Laurence Tribe, constitutional scholar and Gore 2000 lawyer is on CNN. Provisional ballots are human beings who went to the polls and were told that their ballots would not be counted for some reason. Congress passed a law after 2000 and said these votes should be counted unless they were improperly cast, in other words, unless the voter was not really eligible to vote.

So it's not legal challenges as much as its about counting every ballot. Unless John Kerry wins after the provisional ballots are counted. Then the other expert, Boyden Gray, says Bush might sue to have the votes recounted.

[typo edited, incorrect "Bush lawyer" now changed to correct Gore lawyer.]

CNN just called Michigan and Minnesota and Hawaii for Kerry.

249 to 242-- 270 needed.

Wisconsin still out. That should go to Kerry.

Iowa and Ohio. A long ways to go.

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is on CNN and says the provisional ballots have not been counted and won't be counted for 11 days after the election. That's the law in Ohio. No totals for 11 days. The overseas ballots have not been counted either.The absentee ballots have been counted.

Blackwell agrees there could be 250,000 provisional ballots as the Kerry camp says. He won't estimate the number of military ballots.

92% of the vote is in, there is about a 100,000 vote lead for Bush. Blackwell says, if the number of votes that separates the candidates is less than the number of provisional ballots, everyone should take a deep breath. So, take a deep breath. Kerry is right to wait.

Ken Blackwell is one confident Secretary of State. Hope his star rises after this. Even though he's a Republican.

Washington State now in, 11 more electoral votes, CNN has it at 249 for Bush to 211 for Kerry.

The opera ain't over....from the Kerry campaign:

“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.”

Bring on the lawyers.

Update: Voting machines have broken down. New machines have been ordered. Absentee ballots are still coming in. Election worker fatigue dominates. They say they won't do any more until tomorrow.

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Iowa is reporting a tie so far. Nevada and Hawaii still up in the air, but Kerry is leading in both.

4 more votes for John Kerry. May not be enough to help. Unless there's a miscall in Florida or Ohio.

Wolf is reminding everyone about Dewey and Truman and all the other elections where people went to sleep thinking one person won and woke up in the morning and the other person won.

CNN disagrees with NBC about Ohio. Kerry thinks the provisional ballots can change things. They say there are 200,000 provisional ballots out there.

I don't get some of these calls. Colorado is called for Bush when Boulder County won't count its votes until tomorrow.

There are a million absentee ballots in Florida. Ohio's most democratic counties haven't been counted yet. Nor have the provisional ballots. Yet NBC called both states for Bush.

I'm dumping NBC, Tom Brokaw notwithstanding, and heading over to CNN.

NBC calls Ohio for Bush and puts him at 269 votes and says it's hard to see how he won't win.

Tim Russert is still talking about 2000.

The Ohio election website has 78% of Ohio's vote in with 51.65% for Bush and 47.86% for Kerry. As we mentioned a few posts ago, Ohio is reporting the outcome won't be known until 2 am.

Kerry gets Minnesota. Ohio results won't be known until 2 am.