Hard News: The Big 2012 US Election PAS Thread
389 Responses
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
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The HuffPo numbers are looking better now 61/49 to the O man. @ 2.00pm
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Miche Campbell, in reply to
I'm beginning to wonder what's going on with that map. They've coloured Oklahoma for Romney and given him the Electoral Votes, but they're at 0% reported.
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Maybe it exit-polling, or the AP calling it?
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
They’ve coloured Oklahoma for Romney and given him the Electoral Votes, but they’re at 0% reported.
Was just going to mention that myself.
I shall go digging. -
Andrew Geddis, in reply to
I’m beginning to wonder what’s going on with that map. They’ve coloured Oklahoma for Romney and given him the Electoral Votes, but they’re at 0% reported.
It's done on exit polling - the data from talking to people who've actually voted (as opposed to asking people how they plan to vote) is so overwhelmingly in favour of a candidate that you can predict the result without even counting a vote.
Note it is illegal to conduct such polls in NZ ... which means we don't know for sure how things will turn out until we see how they turn out.
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Except they’ve coloured in West Virgina wrong. The numbers say Obama is winning it, but they’ve coloured it Romney, and given Romney the Electoral Votes.
West Virginia has got Republican for the last three elections. And Romney is currently up 6% there. Solid republican territory these days.
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Romney wasn't the popular choice in Oklahoma, they preferred Santorum. Perhaps, with luck and a fair wind those that didn't want Romney will go to Obama... Tui moment.
eta now showing a 70-30 split to Romney. :-(
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Obama ahead in florida by 137,000 with 34% reported.
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I think I'm in love with Nate Silver.
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Looking at the results map I have noticed that those called for Romney tend to be the larger States whereas those called for Obama are smaller ones. It seems strange to me that the larger States can get their results in faster than small ones, I would have thought it the other way round. Any ideas?.
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Larger states do not necessarily correspond to larger populations. In NZ the rural polling booths come in with results a lot faster on election night. Could be the same effect.
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They're not final results, just the media calling it for a candidate. A bunch of these states are called at 20%, but you could have called them weeks ago with confidence. Ohio and Florida are big states, but they won't be called until some time close to actual results all being in (and even then that won't be final until they count specials).
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@Ross
Counter intuitive but true. -
Im finding this one is making more sense than the HuffPo one. Much clearer about % of vote counted & how much it matters.
http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/big-board/
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Also their vote counting is different. I think early votes can be counted on the day before polling finishes, and sent in as soon as the polls close. And then on the day voting can be counted once the polls close. Because lots of them are machine voting, often there's no counting, just a print out of results. As with many things, rules vary state to state, county to county.
Also, nuts that Californians get to sit and watch results out east and then decide if they're going to vote.
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Kyle Matthews, in reply to
Yeah, the Huffington post showed 2 million votes cast in Ohio, 1% reported a while ago. Not good maths.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Also, nuts that Californians get to sit and watch results out east and then decide if they’re going to vote.
I can't see how that is a bad thing. Surely it would just encourage people to vote?.
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Andrew Geddis, in reply to
Looking at the results map I have noticed that those called for Romney tend to be the larger States whereas those called for Obama are smaller ones.
Purely coincidental. Note that these calls are being made without any votes (or, only a small proportion) of votes being counted at all ... it's being done on exit poll information. It just so happens the states with data showing a certain Romney win are in the South/mid-West (which happen to be large geographically), while those for Obama are in the Northeast (which happen to be small).
Watch what happens when the polls close in California - the biggest state in the nation. It'll immediately get called for Obama.
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I’m guessing here. The larger States, with the exception of California of course, would tend to be more rural and that would help the Right who tend to find a support base amongst people that live under rocks. So early results would favour the toads.
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I can’t see how that is a bad thing. Surely it would just encourage people to vote?.
Everyone should be voting on the same basis with the same information. If Ohio gets called people could know the results before some polls close. If there's a battleground state out west, like Nevada that suddenly becomes irrelevant, them not voting might affect not just the presidential race, but also all the downticket races - senate, house etc.
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Everyone should be voting on the same basis with the same information.
It could affect votes for 3rd party candidates. If the results show that the presidential race has been fairly safely decided, then people may be more willing to vote for a 3rd party candidate to get them to a 5% threshold.
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Gareth Ward, in reply to
Also, nuts that Californians get to sit and watch results out east and then decide if they’re going to vote.
I can't see how that is a bad thing. Surely it would just encourage people to vote?.
Was it 2000 when CNN or someone called Florida early for Bush and they reckon a bunch of people out west decided not to vote? I don't know that changed the electoral college result for any other state but you could see how it might...
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Andrew Geddis, in reply to
Everyone should be voting on the same basis with the same information.
Which is why Canada has a law prohibiting the announcement of any election results until the polls close in British Columbia. Couldn't do it in the USA, but. That pesky 1st Amendment (as interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court, of course).
Plus, you have the Hawaii problem. Do you try and keep a lid on results until it closes its polls?
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David Hood, in reply to
Im finding this one is making more sense than the HuffPo one. Much clearer about % of vote counted & how much it matters.
I agree. I find that table display much easier to interpret than the map based ones I've seen.
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