Courtesy of Google Gadgets, here’s a little election-tracking widget. I’m posting this more for my own edification than anything. All of the other sites and widgets are painfully slow to load.
Kris and I are hosting a small election party, and I’m not finished writing for tomorrow. The morning post may become a mid-morning post!
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I am stuck at work until 8 in the morning. I think the best part of this election is going to be the end of it. The media has been forcing it on us for 2 years. Anyways have a good party and I hope you post by the time I wake up in the afternoon. Keep up the good work.
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I am sticking to the news and it looks like Obama will be the next President.
Cheers,
A Dawn Journal
http://www.adawnjournal.com
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Haha. I can’t even get my map to load! So much for circumventing the other news sites.
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Sadly, the election is just the start of my pain and misery. My mom has a massive crush on Barack Obama. Yeah, he’s the same age as my brother. No, that’s not weird at all.
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I still don’t get how they can “call” a state with only 10% of precincts reporting. I think I’ll just wait until the morning!
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It’s over.
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The electoral college has been obsolete for decades by now, and I think the only reason they keep it around is so that CNN, Fox and others have something to do every 4 years. Think about it…if it were only popular vote they’d be at home drinking with the rest of us. Anyway, congrats Obama on winning, congrats McCain on such a respectful speech, and here’s to the next four years America, cheers!
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Well, Jason, since the Electoral College is included in the US Constitution, I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon. The Founding Dads thought it necessary to protect the population from themselves, and I can’t say I blame them.
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Woot! Congratulations, all you Americans!
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slowth,
While the reason you give for the existence of the electoral college is partially correct that rationale was long ago made obsolete when states started directing their electors to vote according to the popular vote within a state. The secondary purpose for the electoral college was to inhibit the populous states from dominating the less populous states. The electoral college still serves that purpose, but that can be changed without a constitutional amendment. The constitution doesn’t dictate how the states allocate their electors. There is a movement in some states to form a union of states that agree to allocate their electors according to the national popular vote, turning the presidential election into a pure democracy.
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I am just glad.I wanted to help so I gave money-more than I have ever given to any other campaign, phonebanked(with which I am not comfortable) and worked outside a poll in Virginia for 7 hours yesterday- standing all the time(except 2 bathroom breaks), in the rain some of the time. Yes, at the end, my feet were wet, my left leg and right hip ached. Today, I celebrate our new President, Barack Hussein Obama.
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I woke up this morning proud to be an American again. Congratulations to our new President, Barack Obama!
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A wonderful time for Americans with this new leader!
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I don’t get all the congratulations and joy about electing a president. it happens every four years. i had tons of people from different countries tonight congratulate me on our new president, and i’m thinking why are they congratulating us and me thanking them? how weird? that’s just me though.
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I received lots of congratulations here from all over the globe, too…and last night in Times Square, it felt like New Year’s Eve. To not understand the uniqueness of this election is to lack a certain measuring stick, and a good dose of empathy.
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@ Jonathan: Your answer lies in population density. If those 10% of districts are inhabited by a clear majority of the state’s population, then they can safely call it.
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Well assoon as the news came out that Obama was the projected president-elect, I grabbed screenshots from as many news sites as I could think of. I made a montage of all these screengrabs for those who might have gone to bed early. The full screengrabs are also available for anyone interested. http://www.russellheimlich.com/blog/screenshots-of-news-sites-on-election-night/
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@Jonathan,
They also base it on exit polling. The networks called the race at precisely 8 pm PST, just as West coast polls closed, with no returns coming in. The exit polling gave Washington, Oregon, and California to Obama with huge margins, so there wasn’t much reason to wait.
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I don’t understand how the electoral college protects less populous states from being overrun by states with greater population, since either (1) the state electors vote according to who won the popular vote in that state or (2) they vote proportionally according to the proportion of the vote AND, the number of electors is the same as the number of Congressional representatives in the state, therefore based upon state population. So the states with higher population are still running over the less populous states, and it doesn’t matter how the electors decide to vote, really.
I think it would be more useful to introduce instant runoff voting to the United States. I want to see third parties start having more of a voice in national politics, without necessarily functioning as spoilers. (Let me be clear that I don’t *blame* them and I don’t agree they *are* spoilers, but they are certainly perceived that way by others.) You don’t need a Constitutional amendment to use IRV, either, because the feds don’t control how votes are tallied as long as no fraud is taking place.
I also want to see us go back to all paper ballots. I think it’s ridiculous that our republican democracy hinges on whether a machine somewhere has been stealth-programmed, or was hacked, or has broken down. The absentee ballots here in Ohio are simply made of cardstock and you fill in the oval next to the candidate’s name. And if precincts are kept small enough it takes next to no time to count the ballots–I mean, we’ve managed it all these years before the advent of computer voting machines. It ain’t rocket science.
(Even with voting machines printing out paper vote receipts I am reminded of some of the issues I have to deal with when making purchases at a store that prints out receipts–what if the ink runs dry, or the paper runs out?)
I also think that if you are an American citizen you should not have to register to vote, period. You automatically have the franchise, even as a felon in some states, so why shouldn’t you exercise it?
I’m happy with who won but I still think our system is messed up and I would like to see it change for the better.
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