It ain’t over when it’s over.

One of Nebraska’s five presidential electoral votes remained undetermined Wednesday pending post-election counting of absentee and provisional votes.

John McCain led Barack Obama by 569 votes in metropolitan Omaha’s 2nd Congressional District after more than 250,000 ballots had been counted.

But there are an estimated 9,000 ballots yet to be counted in Douglas County, according to Neal Erickson, deputy secretary of state for elections.

“We probably won’t know the winner until next week,” Erickson said Wednesday.

The 2nd District is composed of Douglas County and portions of Sarpy County, including Bellevue, Papillion and LaVista.

Nebraska allocates one of its five electoral votes to the winner of each of the state’s three congressional districts.  The other two votes go to the statewide victor.

McCain won both the 1st and 3rd Districts along with the statewide vote.

Here are the results:

1st District: McCain, 146,140; Obama, 118,588.

2nd District: McCain, 126,303; Obama, 125,734.

3rd District: McCain, 167,212; Obama, 71,867.

Statewide: McCain, 439,665; Obama, 316,189.

Democrats have not won a presidential electoral vote in Nebraska since 1964, when they all were awarded to the statewide winner at the time.

Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater in Nebraska 44 years ago.

The Obama campaign targeted the Omaha district for a possible breakthrough electoral vote, placing a field operation on the ground to register new voters and mount an early voter campaign.

The 2nd District electoral vote is of no consequence in the presidential race now since Obama racked up a huge Electoral College victory on Election Day.

But Nebraska Democrats view a possible Obama victory in the district as a breakthrough party-building event.

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.