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Good morning, all. This edition of LL Daily is for all those folks who want to pretend like they care about local politics today.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---LL and the rest of City Paper's Election Day and Night coverage

Voters say goodbye to Carol Schwartz after four council terms, and put Michael Brown in the non-Democratic at-large seat. Nikita Stewart called the race for Michael Brown in a Web story posted at 2:28 a.m.: "With all precincts reporting in unofficial results, Kwame Brown far outpaced his opponents, garnering about 48 percent of the vote. Michael Brown came in a solid second with nearly 20 percent, or 62,023, compared with the 34,219 write-in votes that appeared to be cast for Schwartz." Late comment from M. Brown: "I think our message was right at the right time. I think we outworked everybody. We had a very good campaign, and I learned a lot from the other campaigns...I think it's paying off." Other stories from Biz Journal, WashTimes, WJLA/NC8, WTOP.

ALREADY---LL is annoyed he's going to have to type out Kwame Brown and Michael Brown's full names for the next four years.

WaPo rounds up the school board races.

THE BIGGEST SURPRISE OF THE NIGHT? Is it Dorothy Douglas taking the Ward 7 school board seat? Or is it that Leroy Thorpe will no longer have a stranglehold on ANC 2C? More on that later from LL.

Read More "Loose Lips Daily" »

Preliminary stuff: This report is based on 20 of 143 precincts.

D.C. At-Large Race:

Kwame Brown: 46.7 percent
Michael A. Brown: 19.4 percent
Patrick Mara: 12.6 percent
Write-ins: 10.6 percent
Mark Long: 3.5 percent
David Schwartzman: 5.2 percent
Dee Hunter: 2.1 percent

On the late results: Mary Cheh, Ward 3 councilmember and general oversight hawk, slammed the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics for taking it slow on the results. The board, says Cheh, was "overcautious." Board staffers, reports Cheh, took a long time to read the digital cartridges with vote tallies and then spent more than an hour reading over the numbers. "I went back there and told them this was getting to be ridiculous. Where are the results?"

UPDATE: Schwartz has left her campaign party, headed home for bed. That doesn't constitute a concession, she says. "I feel better now than I did after the primary. This was a more energizing effort."

The D.C. elections board is taking its time in releasing returns, and general election revelry is the casualty. Take the election celebration of longtime at-large councilmember and write-in candidate Carol Schwartz. Supporters have been filing out of the party at campaign HQ at 12th and U Streets NW, reducing the crowd to a sparse 20 or so as of 10:30 pm. At the moment, Carol herself is hanging out with council colleague Phil Mendelson. When asked if tonight was a good night to be a Republican, Schwartz responded, "I don't think so, but I hope it is for this Republican."

No word yet on how Schwartz did in today's race.

Loose Lips managed to get through to D.C. elections board spokesperson Dan Murphy, with a simple question about when the city's election results will be ready:

The response: "I'm not giving an ETA, but I'm hoping that it's gonna be real, real soon."

The elections board, given recent fiascoes in dealing with election results, has decided to take it slowly tonight, favoring accuracy over speed.

Along with Phinis Jones at Players Lounge.

A couple of observations on the key race of the night--the at-large D.C. Council contest, that is.

Courtesy of Loose Lips Columnist Mike DeBonis.

*The rush happened in the morning, not in the evening. Around the city, not unlike other places, everyone absolutely inundated polling places in the day's early hours. Apparently they just couldn't wait, and night turnout was light.

*Michael A. Brown, at-large candidate, organized an extensive ground game in east-of-the-river precincts but was a little less prepared in western parts of the city. Brown had guys "toughing it out with ponchos" in Ward 7, says LL. Write-in candidate and incumbent Carol Schwartz, meanwhile, appeared to have the opposite strategy--heavier in the city's western reaches and not so much east of the river.

Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander kisses cutout of At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown at Precinct 110.

From left to right: Murray Belman and James Lowe at Horace Mann Elementary School in Wesley Heights.

James Lowe is here 'til the end. The Wesley Heights resident arrived at Horace Mann Elementary School, just west of American University, at roughly 3:15 p.m. and plans to leave when the polls close at 8 p.m. His mission: get Carol Schwartz elected. His tools: this little stack of glossy, yellow, instructional papers with Carol Schwartz posing in her classic cheetah necklace. Someone dropped them off at his house yesterday afternoon.

But, this isn't the first time Lowe has come out to support Schwartz. Lowe says he has known Schwartz for roughly twenty years through participating in the Republican political scene in D.C. He helped fundraise for the candidate in late summer and early fall, and his daughter, in her late 30s, was at the polling place earlier that day. Lowe said he estimated there were five people total that had shown up throughout the day to help get Schwartz elected. Hey, anything for the candidate "that holds people's feet to the fire more than anyone else in the Council," he says.

"You're from the City Paper?" he asked after I introduced myself.

Right, I said.

He brightened a bit. "Loose Lips endorsed Carol," he said.

Indeed. Liberal leanings were forgotten---City Paper was embraced. Read More "The Schwartz Machine" »

The context: Carol Schwartz's effort to get out the write-in vote in today's elections--a funding-intensive undertaking.

The Number: Around $8,000

The Implications: Over the past several days, the Schwartz campaign has sent three so-called "24-hour" campaign finance reports to D.C. authorities. The reports turn up, well, not quite a frenzy of fundraising activity--about $8,000 worth--in the final hours of the longtime councilmember's write-in campaign. Notable among the contributors to Schwartz's Hail Mary is Jeffrey Thompson of the ubiquitous D.C. gov contractor Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio & Associates as well as the firm itself; both chipped in with donations of $500.

More updates on Schwartz's funding to come.

The scene outside precinct 16--at 15th and R Streets NW--just before noon today:

*Rep for Jack Evans? Check.

*Rep for Patrick Mara? Check.

*Rep for Michael A. Brown? Check.

*Rep for Kwame Brown? Check.

*Rep for Carol Schwartz? Nowhere in sight.

And that's a huge problem for a candidate who's running a write-in campaign. Think of the scenario: The average voter (AV) heads to the voting precinct and gets greeted by all kinds of reps. The AV may spy a sign advertising Carol's write-in campaign. But no one's shouting in the ear of the AV, saying, Hey, write in Carol on the ballot. Make good use of that pencil! So then the AV heads into the polling place, takes the ballot and starts connecting arrows all over the place. Since the AV is not necessarily a sophisticated voter (SV), he or she may not even know beforehand that you can cast two votes in the at-large race, in which Schwartz is competing against a large field.

So what's the chance that the AV is going to actually write Carol in? Not high. Perhaps the SV is a better bet for the Schwartz campaign, but not the AV.

Some reports are starting to filter in from our field correspondents, and it seems that the absence of Carol reps at voting sites may be a wider problem. One reporter says that two other high-turnout precincts in Northwest had no flesh-and-blood Carol presence. More to come.

LL's been crunching the numbers all night, trying to figure out whether Carol Schwartz and Patrick Mara have a shot to upend Michael A. Brown for the non-Democratic at-large seat.

LL has come up with three scenarios, based on the level of turnout.

All are based on some assumptions: (1) that undervoting (not casting one or both of your two at-large votes) increases as turnout increases---this is based both on historical performance and the idea that more informed voters are more likely to vote; (2) that Kwame Brown will take 55 percent of the total number of at-large votes---that's based on historical performance and Brown's strong campaign this year; (3) that David Schwartzman will take about 7 percent of the vote---based on typical Statehood Green performance since 1996, with recent trends taken into account; and (4) that Dee Hunter and Mark Long together will take about 9 percent of the vote---this is admittedly a seat-of-the-pants figure from LL, based on the historical performance of similar challengers.

1. Turnout matches the 2004 general election, when there was about 60 percent turnout. If that's the case, and the same rate of undervoting holds, then about 335,000 votes will be cast for at-large candidates. Given the assumptions above, LL projects that the Three Contenders would split 95,000 votes. As few as 32,000 votes (9.6%) could win the race; 38,000 would represent a "safe" 40 percent showing among the three.
2. Turnout slightly increases over 2004, with about 65 percent showing up. In that case, the proportion of undervotes will increase slightly, leaving about 355,000 at-large votes. LL projects that the Three Contenders would split 101,000 votes. As few as 34,000 votes (9.6%) could win the race; 41,000 would represent a "safe" 40 percent showing among the three.
3. Turnout is massive, hitting 300,000 raw votes and a 70 percent turnout. In such a case, undervoting is likely to be much more common, but 375,000 votes will likely be cast for at-large seats. LL projects that the Three Contenders would split 105,000 votes. As few as 35,000 votes (9.3%) could win the race; 42,000 would represent a "safe" 40 percent showing among the three.

Read More "LL Analyzes the At-Large Race: First to 40,000 Wins" »