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.

The post-Obama scene around the city, from Bill Turque in the Post. "For Sen. John McCain's backers, the evening was a more sobering affair. In a half-filled room at Westwood Country Club in Vienna, Republicans watching Fox News took the returns with stoicism and perspective....'What language do they speak in Kenya? Maybe I should get a book,' said Ed Sellman of Falls Church. 'I'd sure like to see his birth certificate.'" WaTimes local reax story; video from WTTG-TV, from WJLA/NC8, from WRC-TV, from WUSA-TV. The GW Hatchet blogged live from the local Dems' Madison Hotel party.

THE FLIP-SIDE—"Scores of oysters on the half shell were left to stew in their melted ice as supporters of Sen. John McCain streamed toward the exits at the Republican National Committee event at the Capitol Hilton in downtown DC. The seven piece pop band stopped playing just before the networks called the race for Sen. Barack Obama," reports WUSA-TV.

DCRA clerk accused of extorting cash "late fees" for elevator licenses. Ikela M. Dean "is accused of keeping money from such businesses and groups as the Omni Hotel, the Metropolitan Club of the City of Washington, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Association of Home Builders, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Ritz Carlton Hotel and Residences." Also Examiner story; AP story.

Richard Walters gets four years for helping sister Hariette in OTR tax scam, Examiner reports. Walters "has admitted to using his cut to finance a sultanic lifestyle. Under his plea agreement, he'll hand over a home in the U.S. Virgin Islands, two houses in Maryland, a 2005 Bentley and four other vehicles, jewelry, and cash in several bank accounts." Also WaPo story; AP story.

Harry Jaffe sticks up for erstwhile MPD homicide detective Michael Irving, who's about to be sentenced for a felony tax-fraud conviction.

Chilling, chilling story behind a Deanwood murder from Paul Duggan in WaPo Metro—about a guy trying a keep his life on the right track, working as a security guard, murdered in cold blood by a teenager. "Williams, without a word, squeezed the trigger once....'You shot me,' Harrell said, before he keeled over backward and lost consciousness. Standing frozen...he looked at Williams as the teenager glared at him, the gun at his side....'Now what's up?' said Williams." Truly a must-read.

Some ill-fated optimism from a local Repub.

More Rhee-as-SecEd chatter from the Chronicle of Higher Ed and Seldom Wrong, Never in Doubt

Anti-teacher-tenure op-ed from Manhattan Institute think-tanker in Wash Times.

UPDATE FROM YESTERDAY'S LLD—Person who was allegedly murdered in Permanent Supportive Housing is still alive, badly beaten.

Metro wants 648 new rail cars.

New Orleans citizen activist urges his city to follow Fenty on crime stats.

American Prospect writer describes her experience voting at Precinct 39 (Bell Multicultural HS). And here's another poll diary.

Here's one person who wrote Carol in.

Here's a ponderous D.C. Republican.

Fenty was at the Skins game Monday night, and this is what he told the WaTi's Thom Loverro: "I think about what it would be like to have a game like this in Washington...I think everyone knows that is going to take a lot of time to plan and to happen. The fans out here are great, but I think they would even have more energy in the city."

Blurry pic of Jim Graham at Target!!!

D.C. COUNCIL TODAY—10 a.m.: Committee on Public Works and the Environment hearing on Bill 17-982, Performance Parking Pilot Zone Amendment Act of 2008, JAWB 500.

ADRIAN FENTY TODAY—10:30 a.m.: remarks, DPR/OPEFM Memorandum of Understanding announcement, Bald Eagle Recreation Center, 100 Joliet St. SW; 12 p.m.: guest, The Politics Hour, The Kojo Nnamdi Show, WAMU 88.5 FM; 4:45 p.m.: remarks, Dog Park ribbon cutting, 2001 10th St. NW.

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."

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

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.

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.

Schwartz was joined by fellow Republican and friend Murray Belman, a Spring Valley resident, who signed up on Sunday to help Schwartz during election day. Umbrella in hand, he declared: "I don't care if it snowed, I'd come out for Carol."

Belman said he'd arrived at the precinct around 3 p.m. and that he'd "stay until his wife gets here, and tells him to go home."

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.

*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 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.

Based on what LL and others have seen at polling places so far, the mid-level turnout scenario looks most likely, with the high-turnout scenario not out of the question. It comes down to this: You get 40,000 votes, you probably win.

Some things to ponder:

• In her last three runs, Schwartz has garnered 73,668 (1996), 76,173 (2000), and 93,743 (2004) votes. If she can get half of her 2004 voters to write her in, she wins.
• Patrick Mara has been written off by some, but not so fast: There's precedent for a tyro carrying a strong Washington Post endorsement—10 years ago, Beverly Wilbourn was in a similar position, and she won about 12 percent of the vote. If Mara were to pull those numbers, he could get 40,000 to 45,000 votes and pull this off. Two things working against him: Wilbourn was a black independent; Mara's white, and he's a Republican.
• There's a number of possible oddities that could have small but significant effects on the vote: Will Schwartz voters, baffled by her omission from their ballots, vote for Schwartzman instead? Will Michael Brown pick off Schwartz's base of older black women? Will the Kwame Brown/Michael Brown factor be enough to put Michael Brown over the top? There's 30,000 registered Republicans in the city—will their split cost either Schwartz or Mara the election?
  Long story short: Michael Brown still has the clearest path to victory—through the blunt force of robocalling and flyering his way to 40,000 votes—but Schwartz and Mara are by no means out of it.