The 19.5 million shares is the guess on how many shares are going to be registered in the possible S-3. The amount of shares that are being shorted are more likely to be in the 5 - 9 million range. This of course is only a guess. It is very unlikely that more than 10 million shares would be shorted by the convertible investors. IMO.
sricket - yes once the pfd shares are issued then converted to common stock they can be in the float that you and I have access to but this can only happen if the pfd shareholder sells his common stock after conversion making those shares a part of the public float