Fox News tries playing Kingmaker. Again. [note: Scroll down for frequent updates.]

For a shorter version of this post, read "Talking Points."

Air America Radio reports that Fox News just called Ohio for Bush, despite only 84% of their precincts reporting results and a 139,917 vote difference between Bush and Kerry. This is important because Cuyahoga County, heavily democratic, still hasn't reported 400,000 votes. That's what the mayor of Columbus just said on Air America Radio.

This is the smoking gun that Fox News is again fixing the election for Bush. By Fox's calculation, this puts Bush at 266 electoral votes. Which means they are ready to declare him the winner at any second now.

Unfuckingbelievable. What can we do about this?

01:04 Update - And the domino effect starts: NBC just gave Ohio to Bush. CBS, ABC, and CNN have abstained so far.

01:34 Update - As more Ohio precincts report, Kerry continues to gain on Bush. Half an hour ago Bush led by 139,917, but now he only leads by 102,342 votes. Since there were over 200,000 provisional ballots cast in Ohio, we won't know which candidate won Ohio for quite a while.

Additionally, as eyelessgame on dKos points out, the exit poll date does not match the vote results. For example, exit polls show that Ohio's voters were 53% female; of them, they split their votes for Bush and Kerry 50/50. Of the 47% of men who voted, 52% went for Bush. Yet the current voter totals show Bush with 51% of the popular vote in Ohio.

Why? GWBblows on dKos may have an anwser: Isn't it obvious it was Diebold?

02:15 Update - Just the clear up some confusion, I'm not actually in Cleveland. I'm in Cranston, RI, and listening to Air America Radio. Fuck Cleveland. :)

02:29 Update - The Kerry Campaign strikes back.

“The vote count in Ohio has not been completed. There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio.”

Kudos to Kerry for refusing to be placed on the defensive. Kerry, and everyone who supports him, will need to stay on the offensive - All the votes must be counted.

02:33 Update - With 97% of precincts reporting, Bush's lead has started to creep up again. But he only leads by 125,327 votes, which is well under the estimated 200,000 provisional ballots that have yet to be counted.

CNN maintains that Ohio is too close to call. CBS and ABC also refuse to call Ohio for Bush. Thank god some news organizations still have integrity.

03:11 Update - Well isn't this ironic: The Republicans (meaning Fox and those who cheer them on) favor calling Ohio for Bush even though 250,000 votes haven't been counted, including military votes. So much for supporting our troops!

03:34 Update - Even Fox accurately states that Kerry has gathered 242 electoral votes, but not NBC! They see no problem with calling Ohio for Bush, but refuse to call Minnesota and Michigan for Kerry. Fuckers.

03:52 Update - Holy shit! SuperMex at dKos found this story at AMERICAblog.

I just received a photo a Cincinnati poll manager took this evening, and it seems to be proof of some fishy actions with ballots in Ohio. Bottom line: Note the already-voted-with ballots in the back of the truck with the Bush-Cheney sticker in the back window. Does this prove fraud? Well, it certainly doesn't look good in a state that's already had lots of problems this election.

In a nutshell, Stefan Skirtz is a poll manager for the Kerry campaign in Cincinnati. His precinct is heavily made up of minorities and students (i.e., leans Kerry). One of the duties of the poll managers, Stefan told me in a phone call minutes ago, is to follow the poll workers to election headquarters as they drop off the ballots and ballot boxes. Stefan followed the poll workers who didn't go directly to the election headquarters. Instead, they went to a local public school where workers put the ballot machines into a semi trailer, and then the poll workers handed off the sealed bags containing the ballots to someone Stefan assumed was with the county board of elections.

The first problem he noticed was that there was no sign off of the transfer of the ballots. Nothing was written down and given to the poll worker as proof that the ballots were passed off to the county employee.

What's worse, Stefan noticed the pick-up truck of the supposed county board of election - the truck the ballots for 40 precincts were loaded into - had a big Bush-Cheney 2004 sticker in the back window. As Stefan explains it, the poll managers had such an extensive list of voters rights and regulations that they had to follow, including it being illegal to have any partisan buttons etc. in the polling place, yet the ballots for voters in over 40 precincts were put in the hands of Bush-Cheney partisans.

Unfuckingbelievable.

04:02 Update - AMERICAblog also reports "ABC News just reported at 3 in the morning that people are still lined up and voting in at least TWO precincts in Ohio -- including predominantly college students at one polling area." There was no link provided so I assume this report came from either ABC TV or radio. Searching for confirmation ... I wish I could read this Canton Repository story titled, "Voting goes on into Wednesday in Ohio," but they have registration and their servers haven't sent the confirmation email yet. But I think the headline alone serves as proof that Fox and NBC called Ohio while voters were still at the polls.

04:38 Update - I finally got registered on Canton Repository and read their story. I have mixed feelings about it this late voting situation now. While it's true that Fox and NBC called Ohio while people were still at the polls, we're not talking about thousands of voters getting shafted here. Their votes wouldn't put much of a dent in Bush's slim lead.

But other things in the article trouble me.

Paper ballots were delivered to speed things up, but lines remained more than five hours after polls closed in the battleground state. In other Ohio cities, people still in line at the 7:30 p.m. poll close also were allowed to vote.

This wasn't the only county paper ballots were passed out in. How many of these ballots were passed out? Have they been counted yet? My guess is that they haven't been counted and nobody's done an estimate on how many paper ballots there are.

And this passage puts the useage of provisional ballots into question.

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s most populous, the western Cleveland suburbs of Westlake, Lakewood and Rocky River all asked for and got extra voting machines to ease earlier hours’ long waits. [I'm assuming these are the white suburbs.]

Jocelyn Travis, coordinator for the nonpartisan Voter Protection Program in Ohio, said the group was worried some minority voters were unfairly forced to cast provisional ballots in Cleveland. Those are counted later if officials verify that the voter was legally registered and in the correct precinct.

For those who have read my replies to comments on this post, remember how I expressed that Kerry has a slim chance of winning Ohio with provisional votes, and I used the 50/50 argument? Well, as far as I'm corcerned, my argument is now moot -- I was wrong. I wrong to take into account how people who have to vote with provisional ballots will be predominately Democrat, and now we've learned that some minorities were being forced to vote provisionally because the state didn't supply their polling districts with an ample amount of voting machines.

Plus were don't know if the paper ballots handed out were counted.

This information greatly increases Kerry's chance to win Ohio, and thus the presidency.

[Just in case anyone asks, my source for vote statistics is CNN. Since the figures are constantly changing, I cannot provide a link.]