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Google Will Display Election Results As Soon As Polls Close (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google has been highly involved with connecting U.S. voters to timely information throughout this election cycle, by offering everything from voter registration assistance to polling place information in its search result pages. Today, the company announced plans to display the results of the U.S. election directly in search, in over 30 languages, as soon as the polls close. Web searchers who query for "election results" will be able to view detailed information on the Presidential, Senatorial, Congressional, Gubernatorial races as well as state-level referenda and ballot propositions, says Google. The results will be updated continuously -- every 30 seconds, as indicated by a screenshot shared by the company on its official blog post detailing the new features. Tabs across the top will let you switch to between the various races, like President, House, and Senate, for example. The results will also include information like how many more electoral votes a presidential candidate needs to win, how many seats are up for grabs in the House and Senate, and how many Gubernatorial races are underway, among other things. This data is presented in an easy-to-read format, with Democrats in blue, Republicans in red, and simple graphs, alongside the key numbers.
When the polls close, typically, in a US state, precincts start tabulating and releasing the data to a Secretary of State or similar state official. Then, the results are released via a web site. This process is not fast, though it is much faster than it once was. The bottom line is that it takes hours for most states to get all the precincts accounted for to the 99% mark. 100% is not going to happen election night, as absentee ballots are not counted at that point. The early vote mostly will be accounted for, but may not be separately broken out, depending on the state.
Google is going to have to wait the same as everyone else.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
There are some states, (i.e. Florida panhandle) that span two time zones. In at least one recent election (Bush/Gore?) the TV pundits called the race before all the poles in the state (both time zones) had closed. It was claimed that this illegally discouraged voters. They risk running afoul of U.S. election laws if something like this happens.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Yes, from the Podesta emails we've seen how "highly involved" they are with the Clinton campaign.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Washington State, Oregon, and most of California votes by mail or in early voting.
All the votes in WA are legal if postmarked Tuesday or dropped at a free drop box location by 8 pm PST. Most of those won't be counted until Saturday at the earliest (Friday is Veteran's Day).
Luckily for you, over half of WA has already voted, 40 percent of Oregon has already voted, and similar results in California, but technically, you can't call it until November 20th at the earliest.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I like that Google is doing this, but I predict that there will be some hand-wringing from people who don't realize how this works.
Often times certain parts of a state report earlier than others, different sorts of people vote early in the day and late in the day, and this can cause states' results to fluctuate a lot during the night. It could look like Candidate A is winning all day long, only for B to overtake at the end.
I feel the same way about being able to trust the media as any thinking person does these days, but there is something helpful in the expert analysts that are hired by media outlets to make projections during the night. They know how individual precincts trend and what the early returns might portend.
I'm guessing there will be some hand-wringing online about some state where soandso was winning big until The Pentavorate hacked the servers and swung the results huge at the 11th hour.
How do you feel about Russia meddling with the elections?
You are welcome on my lawn.
From Censorship by Google
"During the 2016 Presidential Election, Google was accused by SourceFed for manipulating its results in favor of Hillary Clinton. They alleged that the recommended searches for the candidate are different than the recommended searchers to both Yahoo and Bing and yet the searches for both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are identical to both Yahoo and Bing. Furthermore, SourceFed placed the recommended searches for Clinton on Google Trends and observed that these terms were searched less than the recommended searchers for both Yahoo and Bing.[42][43] Later, on July 27, Google again faced controversy when Trump and Gary Johnson were left out of the Google search for "Presidential Candidates."[44] Google has responded with a statement that these omissions were as a result of a "technical bug" and has subsequently brought back the candidates.[45]"
[42] Hern, Alex (June 10, 2016). "Google Manipulating Search In Favor Of Hillary Clinton?". Techaeris. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
[43] http://www.washingtontimes.com, The Washington Times (June 9, 2016). "Google accused of burying negative Hillary Clinton stories". The Washingtion Times. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
[44] Fingas, Jon (July 27, 2016). "Google searches omitted key US presidential candidates". Engadget. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
[45] Brandom, Russell (July 27, 2016). "Google tweaks system after Trump left off search results for 'presidential candidates'". The Verge. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
The gamblers have already called the election:
https://electionbettingodds.co...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Polls don't start to report until all of the polls have closed. What happens is that the media are conducting exit polling (asking people as they leave the polls who they voted for) and are reporting that before the polls close.
Build a wall around The Google, to make the cyber GREAT AGAIN! We will make the Internets pay for it! Google is part of rigging, the Second Amendters must do something! FOR GREAT JUSTICE!
What is it they are doing?
They are reporting the truth. Most ideologues consider that "meddling".
Yes, they will, but that's not really a bad thing. You can give accurate results well before the 99% mark in almost every election. Certain districts have a very repeatable voting pattern (meaning a district will vote nearly all republican or democrat in every election), and you can get voter turn out numbers well before results are counted. In addition, polling data, exit polls, and statistics can give you a prediction, and if the first 15% of the results are following the pattern, you can say with a reasonable amount of mathematical certainty that the rest of the results will follow. As most races are not decided by only a few hundred votes, it's not even an interesting math problem...
As long as the results are not posted until after everyone has had a chance to vote, it really doesn't matter. Google (or anyone) could wait until 30 minutes after the polls close, and no one is left in line, and declare that New York has been won by Jill Stein. While that would almost certainly be incorrect, it wouldn't impact the results of the election, as no one is still voting. It would make for an interesting night of TV, but otherwise, who cares what the result predictions are? The only thing that matters is what is certified by the state official in charge of certifying elections.
Curiously, the total money bet favors Clinton, while the total number of bets favors Trump.
In a situation where everyone has exactly one vote, it's not clear which measure has predictive power.
How do you feel about Russia meddling with the elections?
You mean when the Russians gave the American people accurate information that America's own leaders were trying to hide? Is that the "meddling" you are referring to?
Nate Silver is predicting that Trump will win Florida.
If Trump wins Florida, he will need to win Ohio (went to Obama in 2008 and 2013) and Pennsylvania (went Republican in 1988). If he fails to win all three states, his chances of becoming POTUS is slim to none.
He also says Hillary is one state away from losing the election (ie - if even one D state flips to an R, she loses).
Hillary starts off at 268 electoral votes and has multiple paths to win. Trump starts off with 205 electoral votes and has to run the table to win Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It's a close race - I'm looking forward to seeing the results.
That may be true for some states. Hillary will probably win in a landslide overall.
Even worse, the differences in reporting times aren't necessarily random, but can be determined by things like actual vs. expected turnout or urban vs. rural precincts, which can correlate with party. It's entirely possible for, say, a bunch of rural Republican precincts to report early while a bunch of urban Democratic ones don't have their votes tallied until well into the night (or vice-versa).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Google is going to have to wait the same as everyone else.
Only if the election is really close. That is unlikely.
Here is a quick cheat sheet:
If Donald wins in Pennsylvania, Hillary is in trouble.
If Hillary wins Florida, she will likely win the election.
If Hillary carries North Carolina, she almost certainly will win the election.
If Hillary wins in Ohio, she will likely win by an Electoral College landslide.
No other states matter.
What happens is that the media are conducting exit polling (asking people as they leave the polls who they voted for) and are reporting that before the polls close.
Maybe a decade and a half ago, but not anymore; at least not legally. The Representation of the People Act of 2002 made it a crime to report exit poll results before a state's polls have closed.
All the polls in a state have the same closing time, but polling places stay open until all the people in line at closing time have had a chance to vote. So, some votes get cast after "official" closing time, and after some precincts begin reporting results.
(2) Each individual precinct reports results when the count in that precinct is complete. This, not exit polling, is why the election night news coverage always goes like "In Florida, with 30% of the vote counted ..."
Click-bait is click-bait.
Unless there's clear cut discrepancy with clear evidence, I prefer to believe that Google's interpretation of data isn't inherently 'political', or 'racist' or 'insert-other-bad-thing'. Instead, its regurgitating back signals that people are generating creating a cyclically re-enforced trend.
A general model:
- Google sees 10 pro-ABC articles, and 10 anti-ABC articles.
- Web searcher searches for ABC.
- 51% of searchers click on the anti-ABC pages, and the 49% click on pro-ABC pages.
- Google's algorithm ranks these pages (the anti-ABC pages ahead nominally).
- Web searcher searches for ABC.
- 55% of searchers click on the anti-ABC pages, and the 45% click on pro-ABC pages (Since there are fewer pro-ABC pages at the top of the search listings).
- Rinse and repeat.
Bye!
I'm voting early in the morning. When I get home from work, I'm not going to be sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my nails hoping candidate A, beats candidate B. Personally, I think the entire system is so screwed up, it won't matter who wins. Career politicians just care about their own cushy little deal they have. I'm going to attempt to go about my life, and try to survive whatever happens.
Actually Trump needs to pretty much win every swing state to win. He needs Florida and Ohio and North Carolina and Arizona. There's only 1 or 2 small ones he can fail to win... or he has to win in a state that hasn't voted republican for president in decades. Demographics just don't favor the republican party and are getting worse. Its actually harder now as Virginia is fairly solidly blue (where 12 years ago it was red) and North Carolina is red leaning purple (where it was red). The growth of urban centers in both states are pushing the states into the blue column, while the only state trending red that way is West Virginia.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
You mean when the Russians gave the American people accurate information that America's own leaders were trying to hide? Is that the "meddling" you are referring to?
Digging up all the dirt you can find on a candidate and then dumping it to the public (at the time you think it will do the most damage to their reputation) is not a new practice; when a political campaign does it, it is called "opposition research".
So now we have Russia doing opposition research on behalf of the Republican Party. I'd call that meddling, wouldn't you?
You don't really believe that Putin has the best interests of the American voters in mind, do you?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.