Professor Ceiling Cat and his right-hand felid, Mitt Manul, are calling the election for Obama.
I haz spoken.
(Photo from Wild for Wildlife and Nature)
It’s over
November 6, 2012 • 8:08 pm
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Isnt that a ceiling porcupine?
Pallas cat or manul. Very cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trR04GBpl9E
Puffer Cat. Is it safe to eat the fugu?
That’s not the sort of pussy I’d want to eat.
Whatever it is, it does not look too happy. Are you sure about that prediction?
Great (Y)
That does not seem very scientifical to me…
I know. Butter’s going out on a limb and calling it 274-265 Obama. (his prediction since April) Let us see.
Check out the accuracy of the InTrade wagering prediction!
http://electoralmap.net/2012/2012final.php
Going to the party?
Can I get one of those at PetSmart? I think I want one.
Could still get a nasty surprise, but meanwhile, Todd Akin, Scott Brown, Richard Mourdock and the daffy WWE owner who spent $70million of her own money on two Senate races, yeah, they were all defeated.
I heard that it was upwards of 100 million- this election has rejuvenated our economy, anyway, by forcing some of the rich to part with their hoarded bucks!
Oh, good, George Allen (R-Macaca) was defeated in VA by Tim Kaine.
Moral of the story: nutters can win a primary but not the general … at least this year and hopefully future years
–An Indiana resident proud to have voted against dumbass Mourdock
I just got home from working a fifteen-and-a-hald hour shift as an election worker in Wisconsin. Here’s how my ward fared:
Obama/Biden: 1,449
Ryan/Rmoney: 156
Johnson/Gray (Libertarian) 33
Stein/Manski (Green): 24
LaRiva/Ramirez (Socialism & Liberation): 1
White/Scherrer (Socialist Equality): 0
Write-Ins: 63 (Cthulhu 17)
It needs to be pointed out that my ward is populated with gays, students, ethnics and aging hippies.
I worked the election in 2008. By the time the poll was closed and the ballots certified, I’d been there almost 16 hours, too. The worst part is that I’d just come in the door and turned the TV on, and the election had already been called for Obama.
It’s a long day of hard work. Thanks for doing it.
How do you know that? Did you attend the vote count, or is the counting done at polling places in the US.
Unless things have changed in Britain since I last worked on an election (1997 ; before the treachery of B.Liar and cronies became evident), all the ballot papers are transported in their sealed boxes to a central counting point – usually a sports hall or something similarly large – for counting together and in public. I think this was designed (or chosen) back in the 19th century to make local “stuffing” of ballot boxes less likely, by preventing the workers at the polling places from knowing which candidate was winning.
Then again, I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised to learn that every state / county / township had different rules in detail.
In Wisconsin, voters mark a paper ballot which they then insert into a collection machie that scans and tabulates the votes. In the event of an improperly marked ballot (e.g. votes for two candidates in the same office) the ballot is rejected and the voter allowed a chance to correct the mistake.* The paper ballots are secured and retained against the need of a recount or other dispute.
As part of the closing procedure (after the voters and observers have left), the Chief Inspector prints out the paper tape (It looks like a grocery store receipt tape) of the results from the tabulator and reads them aloud to the staff. We then all sign the tape to certify our witnessing the results. So, yes, we know the results for the ward in which we work by the time we finally get to go home.
The paper ballots are sorted and inspected, then sealed into carrier bags for transport to city hall. All the election inspectors sign each bag as it is sealed. The signed tapes and the memory module for the tabulators are transported along with the ballots. I am not privy to the details of how the vote counts are assembled at the central collecting point for city- county- and statewide totals. However, for the early estimates, Chief Inspectors report the ward totals by phone during closeout.
The number of ballots cast is also machine-tabulated. Part of the post-election accounting verifies that the number of physical ballots matches the machine total for each ward. There are a total of four different mechanisms in place for keeping track of the numbers of voters and ballots cast. In order to stuff the ballot box, the entire staff of a ward would have to work in collusion and keep their actions secret.
As you can see from my original post, my ward is a highly partisan one. In all the time that I have worked there, no Republican has received more than two hundred votes. It has 2,335 registered voters, and our crew last night numbered fourteen. It’s not easy to keep a conspiracy secret among a group that large, and with a district that skews so heavily in favor of one party, the risks of fraud would be worth the trouble. We’d have to fabricate enough votes to have produced an apparent 118% voter turnout which would be possible, since Wisconsin allows registration of new voters at the polls, but highly unlikely. And although we are required to conduct ourselves in a struictly nonpartisan manner during voting hours, once the doors were closed we all unabashedly cheered the results.
As for me, I as born on an Inauguration Day. Yesterday’s results mean that I won’t have to ead a crap sandwich for my birthday dinner next January 20th.
Typo apology: “machie” = “machine”
*Missing footnote: A voter had three chances to cast a ballot. If the ballot is not accepted after three tries, the voter forfeits their vote.
“the risks of fraud would be worth the trouble” = “the risks of fraud would NOT be worth the trouble”
Those double-checks and the presence of paper ballots do make it much harder to falsify results (unless you have lots of people in on the secret ; at which point, it’s not likely to remain a secret for long).
As I said elsewhere in an election-related message, the allegations of voting machine fraud that routinely come out of America with every election are doing a really good job of putting the rest of the world off from using the machines. Particularly ones that don’t have a physical audit trail.
The last election I was personally involved in (as a volunteer tallyer and voter-transporter for one party) was fairly close to a 4-way split between socialists, conservatives, centreists and nationalists. The result was a win for the socialist-ish party, but only by about 6% of the votes cast. Which meant that everyone was watching everyone else like hawks. The fact that my local nerds drinking club included representatives of all 4 main parties meant that we’re all used to thinking like each other too.
That’s what differentiates machine voting in Wisconsin. The machine is not the principal instrument of the vote; it is only the counting device. The principal instrument remains the ballot which can, if necessary be counted by hand.
NBC’s just called it for Obama.
Do note that Professor Ceiling Cat called the election correctly well before any of the news outlets. His Holy Felinity sees every falling chad.
But does he see the hanging ones?
Ceilin’ Felin’ was particularly focussed on the chads which were hanging down, swinging free and oscillating merrily.
PCC told me in a dream last night to sacrifice 100 p*ppies to ensure an Obama victory, which I did. So I deserve some credit too.
Hey Mittens!!!
You can still run for the position of Grand Effin’ Idiot on Planet Kolob.
Get your magic underpants on, and I’ll personally stuff you into the nosecone of the next Atlas 5 rocket launch.
Hooray for Obama!
Lol
Joe Walsh (R-Cretin) is toast, defeated by Tammy Duckworth, (D-Hero).
Michele Bachman is ahead by 350. If she loses too, that’s all of ’em.
But praying for that to happen is a non-starter?
There’s no need. Romney, in his concession speech, asked the Nation to pray for Obama.
I left out a nutball, Alan West in Florida. He’s down a 1000 votes, and it looks like he lost, too.
Bachman’s lead is down to 250 now.
Do not miss Trump’s freak-out over Romney’s loss.
Thanks for the tip. That was good. It’s pleasing to see a statesman like Trump so bothered.
Here’s a link to speed others to the fun:
http://mashable.com/2012/11/06/trump-reacts-to-election/
Aww, cut him some slack, he’s just having a bad hair day…
I’m going to steal that!
I might even get a Twitter a/c just to reply to his tweet.
Trumpets doing his nut and throwing his toys out of the pram? Oh goody, I’ll have to see that. After the wreckage he’s made of one of our local nature reserves (SSSI – Site of Special Scientific Interest), watching trumpets having a hissy fit and not getting his way has a certain appeal. Boy are his golf course customers going to find their welcome slight. Not that they’re likely to dare to leave the hotel anyway.
+1
Brian Williams on that last night:
“Donald Trump, who has driven well past the last exit to relevance and veered into something closer to irresponsible here, is tweeting tonight.”
And where was he when Gore won the popular vote in 2000?!! He missed his chance to head his revolution then. What a johnny-come-lately (was orginally gonna say dipstick.
What an amazing creature in the photo. Trying to remember which politician he reminds me of most. J Edgar Hoover? Chairman Mao? Not really. There is somebody but I can’t quite place him…
Chairman Meow, you mean?
😉
LOL…
Beaten to the punch, again.
Wait! I know.
Winston Churchill.
If sumo (Sumo?) wrestlers were felids…
Hmm, maybe. About as much as Hoover, anyway.
Oops, that was a reply to abrotherhoodofman and his Churchill suggestion.
WP needs a sandbox!
Paraphrasing John Kenneth Galbraith:
Congratulations to the 50% who made the unpalatable choice;
commiserations to the 49% who made the disastrous one.
Congratulations to WI and Tammy Baldwin for proving, simply, that you can be who you are.
Congratulations to MA and Elizabeth Warren for proving that brains count for at least as much as muscles.
Congratulations to CO and WA for conceding that getting stoned is as bad as getting soused, but no worse.
Congratulations to Ben Goren for not deciding the outcome of this election. 🙂
Congratulations to Nate Silver for a resounding victory for rational statistics.
And finally, congratulations to Randall Munroe for the sharpest take on forecasts:
http://xkcd.com/1131/
“Breaking: To surprise of pundits, numbers continue to be the best system for determining which of two things is larger.”
And:
“As of this writing, the only thing that’s ‘razor-thin’ or ‘too close to call’ is the gap between the consensus poll forecast and the result.”
I think he had a gut feeling about it.
Pallas cat doesn’t enjoy being kept by zoos and overfed by dumb humans.
CHEERS!: The opportunity to run ones’ fingers through all the luscious feline furriness.
JEERS!: Bloody stumps.
(CHEERS!: Obamacare!)