How will the Electoral College go?

That'll be why votes intended for Romney have been going to Obama. Not sure what the GOP's angle is but it's obviously part of one of their plans.

Ozymandius2011

Deleted User wrote: »

That'll be why votes intended for Romney have been going to Obama. Not sure what the GOP's angle is but it's obviously part of one of their plans.

It's smoke and mirrors/misdirection on their part. In the reported instances the issues were resolved.

Duck Soup

nagilum2 wrote: »

What about for Obama? Do you really think the Republicans are the only ones with nefarious intent???

In Ohio, yes. Meet Jon Husted, the Ohio Secretary of State. This is the man who tried to stop early voting this weekend (many African-Americans vote in the final weekend before the election in the after-mass Souls To The Polls drive), but made an exception for military personnel (who vote overwhelmingly Republican).

This is the man who cast the deciding vote on Ohio county electoral boards (most county electoral boards have 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans) in favour of extended voting hours in Republican-leaning districts, but against extending voting hours in Democrat-leaning districts.

His latest, last-ditch effort to put his thumb on the scales is to require that Ohio voters casting a provisional ballot are required to record themselves the method of ID they used.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Ohio-provisional-ballot-voting-order-criticized-4005729.php

This is actually contrary to Ohio state law which requires that a state official record the ID used. This may seem the most trifling of points, but that is the point itself. Husted is looking to set up a minor detail - new to voters - that would give reason to throw out all provisional ballots that miss the new wrinkle.

That there's been a pattern of attempting to suppress the vote in many states is beyond doubt, but few have done it with quite the naked partisanship that Husted has. He puts his finger on the scales in plain view and then says "Whaaat? Wazzaproblem?"

Husted knows how important Ohio is likely to be. And he's not afraid, or unwilling, to pull out every trick in the book.

If it's close, expect their to be a thousand lawyers in Ohio on Wednesday morning. Nobody trusts Husted and with good reason.

Ozymandius2011

I think anyone that would vote for the GOP needs their head examined given these revelations. The rich man's BNP.

Manic Moran

Speaking of nationalists, a voter registration drive in Ohio by a group normally associated with Democrat and liberal causes raised an eyebrow today when Adolf Hitler registered to vote. It has led to questions as to some of the other names collected on that list.

Seriously, if you expect either side to come out of this smelling of roses or better than the other, you are grossly deluded.

Manic Moran

Manic Moran wrote: »

Speaking of nationalists, a voter registration drive in Ohio by a group normally associated with Democrat and liberal causes raised an eyebrow today when Adolf Hitler registered to vote. It has led to questions as to some of the other names collected on that list.

Seriously, if you expect either side to come out of this smelling of roses or better than the other, you are grossly deluded.

So that's one of the what do they claim, about 20 cases of fraud that happen in each election?

Manic Moran

Erm. Rigging the election machines would qualify as fraud as well.

Brian?

Amerika wrote: »

FL... Dream on LOL. In PA, outside of Phila, it's all about energy and jobs.. Obama's war on coal and indications that the EPA will recommend after the election they control permits and regulate fracking... Which will be embraced by Obama, would hurt PA in jobs and revenue. Landmark Legal Foundation is suing the EPA to get ahold of their recommendations before the election, and is being fought at every step. It think PA will surprise you.

Almost convincing. Except that 50% of Pa's population lives in Phillie metro area. Add in the strong unions in Pittsburgh and I can't see Romney swinging the state.

That's without even acknowledging the poll data.

Victor

Ozymandius2011 wrote: »

Nate Silver on Fivethirtyeight.com has made this table showing how accurate the state as opposed to national) polls were in past elections. He found that when the average lead was 2%+, the leading candidate always won that state, whereas under that it was touch and go sometimes.

https://www.nytimes.com/images/2012/10/27/us/politics/fivethirtyeight-1027-satstate3/fivethirtyeight-1027-satstate3-tmagSF.png

That would be about right. With a poll of 1,000 people, you expect to be within 3% of the correct number about 95% of the time.

Denerick wrote: »

The number of votes isn't proportional. Every state has two senate seats and at least one house seat no matter what. So North Dakota has two Senators as has California (3 electoral college votes versus 55 - do the math on how big the population differences are)

While that is how the numbers work out, the college votes aren't held by or voted on behalf of senators or representatives.

Manic Moran wrote: »

On the plus side, though, the swing states are swing states for a reason, they tend to have a nice balance of the national population. Catering to the swing states will generally cater to a plurality.

Catering for swings states means that's were the pork goes.

Manic Moran

Victor wrote: »

Catering for swings states means that's were the pork goes.

Have you not seen how much pork comes into California?

Ozymandius2011

GOP SoS altering the early vote numbers in Florida:

An analysis of the unofficial totals by early voting location on the Broward Supervisor of Elections website from Saturday, compared to the tallies posted on Sunday, shows that in one location, the E. Pat Larkins Community Center, located on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Pompano Beach, the revised totals showed 1,003 fewer votes. The initial tally reported from the polling place in the heavily black neighborhood showed 2,945 votes, but the revised tally was 1,401. Across the 17 Broward polling locations, 15 saw their vote totals revised, mostly by minute amounts of between 1 and 7 votes. But the three more significant changes, including the addition of 398 votes in Tamarac (a racially mixed community) and adding 99 votes to the totals from Pompano Beach City Hall, whose demographic is majority white.

The revisions mean that 536 fewer total votes were reported in Broward — a reduction from 28,330 votes to 27,794 votes. That could be significant in a close election in a state where the presidential contest was decided by just 538 votes in 2000.

nagilum2

Ozymandius2011 wrote: »

It's smoke and mirrors/misdirection on their part. In the reported instances the issues were resolved.

No doubt. I'm guessing the Democratic congressman's son and campaign chair, who was caught trying to advise an undercover reporter on how to commit large scale voter fraud, was also a GOP plant. The evil republicans must have been grooming him from birth without the good congressman knowing. It's all part of the GOP's plan to steal the election from the pristine innocent Democrats.

Duck Soup

Manic Moran wrote: »

Speaking of nationalists, a voter registration drive in Ohio by a group normally associated with Democrat and liberal causes raised an eyebrow today when Adolf Hitler registered to vote. It has led to questions as to some of the other names collected on that list.

Seriously, if you expect either side to come out of this smelling of roses or better than the other, you are grossly deluded.

Yep, and it was the voter registration group themselves who flagged up the dodgy names. If there's parity of egregious behaviour, presumable Husted will be reporting his own efforts to the state election board.

banquo

Still say its 281-257, with Romney taking NH, CO, FL.

Ozymandius2011

9 hour waits reported for voting in minority areas of FL. Governor Rick Scott refusing to extend early voting hours. Polling stations in I-4 corridor evacuated because of bomb threat/GOP hoax to suppress minority vote.

Manic Moran

Ozymandius2011 wrote: »

9 hour waits reported for voting in minority areas of FL. Governor Rick Scott refusing to extend early voting hours. Polling stations in I-4 corridor evacuated because of bomb threat/GOP hoax to suppress minority vote.

I suspect this thread is being hijacked into the Evil Conspiracies Reporting Thread and is moving away from the original concept. I've already put my guess in, so I'm leaving this be.

cristoir

Ozymandius2011 wrote: »

9 hour waits reported for voting in minority areas of FL. Governor Rick Scott refusing to extend early voting hours. Polling stations in I-4 corridor evacuated because of bomb threat/GOP hoax to suppress minority vote.

Oh come on now. While there's a case to be made for creating long queues in areas with large Democratic populations the idea that GOP has become Zanu PF is a little less believable.

Ozymandius2011

cristoir wrote: »

Oh come on now. While there's a case to be made for creating long queues in areas with large Democratic populations the idea that GOP has become Zanu PF is a little less believable.

True. Apologies to Mr, Mugabe!

nc6000

banquo wrote: »

Still say its 281-257, with Romney taking NH, CO, FL.

281 for Obama ?

Ozymandius2011

From twitter:

PublicPolicyPollingOur final Iowa and New Hampshire polls, which both find Barack Obama leading 50-48, are now posted: http://t.co/KAL1Mfdc 23 minutes ago

banquo

nc6000 wrote: »

281 for Obama ?

kenco

Obama I think will get max 290 (inc Colorado). Romney takes Virginia, Florida and NC.

This I think is possible as opposed to probable. If Obama doesnt get the vote out he is in trouble as of the 11 swing states only 3 have him over the statistical error margin (Penn, Mich and Wis).

Could still be very very tight

BenMicheal

A look at how America will decide in a little over 24 hours

http://viewsfromapoint.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/unravelling-the-race-to-270-an-analysis-of-battleground-states/

feel free to share, reblog, retweet, slap down, debate etc etc

nagilum2

BenMicheal wrote: »

A look at how America will decide in a little over 24 hours

http://viewsfromapoint.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/unravelling-the-race-to-270-an-analysis-of-battleground-states/

feel free to share, reblog, retweet, slap down, debate etc etc

This is roughly in line with the way I see it going down, but I really have no idea how things will break in the midwest.

nagirrac

While I agree the polls suggest either too close to call or a narrow Obama victory, I think Obama will win the key swing states and win comfortably enough. In a close race the independents will decide the outcome and that translates to how motivated they are to come out and vote. Independents vote for who they feel more comfortable with and not party and whether Republicans like it or not Obama is more likeable to independents.

While the economy is not where people would like it to be, I think more people are willing to give Obama another 4 years than risk a major change. Add in the reality that Romney does not really connect with people despite all the effort put into his image and the favorable impact of Sandy to Obama, I would say an Obama victory by 10PM EST.

Min

nagirrac wrote: »

While I agree the polls suggest either too close to call or a narrow Obama victory, I think Obama will win the key swing states and win comfortably enough. In a close race the independents will decide the outcome and that translates to how motivated they are to come out and vote. Independents vote for who they feel more comfortable with and not party and whether Republicans like it or not Obama is more likeable to independents.

While the economy is not where people would like it to be, I think more people are willing to give Obama another 4 years than risk a major change. Add in the reality that Romney does not really connect with people despite all the effort put into his image and the favorable impact of Sandy to Obama, I would say an Obama victory by 10PM EST.

Polls showed Romney is winning more of the independent votes than obama is.

Funglegunk

My guess, using BBC's handy little app here:



I gave Florida, North Carolina and Virginia to Romney. Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Iowa, New Hampshire to Obama.

nagilum2

Min wrote: »

Polls showed Romney is winning more of the independent votes than obama is.

More people who identify independent tend to vote Republican, though. And Democrats typically have more party affiliated voters

Duck Soup

Final Electoral College forecasts from the poll aggregators:

Real Clear Politics [No Toss-Up States]
Obama 303 (48.9%)
Romney 235 (48.2%)

FiveThirtyEight
Obama 315 (50.9%)
Romney 223 (48.3%)

Princeton Election Consortium [Sam Wang]
Obama 332 (51.1%)
Romney 206 (48.9%)

Duck Soup

My forecast:

Obama 281
Romney 257

I'm actually gonna go 347 for Obama I reckon.

europa11

Close one for me ... of the swing states I gave FL, CO, IA, NC and VA to Romney, rest to the Pres.

Obama 275 Romney 263

ciaranmac

Obama 284
Romney 254

FootShooter

Calling it now:
Obama: 303
Romney: 235

Manic Moran

Right, so I think pretty much everyone on Boards is going to be embarassed if Romney wins... I don't think I've seen any guesses going the other way in six pages, have I?

Amerika

Manic Moran wrote: »

Right, so I think pretty much everyone on Boards is going to be embarassed if Romney wins... I don't think I've seen any guesses going the other way in six pages, have I?

At least one person won't be embarassed. Castigated probably... embarassed not.

deisedave

Manic Moran wrote: »

Right, so I think pretty much everyone on Boards is going to be embarassed if Romney wins... I don't think I've seen any guesses going the other way in six pages, have I?

At the odds Romney is and how close the election is when you ignore the media and read the stats, I have gambled on a Romney win.

nagirrac

Manic Moran wrote: »

Right, so I think pretty much everyone on Boards is going to be embarassed if Romney wins... I don't think I've seen any guesses going the other way in six pages, have I?

The entire media in America had called the election for Kerry by 8PM EST in 2004. In a close race anything can happen.

Funglegunk

Manic Moran wrote: »

Right, so I think pretty much everyone on Boards is going to be embarassed if Romney wins... I don't think I've seen any guesses going the other way in six pages, have I?

Not embarrassed. Just astonished!

LuckyLloyd

Romney needs a lot of polling data to be flat out wrong for him to win so, yes, "astonished" is what I would be if such an eventuality occurs.

Obama is a massive favourite coming into today if you're paying attention.

Duck Soup

If Romney wons, pretty much every pollster has to have a long, long post mortem afterwards. If Obama wins, Gallup is confirmed as a bit crap and Rasmussen proves all the talk of their operation going downhill fast is true.

The interesting thing to me is that the pundits - followed it seems by the vast majority of people on political message boards - are forecasting an Obama victory from low 270s to high 290s. That's largely based on anecdotal evidenced and gut feeling. I've yet to meet anyone on either side of the political divide who thinks that Obama will, for example, take Florida or Colorado.

The poll aggregators are all forecasting Obama by 300+. That's solely on crunching the numbers.

If the pollsters are right, we can say that people are unduly, to paraphrase Nate Silver, influenced by noise (a.k.a. media blather).

On the other hand, if the pundits etc are right, then the pollsters are unable or unwilling to factor in properly things like voter enthusiasm; although pollsters would claim that these things are factored into their models by asking whether voters describe themselves as likely or very likely to vote.

LuckyLloyd

I'll feel sorry for Nate The Great (his screename on a message board I use that he used to post regularly on) if Rmoney pulls it out. Conservative voices will rip him from limb to limb. People don't understand how probability works of course, 92% != 100%.

If Obama is not making a victory speech at ~1am ET then there has been a systematic failure of the State pollsters. A Romney victory will probably entail a very low relative national turnout carried through to the battle ground states, and if the polls and Silver's model have not factored that in or managed to guage it then they should all hang their heads in shame.

The important thing to remember however is that people tend not to be held equally accountable in these situations...

Benny_Cake

Obama 281 - Romney 257

joseph brand

Manic Moran wrote: »

Right, so I think pretty much everyone on Boards is going to be embarassed if Romney wins... I don't think I've seen any guesses going the other way in six pages, have I?

Embarrassed is right. Embarrassed for Americans. Voting for another Bush, who got them into this mess.

Hopefully when Obama wins, the Tea Party will dissolve. Which is good for Americans, as a whole, whether Dem or Rep. Why ordinary Americans would buy into the Koch bros and Trump's propaganda, I'll never know.

I also wonder how Americans can get behind a mormon, who shipped jobs out of America, is worth a quarter of a billion dollars and shows contempt for the whole country by not releasing his tax returns and labelling half of them as 'lazy moochers'.

His trip to England was a disaster and he thinks Iran is using Syria as a gateway to the sea.

And you wonder why people watching this race, from outside the US, haven't warmed to Willard?

Oh yeah, Anne's "you people" comment couldn't have helped.

Back to the OP, here's the Electoral Scoreboard.

Ponster

joseph brand wrote: »

Hopefully when Obama wins, the Tea Party will dissolve.

I think they'll only get stronger. Romney isn't really their ideal candidate and I think that they'll push for a more right-leaning candidate next time.

Higher

Ponster wrote: »

I think they'll only get stronger. Romney isn't really their ideal candidate and I think that they'll push for a more right-leaning candidate next time.

Doubt it. Lets call a spade a spade, they were set up in response to a black president. After this election, I can see them slinking back into the shadows of the GOP.

Duck Soup

The problem isn't that the GOP didn't choose a candidate who wasn't conservative enough - although you might think that from listening to the conservative pundits - the problem is that the GOP is losing the non-white vote by huge margins.

In particular, they're losing the growing Latino vote by way too much. Even Dubya got about 40% of the Latino vote in 2004. Republican candidates have to tack hard right on immigration to win the primaries; that puts them in awful shape for the general election.

Strangely, for all his much-vaunted late 'pivot to the centre', Romney appears to have all but given up on the Latino vote. He seems to betting all-in on white.

Amerika

joseph brand wrote: »

Embarrassed is right. Embarrassed for Americans. Voting for another Bush, who got them into this mess.

Hopefully when Obama wins, the Tea Party will dissolve. Which is good for Americans, as a whole, whether Dem or Rep. Why ordinary Americans would buy into the Koch bros and Trump's propaganda, I'll never know.

I also wonder how Americans can get behind a mormon, who shipped jobs out of America, is worth a quarter of a billion dollars and shows contempt for the whole country by not releasing his tax returns and labelling half of them as 'lazy moochers'.

His trip to England was a disaster and he thinks Iran is using Syria as a gateway to the sea.

And you wonder why people watching this race, from outside the US, haven't warmed to Willard?

Oh yeah, Anne's "you people" comment couldn't have helped.

I think I might have seen something like this on an episode of The Twilight Zone, or maybe it was The Outer Limits. :pac:

poeticseraphim

Duck Soup wrote: »

The problem isn't that the GOP didn't choose a candidate who wasn't conservative enough - although you might think that from listening to the conservative pundits - the problem is that the GOP is losing the non-white vote by huge margins.

In particular, they're losing the growing Latino vote by way too much. Even Dubya got about 40% of the Latino vote in 2004. Republican candidates have to tack hard right on immigration to win the primaries; that puts them in awful shape for the general election.

Strangely, for all his much-vaunted late 'pivot to the centre', Romney appears to have all but given up on the Latino vote. He seems to betting all-in on white.

They are losing their white vote..they are losing the white female vote and the moderate white vote. They are also losing the gay white vote.

'WHITE' as a demographic is not so clear cut....their are interacial couples with a non white partner and mixed kids. Gay people..the friends of gay people....non racist white people...

White is not how the GOP paints it anymore and a lot of white people would be offended by the idea that the GOP thinks it can appeal to them on grounds of race.


I hear MANY Americans say now...I am socially liberal but fiscally conservative.

No one speaks for the true conservative in America...nor the true Lefties either....

Obama won last time....he was black then too.

Duck Soup

poeticseraphim wrote: »

Obama won last time....he was black then too.

Not according to Chris Rock.