%, Martha 49%.

Update 8:11pm ET: Results here, by county here. 7 precincts in, Brown ahead 55 to 44%.

Update 8:00 pm ET: Polls are closed. John King at CNN says Dems outnumber Republicans 3 to 1, but independents outnumber both. Coakely’s headquarters are pretty empty, mostly occupied with media. Brown’s is in party mode.

I'm back from court and the polls in Mass. are closing in 12 minutes. This will be a live thread for the results. All I've seen so far was turnout was big and Martha Coakley is claiming there were some voting irregualarities, possibly laying the groundwork for a contested election. The Mass. Secretary of State disputes their significance.

Live results when the polls close can be found here or here. Swing State Project has a cool map with a breakdown of towns and counties.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).