The Washington Post has an Associated Press story today on the Ohio recount under the following headline: Recount in Ohio Narrows Bush’s Victory Margin.
Here’s what it reports:
Election officials finished the presidential recount in Ohio on Tuesday, with the final tally shaving about 300 votes off President Bush’s six-figure margin of victory in the state that gave him a second term.
The recount shows Bush winning Ohio by 118,457 votes over John F. Kerry, according to unofficial results provided to the Associated Press by the state’s 88 counties….
The state had earlier declared Bush the winner by 118,775 votes and plans to adjust its totals to reflect the recount.
If you do the math, you will find that the effect of subtracting 318 votes from Bush’s total “narrows” his winning percentage from 51.06% to 51.05%.
Some narrowing.
UPDATE
According to Jessie, my math whiz daughter, another way to put this is to say that the recount reduced the size of Bush’s winning margin in Ohio by 0.00267% 0.267%.
One can see why this dramtic “narrowing'” impressed the WaPo’s headline writer.
This Just In: Bush Wins Ohio!
Associated Press: The recount shows Bush winning Ohio by 118,457 votes over John Kerry. according to unofficial results provided to The Associated Press by the 88 counties. Lucas County, home to Toledo, was the last to finish counting.
The state had…
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I don’t deny that 118,457 is a narrower winning margin than 118,775. What I assert is that that is a revealing, relevant, or even reasonable way to describe that result in the headline.