Several developments from around the globe in the past week have apparently buoyed New York’s Olympic hopes. But have the voters of the International Olympic Committee noticed?

First, from New York, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s vote in favor of the new stadium for the New York Jets and potentially the 2012 Olympics triggered a sigh of relief from NYC2012 that was probably heard as far away as Paris, where another bid team was nervously glancing over its shoulder. Although the announcement was no great surprise, NYC2012 can transfer its focus from the stadium issue to more productive lobbying as Election Day approaches. Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s past comments, getting shovels in the ground before July 6 won’t be necessary to enhance the city’s chances of winning the Games. Many cities have won bids by merely designing and winning approval of a proposed Olympic stadium, with construction contingent on being selected as host of the Games. The simple approval will satisfy the needs of the IOC.

From Brisbane, Australia, where the five Olympic hopefuls were making presentations during the weekend to the Oceania National Olympic Committees General Assembly, Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, fielding questions from reporters regarding the role of sympathy in strengthening New York’s bid, said the city does not want sympathy, preferring to have New York win the 2012 Games on its merits.

The day after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the mayor of Rome – which was then considering a 2012 bid – proposed that competing cities agree to withdraw from the race and concede it to New York, as a show of support. Since then, two of New York’s competitors have also suffered at the hands of terrorists. When Chechen rebels invaded a Moscow theater and when train bombings hit Madrid, however, published reports cited those attacks as evidence of poor security and blows to the two cities’ Olympic bids.

Meanwhile, from IOC headquarters at Lausanne, Switzerland, an apparent leak of the draft version of the evaluation report has many news outlets proclaiming that the race is down to three: Paris, London, and New York. Later, the IOC released a statement denying those reports and calling them “purely speculative.”

In any event, observers must proceed with caution. While the leaked document is credible – it has always been a challenge for the IOC to keep its secrets – the assumption that its contents can affect the race significantly is not. In the campaign for the 2008 Games, the evaluation report clearly relegated Beijing’s bid to third place. At the end, with the IOC’s then-president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, it was the Chinese capital that received the votes needed to win. And by the way, Mr. Samaranch supports Madrid this time around.

Then there are claims from the bidders themselves.

From London, Mayor Ken Livingstone suggested that his city is catching up to Paris because he has already counted 25 votes for his bid with 30 or 40 delegates yet to decide, and further suggests Paris will receive 30 votes “at most.”

From Madrid, bid insiders reportedly expect between 32 and 37 votes in the first round, based on their informal polls.

According to those claims, New York could probably expect close to 100 votes cast for London, Paris, and Madrid combined. Considering that there will only be around 100 votes cast in total in the first round, you would think that NYC2012 and officials in Moscow would be horrified at the prospect of being completely shut out in the election.

Obviously, that won’t happen. It’s common for bid committees to send in their experts to gauge support in the course of the campaign, but in the IOC world of secret ballots and tit-for-tat the totals are not reliable indicators. It’s important to remember that the winning bid will be elected by a small group of IOC members scattered throughout the world, most of whom do not communicate directly with journalists. Reports from experts and observations from others create popular perceptions of the bid, but in many cases they do not reflect reality.

In that respect, an Olympic bid isn’t much different from other large-scale project bids – such as the battle between the Jets and Madison Square Garden for rail-yard development rights.

Mr. Livingstone is the producer of GamesBids.com.