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 Peregrine wrote:

 Testify wrote:
...I have no idea why elections are declared before they've even counted the votes.

Because once you get a representative sample it's pretty easy to predict with overwhelming confidence which way the election as a whole is going. For example, an extremely conservative state can be called for Romney as soon as the polls close, even if only 0.0001% of the vote has been officially counted (and only waiting that long because there's a policy of not doing it any sooner). Or, if the current count shows 55% Obama 45% Romney with 30% of the vote counted it's safe to say Obama is going to win if the remaining 70% consists mostly of districts that always favor democrats. Sure, there's a tiny chance that the early call could be wrong, but we're talking about unofficial statements by the media, not binding legal declarations by the government, so they can afford to accept a 1% chance of being wrong.

They are waiting until polls are closed at least. I think in 2000 they called Florida when they were still voting in the panhandle and there were arguments that because it was called early some voters stayed home, which could have affected a close race there.

 Archaeo wrote:
Personally I liked where a couple of states were given to Obama with 0 votes for either candidate.

Just like states were given to Romney with 0 votes. When you have a state where there's a 99.9999999999% chance that the winner will be a particular candidate of course the media is going to call it as soon as the polls close.

Texas being a shining example. The universe will probably suffer heat death before Texas goes Democrat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or Maryland for Dems really.

 DIDM wrote:
Mormanism should really make everyone second guess religion

I see nothing more ridiculous about Mormonism than any other religion, belief in the tooth fairy, etc.

But i don't want to pull things off topic so if you'd like to discuss feel free to send me a pm.


I'm sitting up watching the live coverage but i really need to sleep, think i'll leave it on as background noise and sleep in the living room.

 DIDM wrote:

it will take a month for NY votes to be figured out alone

Get more vote counters.

 Testify wrote:

 DIDM wrote:

it will take a month for NY votes to be figured out alone

Get more vote counters.

They used oversized punch cards that look like the scantrons for grade school.

Seriously, it was as long as my arm.

This will take a month....

Already called NY

 WarOne wrote:

 Testify wrote:

 DIDM wrote:

it will take a month for NY votes to be figured out alone

Get more vote counters.

They used oversized punch cards that look like the scantrons for grade school.

Seriously, it was as long as my arm.

This will take a month....

Funny thing is if i remember the voting process took place in a grade school for us.

Everything is going pretty much as predicted, and with Ohio showing strong returns for Obama, the election is pretty much all sewn up.

Only thing a bit off from the predictions is Virginia, which is going far more strongly for Romney than expected. That might even up as more of the vote is counted however.

Meanwhile, just as predicted, Florida is almost exactly tied, only 2000 votes between the candidates at the moment. Luckily, the election almost certainly won't depend on it, so it won't be 2000 all over again.

 Testify wrote:

 DIDM wrote:

it will take a month for NY votes to be figured out alone

Get more vote counters.

Or don't bother the City counteracts pretty much the rest of the state's vote anyway, so just count the votes from NYC.

I just saw a Republican strategist for the state get apoplectic because his party voted out an old school Republican in the primaries for a Tea Party candidate, only to have him lose to a Democrat that the original Republican would have walked all over.

Interesting, BBC has been behind the whole time yet now has Minnesota for Obama before NBC and Fox. Isn't that odd?

 Ouze wrote:
If you guys want to watch it in realtime, it looks like FNC has a pretty good realtime dashboard here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-election-results

NBC and CNN have similar, but less excellent, versions of the same. I found this was the case in 2010 and 2008 as well. What Fox lacks in reporting they make up for in coding.

Their layout is great but their calls are the same old FOX, unfortunately.

I mean, right now they've called Montana for Romney, with a whopping 0% of the vote counted. Now fair enough you might say, Montana is always going to Romney. But then California and Washington are always going to go to Obama, but neither of those have been called...

That said, I'm still using it because they seem to be updating faster than anyone else when it comes to Ohio and Florida.

 Ahtman wrote:
I just saw a Republican strategist for the state get apoplectic because his party voted out an old school Republican in the primaries for a Tea Party candidate, only to have him lose to a Democrat that the original Republican would have walked all over.

Dick Luger had served Indiana for 30+ years as a republican. He was ousted during the primaries by Mourdock of "rape babies are god's willl" fame, and then Mourdock is heavily projected to lose to Donneley.

So it looks like Obama is gonna win.

I personally look forward to four more years of godless Obamunism.

 sebster wrote:
Their layout is great but their calls are the same old FOX, unfortunately.

I mean, right now they've called Montana for Romney, with a whopping 0% of the vote counted. Now fair enough you might say, Montana is always going to Romney. But then California and Washington are always going to go to Obama, but neither of those have been called...

I believe that's because Montana's polls have closed, but neither California nor Washington's have.

 Ouze wrote:
I believe that's because Montana's polls have closed, but neither California nor Washington's have.

Ah, of course. My bad, and my apologies to Rupert Murdoch and the greater FOX news corporation, should they be reading this.

 LoneLictor wrote:
So it looks like Obama is gonna win.

I personally look forward to four more years of godless Obamunism.

I'm going to use that to troll my friend who supports Obama, even though he can't vote on it.

motyak wrote:

LoneLictor wrote:So it looks like Obama is gonna win.

I personally look forward to four more years of godless Obamunism.

I'm going to use that to troll my friend who supports Obama, even though he can't vote on it.

Be careful! If you troll him, he might try to take your guns away and give them to the UN!

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
So why the lack of proper reporting and accurate commentary?

Because reporting accurately doesn't generate interest. If the headline week after week was "Obama still likely to win, Romney still the worst candidate ever" attention drops, and advertising income goes with it. On the other hand reporting it as "CLOSEST RACE EVER KEEP WATCHING OUR NEWS SO YOU DON'T MISS ANYTHING" is more likely to keep everyone's attention, and then you add in the effect of 24/7 news making it mandatory to have a "close race" just so the 24/7 news shows have something to talk about.

Never forget the shambles that was the 2000 election though. There the pressure was to be the first to call the race, and the result was several news sites calling it for Gore long before the thing was really over. I think news sites are still a little gunshy over that.

 streamdragon wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I just saw a Republican strategist for the state get apoplectic because his party voted out an old school Republican in the primaries for a Tea Party candidate, only to have him lose to a Democrat that the original Republican would have walked all over.

Dick Luger had served Indiana for 30+ years as a republican. He was ousted during the primaries by Mourdock of "rape babies are god's willl" fame, and then Mourdock is heavily projected to lose to Donneley.

That is the race I am referring to. It was one of the local channels and they had a rep for each party and when they called it for Donnely the Republican strategist looked visibly uncomfortable, and his face was red, but it seemed more like he was more angry at the party than anything else and was going on about how the Republicans had taken good seats in the Senate and just thrown them in the trashcan (or ashcan). I imagine he was probably a Lugar supporter in the primaries.

 Ahtman wrote:
I just saw a Republican strategist for the state get apoplectic because his party voted out an old school Republican in the primaries for a Tea Party candidate, only to have him lose to a Democrat that the original Republican would have walked all over.

The only thing that kept the senate in Democratic hands in 2010 was the Tea Party crazies that the Republican Party put up, and it looks like that is going to be the case again.

It really opens up the door on asking if the Tea Party is a good thing or a bad thing for the Republicans.

Every day Harry Reid gets up, he thinks about the Tea Party and smiles.

 LoneLictor wrote:

motyak wrote:

LoneLictor wrote:So it looks like Obama is gonna win.

I personally look forward to four more years of godless Obamunism.

I'm going to use that to troll my friend who supports Obama, even though he can't vote on it.

Be careful! If you troll him, he might try to take your guns away and give them to the UN!

All those guns us Aussies have easy access to. Giddamn 'bama gon take mah gurns.

 sebster wrote:

It really opens up the door on asking if the Tea Party is a good thing or a bad thing for the Republicans.

There's a question about that?

sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I believe that's because Montana's polls have closed, but neither California nor Washington's have.

Ah, of course. My bad, and my apologies to Rupert Murdoch and the greater FOX news corporation, should they be reading this.

You shouldn't, they shouldn't call MT without counting it. It's actually a purple state. In the grand scheme it's 3 EV don't change a thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It seems likely at this point Obama will unsurprisingly win the EV by a large margin, but surprising to me is how far ahead (obviously early in the night with Cali not in with it's 10M+ votes) Romney is in the popular vote. If memory serves in 2000 the margin between bush and Gore was like 500,000. Before they went to commericial I saw CBS carrying Mittens at 1.5 to as much as 2m ahead of Barry.
No matter what the outcome Id like to see what the map would look like if all the states went to a proportional system by district like I believe Nebraska has. I like the EC but I think that the winner take all system needs to be dumped in favor of a proportional system so candidates have to go to places like California and campaign.

 Ahtman wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I just saw a Republican strategist for the state get apoplectic because his party voted out an old school Republican in the primaries for a Tea Party candidate, only to have him lose to a Democrat that the original Republican would have walked all over.

Dick Luger had served Indiana for 30+ years as a republican. He was ousted during the primaries by Mourdock of "rape babies are god's willl" fame, and then Mourdock is heavily projected to lose to Donneley.

That is the race I am referring to. It was one of the local channels and they had a rep for each party and when they called it for Donnely the Republican strategist looked visibly uncomfortable, and his face was red, but it seemed more like he was more angry at the party than anything else and was going on about how the Republicans had taken good seats in the Senate and just thrown them in the trashcan (or ashcan). I imagine he was probably a Lugar supporter in the primaries.

Yeah, I just wanted to put names to what you were talking about. According to one of the news programs I've been flipping back and forth between, a lot of exit poll commenters mentioned that they would have voted Lugar.

My thought was, "Well then why the frell didn't you vote for him in the primaries?" I'm sure some did, don't get me wrong, but frankly any state getting its t-bag kicked in deserves it.

NBC calls Ohio for Obama.

Nvm clearly I'm on a delay.

Oops.


Haha...