Talk:2012 United States presidential election

Rocky Anderson

Given the election is in two weeks, and the states are now winding down their balloting processes, I've been fiddling with the idea of proposing Anderson now be raised into the Info-box. Now, he doesn't hit the 270 mark even with California and Texas, hitting around 245, and I haven't been able to find any information on other states that require full slates of electors. Still, it removes that empty space in the Info-box, which in its current form may well only last for the next two weeks, and it weights Anderson on the same level as Goode; it also keeps with the 3 tiers that have developed. Thoughts? --Ariostos (talk) 20:29, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Have you solved the problem with the missing templates for the justice party? Jack Bornholm (talk) 20:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I had actually created a template for the Justice Party months ago; in the infobox just above with some financial information, Anderson has what I best figured was the Party Color, the only one of their chosen colors not yet assigned to a Party. If need be the color itself can be slightly modified, but the template itself should be there. --Ariostos (talk) 22:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Great news! I've finally gotten around to combing through the election laws of Anderson's write-in states, and it appears he's cleared the 270 threshold, and just barely. Annoyingly, several states make no mention of electors when it comes to write-in candidates, but I found that these do: AZ, KY, ME, and WI. We already knew that CA & TX require full slates to be on file, so his confirmed minimum total is now: 151 (printed ballot baseline {the current total of 152 is slightly off}) + CA (55) + TX (38) + AZ (11) + WI (10) + KY (8) + ME (4) = 277 candidates for elector. Proof for AZ, WI, KY, and ME. It was the update from today that Anderson filed in KY that put him over the top. Anderson may now go in the infobox, assuming a color for the Justice Party has been chosen. I had voted for indigo earlier (see here), and it seems Ariostos has similarly gone with dark blue in his template above, so we should be good to go. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 22:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support It's already in prose. - Presidentman talk · contribs Random Picture of the Day (Talkback) 23:26, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Before Anderson can become a part of the infobox this has to be changed: In using the infobox template a line with the party color does not appear beneath the photo of Anderson, instead a infobox appears. Something is quit clearly wrong with some template somewhere, but I have no idea how to fix it Jack Bornholm (talk) 23:48, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

United States presidential election, 2012

November 6, 2012
All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Nominee Virgil Goode Rocky Anderson Party Constitution Justice Home state Virginia Utah Running mate Jim Clymer Luis J. Rodriguez
Incumbent President Barack Obama Democratic

I sort-of got the infobox to work. I had to work around the issue by using | party_name = no and then manually putting in the colors and fixing the names. If you decide to implement this remember that you will have to fix the other parties too by adding | colour# = AAAAAA where # is the number and AAAAAA is the party hexcolor, and will also have to manually set the parties to point to their wiki page. Also, I noticed that the Constitustion Party's color on their wiki page is NOT the same of that which is used in the template, so I'm assuming that that information is stored somewhere with the election infobox and not drawn from the wiki page. Travürsa (talk) 09:58, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

United States presidential election, 2012

November 6, 2012
All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Nominee Virgil Goode Rocky Anderson Party Constitution Justice Home state Virginia Utah Running mate Jim Clymer Luis J. Rodriguez
Incumbent President Barack Obama Democratic Party (United States)

I fixed the shortname template for the justice party so it is the same as the rest of the parties. see Category:United States political party shortname templates That solves the problem with the justice party box appearing inside the articles infobox. I still havent figured out what template controls the colorbar. But until that get sorted out it seems that we simply can add the line | colour8 = ADD8E6 to Rocky and not anything more. Jack Bornholm (talk) 11:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I have added Rocky Anderson that way to the article. Let the debate continue and if the consensus go against it we can remove him again. Jack Bornholm (talk) 11:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Rocky Anderson should be left in, regardless of whether he slips under the "theoretical" threshold of 270, because it is entirely possible for a person with less than a majority of the electors to be elected as President! In the not-so-unlikely event that no candidate reaches 270, the new House of Representatives chooses from among the top THREE candidates. Voting is done by state, which probably means that Romney would win, but choosing the third candidate is not entirely impossible. (This might well have happened in 1912, when the incumbent President came in THIRD, and the Vice President died just before the election!) There are several scenarios in which no candidate receives as many as 270 electors, e.g.: a tie between the top two, states failing to submit lists, "faithless" electors, death or disqualification of a candidate, etc. With only a few days to go until the election (when this page becomes moot, at best), I suggest leaving Rocky Anderson in the infobox (along with the other three who debated him, last Tuesday evening on CSPAN). Tripodics (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

While what you say is absolutely true, we chose to disregard the possibility of the 12th Amendment contingency election when establishing that threshold, as well as what faithless electors might do. If we did account for that, then anyone who's name is printed or is a certified write-in on at least one ballot would be in the infobox, meaning we'd have to include close to a hundred people, since winning one state would likely place that candidate in 3rd place for the House election. Actually, there would be no meaningful limit on who could be included, since a faithless elector could theoretically vote for anyone. There is a difference then between who can win the election, and who can win the presidency. Given there is not much of a limit on the latter (other than the number of Americans who meet the constitutional requirements), we have chosen to rely on the former. One of the reasons behind the 270 threshold is that it is very difficult for a third party to get to that point given the harsh ballot access laws in many states, so if a candidate gets there, that is a sign they have a notable quantity of resources and support behind them, indicating at least a modicum of viability. As a fixed objective line, it was also found to be preferable to having to rely on polling, which is subjective and quite variable. There are links included in the note on top to archived discussions about this if you are interested. However, to your point, Anderson is unlikely to slip below 270 with only a week to go, and therefore is eligible to remain in the infobox for the time being.

A couple side points about the contingency election- state delegations would choose among the top three in electoral votes, not popular vote, so if it's a 269-269 tie between the major candidates, only those two would be able to be voted on, unless a faithless elector throws a third candidate into the ring. Also, it is the new House that would vote, so whether Romney would win such an election probably would depend on if his party retains their majority there. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 22:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the new House would choose among the top two "if it's a 269-269 tie" and no more than two people received an electoral vote. However, there are several scenarios for at least a single electoral vote going to s third person, and this has happened very often in previous elections, e.g. Wallace in 1968, Hospers in 1972, Reagan in 1976, Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Edwards in 2004, (not to mention the elector who cast a vote for Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and the DC elector who refused to cast any vote in 2000). Death or disqualification of a candidate might easily result in more than two candidates getting electoral votes, and there exist several other (albeit unlikely) scenarios where this might happen even without "faithless electors". If a single CD in Maine or Nebraska went for Gary Johnson (or one of the others), then three names would be available to the House. My point was that it is THEORETICALLY possible for Rocky Anderson to become President, even if his number slips below 270. Not that I'd bet on any such thing happening, of course, but I see little reason to remove his entry from the InfoBox at this late date (and then maybe have to put it back if he wins some court case to get write-in status somewhere else!)Tripodics (talk) 06:12, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Quit right, it is only a few days before the election and the infobox will change anyway. Maybe I got it wrong but isent it THEORETICALLY posible for anyone to become president without being on even one ballot? If the president elect dies (and lets us just say that the vice president elects dies at the same time) betwin november 6th and december 17th the electors are not bound to vote for some of the other persons on the ballots. They are free to vote for anyone. Not likely but not 100% impossible either. It is not the house that must elect one of the top 3 candidates from the election if no one is getting a majority of the electoral vote? Jack Bornholm (talk) 19:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The 12th Amendment contingency election only occurs if, after the electors meet at their respective state capitols on December 17th, no one has received 270 electoral votes. If there is no electoral majority, the House must choose among the top 3 recipients of electoral votes. I imagine the courts would extend the list of candidates to 4 or more if there was a tie for third place, since the Amendment is silent on such tiebreakers, although that's just a guess. Unlike the House, which would be limited to the shortlist the electors hand them, electors could theoretically cast their ballot for anyone, including those from states that have ostensibly bound them, because the constitutionality of such laws (where applicable- most states haven't even passed those) has never been tested, as no state has attempted to enforce them. The Supreme Court has only upheld the state's plenary authority (see: McPherson v. Blacker (1892) over how electors are selected, not how they vote. Some legal scholars have argued that the act of an elector casting their vote is itself another "election", and thus their ballot is entitled to the same freedom and protection from interference as that of a citizen. So, as I pointed out, there is a difference then between who can win the election, and who can win the presidency, if we take "the election" to mean what most people imagine it to mean- when millions of citizens go to the polls to select a slate of electors pledged to their preferred presidential candidate. Note that I carefully worded the notice on top to say "...and thus the election ...". Since theoretically anyone could garner the votes of 270 electors and be sworn in as long as they meet the basic constitutional requirements (age, residency, etc.), particularly (but not only!) in the situation you described, Jack, then there is no practical objective limit on who can win through such scenarios. There is, however, a limit on who can win the popular election of November, by virtue of nominating at least 270 candidates for elector of their or their party's choosing to stand for popular election, and having most of those people win. This is a benchmark that Anderson has just barely reached. This is a necessary distinction to be made, because if we want to say Anderson could theoretically win the presidency w/o 270 electors initially pledged to him and thus belongs in the infobox, then by the same measure this guy should be in there. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 07:27, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Should we mention Jesus?

Another editor took out the section I added about Bill Keller (televangelist)'s campaign to write in Jesus for president (which has garnered well over 1.3 million pledges so far, or about 1% of the vote if we take 2008 turnout as a guide), saying that because Jesus can't win any electoral votes, the campaign doesn't pass the threshold for inclusion. However, 1% is potentially enough to swing the election (especially since the race is so close). So it does seem as if it's worth mentioning somewhere. By the way, I'm actually quite surprised that there hasn't been more coverage of it in the media, due to the potential spoiler effect and the fact that you'd expect the media to eat something like this up. LonelyBoy2012 (talk) 04:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Hasn't this been brought up before? The editor who reverted the addition was correct- the present requirement for inclusion in this article and the (pre-election) infobox is evidence that 270 or more candidates for elector around the country pledged to a particular candidate(s) and/or party have been filed and accepted by the states. A popular vote victory for a write-in candidate does not automatically entitle them to that jurisdiction's electoral votes if they haven't filed any names for that position, and most especially if the person they are pledged to is nonexistent and/or dead. This has received little to no attention by corporate or independent media, perhaps because it is very unlikely that there will be 1 million write-in votes period, much less just for Jesus. Even if this happens, it is also very speculative to say that it swung the election in a particular direction. Therefore, I believe that it would, at least at this point, violate WP:CRYSTAL & definitely WP:UNDUE to place this in the article, particularly when this article is lacking any coverage of the general campaigns of those who are actually running. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 05:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

True, is there no editors that actually know what platform the two main candidates are running on and would the same editors be able to write it clear, NPOV and short in this article. Even if Jesus was on enough ballots he wouldnt be eligeble since you have to be born in US and be 35 years of age (I suppose only years as a human counts), and Jesus was born in Palestine and is only 33 years old Jack Bornholm (talk) 08:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

@LonelyBoy: No. Please ignore the ramblings of that demented madman. —stay (sic)! 03:32, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No personal attacks Jack Bornholm (talk) 09:10, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that the NPA rule applies to other editors, not televangelists. – Richard BB 09:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, please stop enabling those fringe backwards-thinking lunatics by giving them undue weight. That is nothing but clear pro-Christian bias. I suggest you visit the Conservapedia instead. —stay (sic)! 07:39, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it must either be a nice joke or a protest on the whole system to be voting Jesus as a write-in. But I dont see it as either polite nor neutral to call believing christians for backwards-thinking lunatics or imply that christians must be conservative, there is socialists that consider themselve to be christians too. Jack Bornholm (talk) 21:24, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

NPA is not the concern here. WP:BLP is. Please revise your comments. Calling someone a demented madman is clearly inappropriate. So is calling a group of people fringe backwards thinking lunatics. --Onorem♠Dil 21:57, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Admin note: Agree with the other editors above. NPA refers to comments about other editors. A comment that is about Christians, while possibly not conducive to collaborative editing with Christian editors, is not a personal attack. I suggest focusing talk on WP:WEIGHT and WP:BLP.--v/r - TP 00:07, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Expenses Summary

Placing this here just so we can better keep track of such. I thought of putting it in the main article, but wasn't sure.

Candidate (Party)	Amount raised	Amount spent	Votes	Average spent per vote
Barack Obama (D)	$664,613,946	$570,946,055
Mitt Romney (R)	$413,141,499	$360,439,489
Gary Johnson (L)	$2,317,996	$2,282,292
Jill Stein (G)	$774,697	$763,415
Virgil Goode (C)	$194,621	$192,054
Rocky Anderson (J)	$84,531	$75,365
Excludes spending by independent expenditure concerns. Source: Federal Election Commission

Please do 85.83.95.235 (talk) 20:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Please provide a specific link to a source. It's not enough to say "Federal Election Commission". —Diiscool (talk) 20:48, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

All the numbers came from here. --Ariostos (talk) 01:12, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Voter turnout: which statistic to use -- VAP or VEP?

There appear to be two statistics used to indicate voter turnout in United States elections: VAP (which means Voting Age Population) and VEP (which means Voting Eligible Population). Upon finding an unattributed voter turnout from the 2008 election article, I searched Google for a more accurate number and found George Mason's numbers to be more thorough: [1]. They state that VEP is the recommended statistic, but they also provide VAP numbers.

I inspected other articles and noticed that someone was adding voter turnout numbers for elections from before 2004 from this source: [2]. They don't even include a VEP statistic, they just track VAP.

I tried to find any reference to which statistic was preferred in various Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and essay related to elections and nothing turned up. Any ideas on which statistic is preferred for this election and past/future elections? The only source that stated a recommendation was George Mason but the other source didn't even track their statistic. --NINTENDUDE⁶⁴ 14:23, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting information. I would say that both need to be used in the articles since USA uses a system where not everyone automatically are registered to vote as in many other countries. And since voter registration are an issue in this election it makes it even more needed. Jack Bornholm (talk) 15:18, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem with VAP is that some people old enough aren't eligible to vote. About 2.5% of people are not allowed to vote due to felony convictions [3] [4] , so including them in a percent seems odd. If we use VAP, then consider a hypothetical case where everyone eligible votes. Using VAP will put the turn out at 97.5% maximum (there may be more things that lower this turn-out than just a felony conviction, but a felony conviction is easy to count and cite, and is a significant population), while VEP will put it at 100%.

Tl;dr, including people who literally can't vote in the turn-out seems inaccurate.

Travürsa (talk) 17:01, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

But it will be easier to compare the turnout with other countries since many countries in the western world (europe) dont have these restrictions on voting. Using both with proper explanation will improve the article for readers world wide. Jack Bornholm (talk) 07:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Why bother including people who don't count? If a country has a system where only white male landowners could vote, would you think that we should include VAP there? I wouldn't. For your argument, a comparison to "many other countries", you have to remember that the VAP is 237,744,633, while the VEP is between 230,994,094 and 231,193,218, [5] a reduction to 97.2%. Since it's impossible for that 2.8% to vote we shouldn't include them, so VEP, the statistic that neglects them, should be used. I'd also like to point out that VEP DOES include people who haven't registered to vote. [6]

Travürsa (talk) 10:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

If a country that only allowed white male landowners to vote I would think it was enourmously important to included the VAP. In any system that shrinck from universal suffrage, and that is pretty much all, the VAP counts. Why? Because it shows how if such discrepencies are a problem. What if that fictive country are made up of 95% rual population divided into small farms that all are own by the farmers (and everyone in the country is white). Then it is womens right issue right? Much different than a country where 1% of the population owns the land (and is the only white part of the land), then it is not really a democracy at all is it?. So do how far is this US election from universal suffrage? It might be because of disenfranchising prisoners or others from their voting rights, it might be because problems with voter registration or it might simply be because the voting age population really dont care to take part in their democracy.

Whatever the reason is the VAP tells how many procent of the actual (grown up) population that are a part of the democracy in this election, not simply how many of those that have made it to become eligible that actually also made it to the polls on that very day. You say that the VEP included people that havent registered to vote, so maybe we should have numbers on how many people that could registered but are not going to do so. As an international reader I would very much like that information, mayebe it is only very few maybe it is many. But the general opinion where I come from (where everybody is registered to vote) is that are large portion of the voters are disenfranchised in the US and that it is therefore a inferior democracy compared to our own. Simple numbers showing that in this elecetion it is not a third or more of the population that doesnt have any part in the democracy would be most appreaciated. Jack Bornholm (talk) 21:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I honestly don't care enough to read that wall-of-text. You're going to do what you want anyway, so I don't see why I bother ever using the talk page. Travürsa (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Re: But it will be easier to compare... The point of the Wikipedia article isn't to compare the rest of the "western" world to the United States, it's to accurately describe the election. I was hoping to see if anyone had dug up any other information from reliable sources on which statistic is more accurate. The source which provides VEPs (George Mason) appears to be more reliable than the other source to me but that's all I have to go on at the moment. --NINTENDUDE⁶⁴ 16:44, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

You are right, it is not, I was wrong there. It is the job of any or all article on the wikipedia to be written in an international scope so that the election are accurately desribed not only in an american contests. Sometimes articles are labeled with something like that when it comes to small national subjects from around the world. I forgot how the actual label sounds but I kind of tells the editors not to write from the perspective of one single country. It is in some way a parallel to english versus american in the language of Wikipedia. 85.83.95.235 (talk) 23:38, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, I can see where you're coming from. When I updated the 2008 election page I added (voting eligible) to the turnout figure when I used the VEP figure. I think it's perfectly appropriate to do that to explain the figure to an international audience. I think anything more than that would probably be over-doing it for the purposes of an info box, and any in-depth explanation should be reserved for Elections in the United States instead of doing it in a single election's page. --NINTENDUDE⁶⁴ 19:32, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Voting fraud concern, get more sources?

• Amid concerns of voting fraud, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign is linked to Hart InterCivic a firm providing the voting machines to be used to tally the ballots in the crucial state of Ohio. (The Belfast Telegraph) from Romney-linked voting machine company to count votes in Ohio. The company counting critical votes in Ohio and Colorado has extensive connections to the Romney camp. by Craig Unger. 64.109.54.142 (talk) 21:35, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Early voting results released

I was just wondering if we should add this result from Nevada and this result from Colorado into the table already. TruPepitoMTalk To Me 00:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Those documents don't contain election results, but rather the breakdown of party affiliation of early voters. Just because someone is registered as a Democrat, for example, does not mean they voted for Obama. They also give no indication as to who independents voted for. States do not release any actual returns until their polls close on Election Day, as I believe they are prohibited from doing so by federal law. There are also several states that do not ask voters to register with a party. We could compile a state-by-state summary of early voting statistics, some of which has been summarized here, but this information should not be construed as being the actual results. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 02:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

All these superfluous third-party slots in the infobox...

They are going to be removed once the results are in and they haven't won any electoral votes, right? None of the past US election boxes include all the minor candidates. --SchutteGod 70.181.184.7 (talk) 19:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe that is correct. —Diiscool (talk) 19:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Your answer may be found in the note on top: "After the election, only candidates who win at least 1 pledged electoral vote or 5% of the popular vote will remain there." So, assuming they haven't won any electoral votes, if they meet that popular vote threshold, like Ross Perot or John Anderson did, they may stay. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

5% and/or 1 electoral vote is the criteria for inclusion, yes, but I don't know why we are including them all when none of them are polling at 5%. Toa Nidhiki05 23:08, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Polling % has nothing to do with the pre-election inclusion criteria. It's explained in the note near the top of this page that 173.29.133.167 quoted from.--JayJasper (talk) 01:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah. I had not seen that (my eyes are trained to ignore all those beige boxes at the top of talk pages). Thanks for clarifying. --SchutteGod 70.181.184.7 (talk) 02:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Picture of Obama as the democratic nominee

It seems wierd to me that Obama's picture as the democratic party nominee is placed close to the republican party section. I suggest moving it up a bit.

Done --Creativemind15 (talk) 23:40, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

When does the counting of votes take place?

This article does not mention when the counting of votes take place and the winner is announced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.198.243.226 (talk) 15:15, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

That's because no one knows precisely when that will be. Some of the votes that were cast early are already being counted, but no results from a state will be posted until the polls there close (all times listed here, swing state summary here). Some networks will project a winner as soon as the polls close if the exit polling is very favorable for a particular candidate, but in the swing states they'll have to wait for the numbers to roll in. The final popular vote numbers won't be known for a couple of weeks, as states finish counting provisional ballots and certifying their totals. The deadline to get that done varies, but since the electors have to meet in December that process is usually finished by the end of November. If a candidate has a lead larger than the number of outstanding ballots, then the state will be called for them. Barring a close enough vote in a key state like Florida 2000 where a recount is triggered, the networks should be able to project a winner by Wednesday morning- otherwise, the lawyers are at the ready to drag things out in the courts. A winner won't be officially declared until January 6, when Congress opens the electoral vote ballots sent to them by the states. Assuming someone has at least 270 of their votes, only then will they become President-elect. Until then, everything is a projection. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 19:36, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The official verification of vote totals varies from state to state. I can only speak for Pennsylvania, where the count does not become official until Friday. The numbers released on Tuesday night are only preliminary. Come Friday morning, election officials in each of the 67 counties will do a methodical count of every election district, and submit their totals to Harrisburg, where they will be added together.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 03:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

For swing states, we should not project a winner until numerous media outlets have projected such based on results coming in (i.e. not jump on the first projection, but that could be mentioned without coloring it red or blue). For runaway states where exit polling alone is sufficient, calling it on one source is probably okay. CrazyC83 (talk) 20:33, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Electors in Write-In States

So I stumbled across this web-site, which actually proved to be immensely useful; here.

Basically it helped me identify each and every state that requires a Write-In candidate to file a full slate, and it is being built for the 2016 election so it is fairly recent; access to the documents themselves is also granted in quite a few cases, but not all. This is to explain the updated electoral counts for the Third Party candidates. Also, the same page identifies which states Write-In votes are free, or don't will be counted regardless of the lack of any paper-work. Probably should hang onto this, and make use of it when possible come the next election. --Ariostos (talk) 23:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The site is a campaign site of someone who has (already) announced his candidacy for 2016, so it is not RS in itself. The info is indeed useful if it is accurate, which it may well be, but a better source will be needed before we can use it as citation for content in the article. Wonder if the original source of the information can be located?--JayJasper (talk) 06:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

NH results up

According to CNN, Obama leads Romney 28-14. Romney and Obama are tied in Dixville Notch with 5 apiece. In Hart's Location, Obama leads Romney 23-9. If you could add these to the table, I'd be happy. TruPepitoMTalk To Me 05:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It probably isn't useful to constantly update the popular vote totals with the returns of every single precinct in America. Perhaps a sentence of prose in the article about Dixville Notch, which has a sort of historical curiosity long associated as the "first in the nation" to vote, but otherwise I would oppose any sort of non-contextual infobox stats, or any other continuous stream of popular vote updates. WP:DEADLINE certainly applies here. When the final tallies become official, this article can reflect that in the infobox. --Jayron32 06:14, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Jayron. House1090 (talk) 06:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It helps somehow for me. Those are small towns with a small population which can give the results to the media within a minute. 12 people live in Dixville, 43 in Hart's. Small steps lead to big endings. Plus, Gary got a vote in Hart's Location. I'm going to end my coverage as I am still in school. If I see a newer result, I'm not going to publicize it. Thank you. TruPepitoMTalk To Me 06:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I also concur with Jayron's comment- there are plenty of other sites out there to visit and spam the refresh button with to check the minute-by-minute updates. Regarding vote totals, at what point does that information usually get put into an election article? Do we put in the numbers the networks report at the end of Election Day, or do we wait for everything to be certified? Do we put in the projected electoral votes or wait for the official count? I know people will be eager to put in results as soon as possible, but that could result in what I still see in the 2008 article, where the candidates have different vote totals in the infobox, expense summary, ballot access, and result tables. Would it be too much to ask people to wait until final tallies are made available? This is an encyclopedia after all, so I think we ought to take the long-view on what goes in, avoiding including things that we know will change quickly. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 06:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• I think that we could update the electoral college totals and list of "states" won once such states become "called" in the media, to the point where they aren't in dispute at all by any media outlet. However, states that are "too close to call" shouldn't be updated until they are actually official (and that could take weeks or months, c.f. United States presidential election, 2000). The popular vote numbers, however, should wait until the official final tallies are in and registered as official, there will likely be some small disputes over these until well after the election. --Jayron32 06:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Near the bottom of the article, there is a table and map ready for results, but they are currently hidden by <!-- --> marks. Once the results come in, someone should un-hide that and update it.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 17:21, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

No mention of Puerto Rico statehood referendum?

Puerto Rican status referendum, 2012.

Why is there no mention of this in the opening paragraph, after it mentions the concurrent senate, house, and governorship elections?

Lionboy-Renae (talk) 19:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

There are thousands of elections and referenda happening in the United States and related territories today, it isn't possible to give every single one equal access to the lead paragraph. There is a separate article titled United States elections, 2012 which covers all U.S. elections during 2012, including the Puerto Rico status referendum. --Jayron32 19:45, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

But this is significant. Way more significant than any other referendum happening today. What if Puerto Rico becomes a US state tomorrow? Then aren't you going to regret not mentioning this in the article?

The current text reads thus.

As specified in the Constitution, the 2012 presidential election will coincide with the United States Senate elections where one-third of the Senators will face re-election (33 Class I seats), and the United States House of Representatives elections (which occurs biennially) to elect the members for the 113th Congress. Eleven gubernatorial elections and many elections for state legislatures will also take place at the same time.

I propose the following change.

As specified in the Constitution, the 2012 presidential election will coincide with the United States Senate elections where one-third of the Senators will face re-election (33 Class I seats), and the United States House of Representatives elections (which occurs biennially) to elect the members for the 113th Congress. Eleven gubernatorial elections and many elections for state legislatures will also take place at the same time. Puerto Rico will also be holding a referendum on whether to remain a territory of the united states, become the 51st state, or become a sovereign nation.

Lionboy-Renae (talk) 19:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

You forgot two words in your explanation, the words "to me". Insert them after the word "significant" and before the word "than". There are many referenda that are significant to someone. --Jayron32 20:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

"What if Puerto Rico becomes a US state tomorrow?" The statehood would require the approval of US Congress first... --89.27.36.41 (talk) 20:40, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Read the title - "US presidential election 2012" - wrong article for the Puerto Rico referendum to get top billing. Apteva (talk) 23:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

If this is an article exclusively concerning the presidential race, then why does it mention the congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislature races, in the introductory section?

I think the potential addition of a 51st state to our union is more significant than any state legislature race in this country; I don't think that's a matter of opinion.

Lionboy-Renae (talk) 00:39, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I think our OP has a point. Many of the "other" things people are voting are regular events anyway, and while other referenda may have high local significance, the Puerto Rican one has international implications. Wikipedia is global. Think globally. HiLo48 (talk) 00:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Polls closing time should also be given in GMT

Polls closing time should also be given in GMT in paranthesis since wikipedia has a global and not only American readership. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.140.67.60 (talk) 21:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

No one here is stopping you. --Jayron32 22:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that person can't make the changes because the page is semi-protected so IP's and new users can't edit it.--NextUSprez (talk) 22:08, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Y It's been added. Apteva (talk · contribs) said that the 7:00 PM close time on the East Coast was 0:00 GMT, but because it's Daylight Savings Time in (most of) the U.S., it's actually 23:00 GMT. At least...I think that's right. Another editor is welcome to double check me. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 22:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

See[7]. The US went off of DST on November 4. Apteva (talk) 23:26, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Haha, I'm an idiot. Thanks for that. I got them switched around...and I even live here! I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 23:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

When to call a state

Here is how I think it should be handled:

• Runaway red or blue states: declare at the first media source to confirm on an exit poll. State the source of the projection (i.e. media outlet)
• Somewhat red or blue states: ignore exit polls, but declare at the first media source to confirm on results. They aren't normally called on exit polls anyway.
• Swing states: wait for consensus. At the first media source calling it, add a note "source (i.e. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News) projects (Obama/Romney) victory" then let several come in. CrazyC83 (talk) 22:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

  Is anyone working on tables, like these: United States presidential election, 2008#Result? Apteva (talk) 23:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

2012 Cartogram ?

Cartogram of the Electoral Votes for 2008 United States presidential election, each square representing one electoral vote. The map shows the impact of winning swing states. Nebraska, being one of two states that are not winner-take-all, for the first time had its votes split, with its second congressional district voting for Obama.

Is there any updated cartogram available ? Yug (talk) 03:08, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Per State articles? Wisconsin

 Fixed I thought we had a separate WP article for the election results each state. I can't find that at the moment. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:17, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

United States presidential election in Wisconsin, 2012 is the page for Wisconsin. I found it by going to United States presidential election, 2008 which linked to the page for Wisconsin, 2008 and I changed the URL. I'll update the 2012 article to link to the state pages for the elections. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed I'm puzzled as Fox News is calling Wisconsin for Obama with 12% of the vote counted and Romney leading 230,000 to 172,000 votes. At this instant it's 15% counted and still at 240,000 to 212,000 in Romney's favor. Thus I wanted to look at the WP article for Wisconsin to see if they used some method other than majority vote for the entire state. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:17, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the question about Wisconsin to Talk:United States presidential election in Wisconsin, 2012. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Results section image

While File:ElectoralCollege2012.svg is awesome (and being wonderfully maintained), I think Template:United States presidential election, 2012 imagemap (already in the infobox) would be even more helpful in the Results section. I'm just unsure if/how the imagemap might display larger (e.g., 500px) to replace the naked svg — HipLibrarianship ^talk 04:08, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Re-election projection

Better get ready, looks like projections are calling for Obama's re-election now. Canuck^{89 (what's up?)} 04:20, November 7, 2012 (UTC)

I certainly agree! -Ano-User (talk) 04:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

CNN has projected Obama is re-elected. --Wingtipvorte^X PTT ∅ 04:24, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Ohio problem

The Republicans do have a point as of now if the totals end and they are within 250,000 votes then we wont know the official results of the election until 10 days later, of course this is if Obama wins no more major states this is just a thing to keep in mind and watch. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:36, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

In addition Romney is not ready to concede to Obama. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

What should we do? GoodDay (talk) 04:55, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

It appears that Karl Rove is demanding a recount from Fox News or something - he doesn't agree with their statistics (?), at least according to the BBC - but all the other major media outlets are saying that Ohio is definitely an Obama win. I suppose that as long as Romney hasn't conceded, and there is a mathematical possibility that he can, we can only report that almost everyone is calling it for Obama. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

As of now, all major news networks are sticking with their Ohio->Obama projections. When one or more redacts their projections (which I'm kinda thinking will happen), then we should change it on the page. gwickwire | Leave a message 04:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I retracted it for now, waiting for more results to change, notwithstanding the media. CrazyC83 (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

If Obama wins Florida or Virginia then Ohio wont be an issue I just want to say though that the dust has not yet settled. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Note that now that Obama has Colorado, even if Romney wins Florida, Virginia, and Ohio, Romney will still lose to Obama's 272 Electoral votes. Canuck^{89 (what's up?)} 05:24, November 7, 2012 (UTC)

Yes now I think it is safe to say that Obama has won its up to the editors here if you want to wait until it is official. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 05:25, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Wait a sec. Nobody was elected President & Vice President tonight. The people elected tonight were the 538 Electors. We gotta wait until they vote December 17 & the results are annouced January 6, 2013 - Hahahaha. GoodDay (talk) 05:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Winner

He won: [8] -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 05:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Yup =) - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 05:31, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

This isn't Wikinews - there is no rush to announce the results. Apteva (talk) 05:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I was about to post something similar. When in doubt, we should always wait for a clearer picture to emerge. Leave the live news reporting to the proper outlets. --84.44.230.252 (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

If only we had had Wikipedia Wikinews Wikipedia in 1948. :) Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Mitt Romney is making an concession speech right now. It is over.