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Rebkeh

(2,450 posts)
Sat Feb 20, 2016, 08:59 PM Feb 2016

Anyone know of a video that explains how a winner can be determined before all the votes are in?

I don't fully understand it but I trust when my candidate makes a move in one way or the other so I don't really need to know exactly how the math works, personally. I know exit polling, historical trends in specific areas, and other variables allow you to determine when a candidate is safe to call. I'm fine with that...

My husband, however, not so much. He wants to know and I cannot find anything that explains it. Somebody help me, lol.

How can they call a winner when only 18% of the votes are counted?

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Anyone know of a video that explains how a winner can be determined before all the votes are in? (Original Post) Rebkeh Feb 2016 OP
The determination is based on exit polls, confirmed by voting results in key precincts... brooklynite Feb 2016 #1
Usually it's done sharp_stick Feb 2016 #2
Great answers, but they are not going to help me here Rebkeh Feb 2016 #3
I do not know of a video. However there is only one answer to your question - truedelphi Feb 2016 #4
Several news outlets explain the process they use... Princess Turandot Feb 2016 #5
 

brooklynite

(96,882 posts)
1. The determination is based on exit polls, confirmed by voting results in key precincts...
Sat Feb 20, 2016, 09:02 PM
Feb 2016

...which are considered reflective of the electorate at large.

Simple test: how many times has the projection been wrong?

sharp_stick

(14,400 posts)
2. Usually it's done
Sat Feb 20, 2016, 09:03 PM
Feb 2016

based on history and the districts counted vs. the districts still to be counted.

History tends to be a pretty good prognostication of current events.

Rebkeh

(2,450 posts)
3. Great answers, but they are not going to help me here
Sat Feb 20, 2016, 09:06 PM
Feb 2016

He wants hard answers that spell it out. A formula or whatever.

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)
4. I do not know of a video. However there is only one answer to your question -
Sat Feb 20, 2016, 09:13 PM
Feb 2016

It is called Gullibility.

If we were not so gullible, then we citizens would not allow for this.

Of course, Hitler's minister of propaganda had another word for it. He called it the Big Lie, and he stated that once the Big Lie is posited, as long as the Corporate-run Media does not question it too much, it will eventually convince most people that the Lie is the Truth. (It does take repetition.)

No one in the USA should allow the vote count to be declared before all the votes are counted. But since this is not a democracy but a Banana Republic, it is exactly what we have been doing to ourselves at least since the morning after the Nov 2004 election.

Let me take you down the Rabbit Hole, regarding the mechanism by which George W once again became President without the official vote count even being fully tallied:
(From "The Coastal Post" article, "We The People Do Not Concede"
written by Carol Sterritt, late 2004)
"Sixty one million votes were counted on machines that would allow for no paper trail. The existence of these machines made the crime of the century possible. Andrew Card, Chief of Staff to President George W Bush, may well live to regret his announcements at 5 AM on Nov. 3rd. But at the time he was exultant at what the voting machines had wrought. His voice rang out resonant and a tad bit festive, happily victorious, "I'm Andy Card. I am President Bush's chief of staff. We are convinced that President Bush has won re-election with at least 286 electoral college votes. And he also had a margin of more than three and a half million votes. President Bush's decisive margin of victory makes this the first Presidential election since 1988 in which the winner received a majority of the popular vote. And that in this election, President Bush received more votes than any other presidential candidate in the history of our country. In Ohio, the President has a lead of at least 136,000 votes. The Secretary of State's office has informed us that this margin is statistically insurmountable. So President Bush has won the state of Ohio."

"What did Andrew Card know that John Kerry did not? Card knew who Kerry's real opponent was. Kerry thought his opponent in this election was George W. Bush. His real opponent was the rigged voting machines. If we the people of the United States possessed an election system with the integrity of Canada's paper ballot and pencil system, Kerry would be President. He was defeated by a modern technology so tamper friendly that major alterations to any district's vote tally could be made within 90 seconds and without leaving a trace."

####

Since then we have seen the very very VERY corrupt voting officials in the state of California award the proposition/initiative that would have required labelling of non-organic, GM food to be swung over to the favor of Monsanto, before the last one million votes were counted!!

Princess Turandot

(4,919 posts)
5. Several news outlets explain the process they use...
Sat Feb 20, 2016, 10:29 PM
Feb 2016

The major news outlets get the raw data from the same source, but they evaluate it using their individual guidelines. (CNN does have a video; click on the video link in the google search to find it.)

how do they project election results

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