According to that, on election day Gilchrist got 274 more votes than Campbell. I’m waiting for the official tally before promulgating this far and wide, but even if that changes a little in Campbell’s favor it’s really bad news for him and the GOP leadership.

That said, the numbers do seem to add up, so if they’re phony, at least the person who did it was careful to check their math. Note also that the county posts unofficial updates every hour, which include more votes than the CA SOS totals. Assuming the newer votes are precinct votes (i.e., the absentees were counted first), the movement does seem consistent with Gilchrist having done better on Election Day, at Campbell’s expense, with Gilchrist’s percentage rising from 25.1% to 25.3%, while Campbell’s drops from 44.7% to 44.6%. However, the movement in the numbers for the other three candidates is inconsistent with calcowgirl’s chart, which shows Steve Young doing better on Election Day (32.42% vs. 25.30%) and the two minor candidates doing worse (Tiritilli garnering 0.94% on Election Day, vs. 1.58% among absentees, and Cohen getting 0.68 vs. 1.10%). The comparison between the CA figures and the current OC update shows slight movement in the opposite direction for Young (down from 28.0% to 27.7%) and Tiritilli (up to 1.4% from 1.3%), with no net change for Cohen (.9% before and after).

The only reason Campbell won is because he got so many absentee ballots; if all the votes had gone like the election day votes, Gilchrist would be in Congress.

The corrupt WSJ wing of the GOP will learn a little bit from this, and will probably try yet a new way to fleece the voters.

And, of course, the Dems will learn the opposite lesson, perhaps with a bandolier-wearing Howard Dean promising to help Mexico send us more workers.