Fox News commentator Karl Rove took issue late Tuesday night with his own network, saying it is too early to call Ohio for President Barack Obama over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
“You’ve got to be careful about calling things when there’s 991 votes separating the candidates,” Rove said.
Fox called the vital swing state and its 18 for President Obama at about 11:12 p.m. ET, although over 20 percent of the vote had not yet been reported and only a few thousand votes separated the two candidates.
“Do you believe Ohio has been settled?” Fox host Chris Wallace asked Rove a few minutes later.
“No I don’t,” Rove replied. “Look, if we are calling it on the basis of 74 percent of the vote being in, and when 77 percent is in … this went from being when we started this conversation three or four minutes ago 1,995 vote margin for Obama, to 991.”
Rove added that the remaining 23 percent of the vote that is outstanding in Ohio is located in both Democratic and Republican regions.
“I think this is premature…” Rove said, adding that he isn’t saying Romney will ultimately prevail, but that in his opinion it is too early to call the race for Obama.
Former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell tells Newsmax he believes the margin in Ohio may be less than the nearly 200,000 provisional ballots that are expected in the race. If that’s the case, he tells Newsmax, Ohio would delay reporting its final outcome until the provisional ballots could be verified and counted.
“It probably was a rush to make a call based on their understanding of trends,” Blackwell tells Newsmax. “… but based on what I know about Cuyahoga county, it was probably premature but probably not the wrong.”
Provisional ballots are cast when a voter’s eligibility is called into question at the polls. By law, Ohio does not open or review those ballots until 10 days after the election, opening the door to what could be perceived as a major political snafu.
Former Bush adviser Brad Blakeman tells Newsmax he agrees the projection Obama would win was premature.
“The Secretary of State in Ohio is saying that the call is premature,” he said. The race in Ohio is too close to call. Half of Hamilton County is still reporting as are other county's. We have seen bad early calls before. A race to finality is not necessarily right with less than 1000 votes Romney and Obama.”
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