I'm confused about the election yet need answers?

Obama got the electoral votes and won those.
However most states only have between like 16% and 96% of votes in. Alaska hasn't a single vote in yet.

So what if those votes all shoot Romney up huge? Does he then win?
or does Obama automatically win because of the electoral votes?

reply to post by sarra1833


It won't. When the media projects something like this, it becomes true.

But I mean how does it work? Is it the votes or the electoral votes that make the winner legit? Some things about politics I really don't know much about. I know how to vote with my conscience and make good decisions, but the things like this, I have no clue.

Think about this...

Do you actually think that your vote really matters?

Being Canadian, I truly wished we gathered and cared as much as Americans do about who gets into office, I mean truly, you get together and cheer and scream and spend millions of dollars on campaigns ads and the whole whoopla when your country is in debt up to its ears, just to elect another government that will rip you off at every chance they get. Think about that. You truly are one of a kind.


But to answer your question, a seemingly small state in size, could have large amounts of population,even though they may seem small in size the vote in that state could out weight a larger state with a lower voting turnout. So while the POPULAR VOTE (which actually has Romney ahead right now) states one thing, it means nothing as the Electoral vote is what matters. Go back to 2000 When Gore was ahead in the POPULAR VOTE ( He was leading that vote by a landslide, and Bush ended up winning), for proof to my statement.

reply to post by sarra1833


The Electoral College elects the POTUS. The popular vote is sort of an illusion. It's uncommon, however, that the two differ.

~Heff

reply to post by sarra1833


If you look to the past you'll find that there have been several elections where the popular vote did not match the electoral vote. The electoral vote has always determined the winner.

The main reason is that we are not a "direct" democracy. We were never meant to be. We're a "representative" democracy; the electoral voters are our representatives in this instance.

The cynic in me insists that TPTB only allow us a "popular" vote to make us think that we have some degree of choice. In fact we do have a choice: Between the two clowns that we're presented with every 4 years...

Go to CNN right now....


It shows a MAP of the USA, the whole thing is lit up in RED (Romney), with a slight exception as the amount of Blue (Obama) and a tiny amount of Yellow (undecided) are visible. Yet Obama has the Projection.

Remember everyone is going nuts right now because of CNN's PROJECTION, it is in no way the final outcome.

But Go Obama.

He did his best, with the s h ! t storm he inherited. I mean really how could anyone do any better than he did? Theres no way to know, all the naysayers can argue all they want, but he did a tremendous job for your country.

Unlike Donald Trump who like a twat gave up from the beginning and then had the audacity to tweet a few moments ago that Obama's Projection was the greatest injustice of all.

In fact I'll 1-Up Colbert and call Donald trump out and say to Donald, if you put My ballsac in your mouth and gargle for 2 minutes I'll personally shake your hand like a real man.

Thanks a LOT everyone. This really helped me out a ton.

I did vote Obama in 08, but this time put my vote toward Gary to help him get that 5% so we could finally have a 3rd party raised to the '''upper tier'''' of the Rep/Dem. I don't know if he got it though, but I feel that is something we need - other parties who will not be shunned and are for the people.

Love to all.

I think your president did an amazing job with his first 4 years.

Btw, if that is a picture of you, your face is stunning.

Hi Sarra,

I don't think anyone answered your question proper. When a projected winner is given before the votes are counted, it's based on statistical models/how many precincts have submitted vote data in historically GOP or Dem areas.

There are margins of errors in the models they are confident in. As an extreme example, if I told you I had 50 people in a random pool, and I started asking them if they like puppies, if the first 24 said they like puppies, you can be very confident that the majority will like puppies before asking everyone.

They basically only call something when the math is stronger than the fear of misreporting something, which looks very bad for their media outlet after the fact if they end up wrong.

And yes, electoral votes determine the president. Presidents have been elected with a minority vote (but an electoral college vote majority). How many electoral votes a state gets is worth reading up on, I forget the exact details, but obviously they don't scale exactly linearly with population or what I described in this paragraph could never happen.