Obama won! Now what?

[poltr1]

Now that the election is over, and the results have been announced, it's time to heal the huge rift between the left and the right, and unite as Americans. This won't be easy to do -- it never is. We need to find the common ground that unites us.

I know that not all Republicans are bad. I just have issues with the party itself and the far-right wing of the party. I should spend some time looking at, and articulating, these issues. I'll save that for a future post. I should do the same with the far-left wing of the Democratic party.

For the first time in my life, I voted for the winning Presidential candidate. I'm content.


But first, I need to say something about the election results. What's announced on the news on election night is based on preliminary figures -- exit polls, early voting, etc. I didn't leave the polling place until around 9 pm last night. That's the time our ballots went with the presiding judges to the county board of elections for tabulation. We didn't have any scouts or newsies asking us for preliminary figures. So I was surprised to hear that Obama was the projected winner in Ohio an hour after I got home. They couldn't have tabulated the votes that quickly.

Comments

[dragon-pet.livejournal.com]

Yes it was exit polls and early voting that they used to judge how the state was going to go. For the most part it is a fairly valid way to judge.


McCain knew how it was going down and accepted his fate in a gracious way. He knew the numbers as well.

[ladysoapmaker.livejournal.com]

Trust me I understand. I was a presiding judge. I got my ballots in around 10p after sitting in line waiting for 30 minutes for the cars in front of me to be unloaded. I was hoping Greene would swing for Obama but there are just too many old and/or fundamentalist republican voters here. and the Cedarville University had all there students register in Greene County. I wonder how many of them also voted in there home counties.

[owlsforodin.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, there's an economic incentive to the first to report the news. That how come, in 2000, some states were initially reported as one way swung the other afterward. Pennsylvania in 2000 comes to mind rather quickly as an example.

That said, it is interesting how they can definitively call a state without all the votes talled. However, it is statistically valid that if votes are weighted a certain amount in a particular candidates favor and a certain percentage of the votes are counted, it is reasonable to say that the rest of votes won't overcome that. I don't know the exact numbers that are used, but I would imagine that the predictors are updated every election to avoid publicly embarassing moments.