Numbers game

So there was a by-election on November 5th in Conception Bay South, and after all the unofficial counting was done, Elections Newfoundland and Labrador pegged the preliminary result as 2102 to 2026 for Liberal Rex Hillier.

On Saturday, the Elections agency released the official count (which is not, as some people think, a recount), which modified the result to 2102-2034. The winner remained unchanged.

VOCM dutifully reported the dramatic narrowing of the numbers on Saturday...

 

...and again on Sunday:

Which is all kind of odd, given that the revised, official numbers were the same ones that were being entwootened out by partisans and media types on by-election night itself:

These were the unofficial figures as tallied up from those brought back to the two main candidates' headquarters by scrutineers or "runners" from each of the camps. In fact, the Liberal HQ maintained an up-to-the-minute Google Doc which, after the last poll reported, looked like this:

 



All of which is to say that, between Wednesday and Saturday, the only people who had the incorrect vote-total in the Conception Bay South by-election, were the people who are actually in charge of administering by-elections.

Nothing to see here, folks, move along.