Notes on the Election Projections

Here is the projected election map from fivethirtyeight.com (non-partisan site). As you can see, Obama is the clear projected winner.

*The little boxes inside of Nebraska and Maine represent the split votes that those states have opted for. They split up their electoral votes so that it isn't a 'winner take all system.' In those states two electoral votes are given to the state-wide popular vote winner and the other electoral votes (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska) are split up among the congressional districts. This allows for the possibility of a split electoral vote in those states, however, since they implemented these rules, neither state has ever actually split the vote. It looks like this year will be no different; Maine is going all Obama and Nebraska is going all McCain (although Obama is polling pretty strongly in Omaha this time around).

*Notice how much more blue there is on this map than there was in the last two presidential elections. We've come a long way, haven't we? This is partly why I have faith in our two-party system. Both the parties and the people are free to be fluid and change over time. In multi-party systems, the parties are more tied down to a particular set of party lines, but in America we change and evolve to suit the times. Plus, our parties are inclusive. It is a rare set of political opinions that wouldn't find a home in one of our parties (on the fringes at least).

Sigh...just three days to go....