11.04.08
Election Day 2008
Well it’s finally here. The final popular votes should be cast today. I think a lot of people think that the tally tonight will be the final deciding factor regarding who our President will be for the next 4 years. For example I’ve heard of people already preparing to party tonight. However, in actuality, the voting will not be complete tonight. The electoral votes are still ahead on December 15, 2008, and those are what will ultimately decide who our next President will be in 2009.
Very briefly, the millions of votes cast today by all the participating U.S. citizens are considered the popular vote. But these votes are technically only helping to instruct our electoral representatives how to vote, but doesn’t guarantee that the electoral representatives will follow the popular vote. The votes our electoral representatives cast are the electoral votes and consist of only a total of 538 votes. The number of electoral votes required to win the Presidential election is 270 votes from the electoral college–i.e. the votes of only 270 U.S. citizens will determine who our next President will be. An article titled, The Electoral College System on About.com explains this a bit more and states,
“While the state electors are ‘pledged’ to vote for the candidate of the party that chose them, nothing in the Constitution requires them to do so.”
The full article can be read here.
One can quickly see that with this voting system, it is entirely possible for a candidate to win without the popular vote. The above article goes on to address whether this has ever happened. Apparently it has. Three times. Below is a clip from page 2 of The Electoral College System:
Has it Ever Happened?
Has a presidential candidate ever lost the nationwide popular vote but been elected president in the Electoral College? Yes, three times:
- In 1876 there were a total of 369 electoral votes available with 185 needed to win. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, with 4,036,298 popular votes won 185 electoral votes. His main opponent, Democrat Samuel J.Tilden, won the popular vote with 4,300,590 votes, but won only 184 electoral votes. Hayes was elected president.
- In 1888 there were a total of 401 electoral votes available with 201 needed to win. Republican Benjamin Harrison, with 5,439,853 popular votes won 233 electoral votes. His main opponent, Democrat Grover Cleveland,won the popular vote with 5,540,309 votes, but won only 168 electoral votes. Harrison was elected president.
- In 2000 there were a total of 538 electoral votes available with 270 needed to win. Republican George W. Bush, with 50,456,002 popular votes won 271 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent, Al Gore, won the popular vote with 50,999,897 votes, but won only 266 electoral votes. Bush was elected president.
So while tonight will be very interesting, I’m still going to hold on to my hat in case there are any more surprises come December 15. It’s not over until the fat lady sings.
Marlakins
patti said,
November 5, 2008 at 9:42 am
We are SADDENED today. Depressed is a better word. Although our hope is in Jesus Christ it is sad to see what is happening to our country. One thing that really makes this hard for me is why people voted the way they did. On another forum I’m on one lady said she voted Obama because she adopted a black child and wanted her to see a black man in office. Another lady said she voted that way because he has always taken care of the poor (except his brother and Aunt, of course). The third one said they wanted to see the white house have little kids running through it again. Good grief! At least if you’re going to vote for someone, vote on principal. Ron said it perfectly this morning when he said this supposedly proves we are a color blind society now. One problem, one in five said they voted for Obama because he was black. That’s color blind?????
Oy. This election was stolen by Obama no matter how you look at it. There are videos of people telling CNN that they voted several times in this election and the CNN reporter laughing and saying, “isn’t that illegal? Oh well, that’s okay.” This is just despicable. And it happened all over this country and no one seems to care.
patti said,
November 5, 2008 at 9:48 am
I just had another thought. As far as a chance it could turn out different – the lawsuits regarding Obama’s eligability are still in play. The Supreme Court has required Obama to respond to Berg’s suit by Dec. 1st. There were 8 lawsuits total. One was thrown out as a citizen having no standing (then who does?!). Berg’s was denied and he appealed to the supreme court. They denied his request to put the election on hold but they did require Obama to respond. So this will be interesting. I do not know what happens if they find Obama ineligable. He took in 600 million dollars in campaign funds. A lot of that proven to be illegal overseas money. So there’s a fraud issue there. I’m guessing Biden steps in???? If he does, he’ll grab Hillary as his veep. So this could all get interesting and it is perhaps the one chance we have to keep Obama out of the presidency.
Administrator said,
November 5, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hi Patti:
Well I certainly agree that just voting because he’s black is a poor way to make a choice! You know earlier on we were talking about that prospect of whether people would just vote for Obama because he’s black. The conclusion our little group came to was that it probably works both ways (just as there are some who would vote because Obama is black, others would vote McCain because he’s white. I know someone “personally” who even stated that fact, yikes. But I don’t argue with her because according to her, “she doesn’t want a black President, period. . . ) Anyway, the conclusion we “hoped” may have played out was that all those who voted soley on color, be it white or black, cancelled out each other, ha ha! So hopefully, what was left were the people who voted for issues. I can say that here in Los Angeles, it is very Democrat. I see it in the signs and the people who were out picketing or advertising. So I feel pretty certain that the votes here really did go to Obama. Funny, cause I was looking at the votes in your state, Idaho, and our percentages are just the opposite! Your state favored McCain by the same percentage California favored Obama. One difference, tho, is that we have a much larger population. It looked like Calif. alone entered over 10 million votes. The number of votes entered for Idaho shows about 750,000. That’s a big difference. LA is pretty heavily populated with about 3 million in LA proper, and about 8 million in LA county. I don’t know what the precentage is in Northern Calif. but I think San Diego, Calif just south of us has about 3 million.
Oh, I hope we’ll get more coverage regarding the results of that lawsuit! But again, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a media blackout on that one. How to follow up? I also read somewhere that these types of charges against Obama are left overs of Hilary’s attacks on him. And ooooh, God forbid you’re right that Biden pick “her” up for veep, yikes, yikes, yikes! Now she is someone I would definitely not want in the White House. I’ve read things about her! Oye. . . Definitely let me know if you hear anything more on this one.
Marla
Administrator said,
November 5, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I just checked out the population in Idaho and Wiki shows about 1 1/2 million in 2007. So it looks like a good chunk of people didn’t vote or voted third party.
Administrator said,
November 5, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I know that this is kinda off topic, but this population thing has me interested in light of how many people voted. I just checked out the U.S. Consensus Bureau and it listed the population for Los Angeles County at almost 10 million in 2006. Cripes, I didn’t realize there were that many people right here, and that doesn’t include the other counties like San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Northern Calif areas etc. The list showed the total population of California in 2006 to be about 36 1/2 million. We’re like 18 times larger than Idaho, which makes it seem like Idaho has a disproportionate electoral votes in terms of population. Given your population size and your 4 electoral votes, you might think that Calif should have more than 55 given it’s population size. But I guess that’s all been figured in when they came up with the electoral college system, I suppose.
Looks like we have the highest population here in Calif. at 36 1/2 million in 2006. Florida showed just over 18 million in 2006, New York about 19 1/2 million in 2006, and Texas about 23 1/2 million in 2006. Those seemed to be the states with the highest electoral votes.
patti said,
November 6, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Our elections office here said 80% of registered voters voted this year so I wonder if the web stats for our population are off a little? I dunno. I really don’t pay attention.
I don’t have any doubt most people in CA voted Obama. I wouldn’t expect much otherwise (it is, afterall, a very liberal place). My doubts are with PA, OH and a few other states where voter fraud was absolutely everywhere. They had lawsuits going, people admitting to being paid to register and vote 3 and 4 times, etc. etc. And ACORN was in the middle of it all. Two years ago ACORN officials were actually jailed because of this stuff. Seems not so this year.
I imagine there were a lot of illegals voting as well in states where it’s not required that you prove your a US citizen. 
I know in Idaho you don’t have to prove it. You only have to have an address in that state. Considering how many illegals are in this country I really believe that should be changed. Dems will never do it.
Administrator said,
November 6, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Yeah, you know I have wondered how accurate these votings are for a long time, anyway, especially with secret ballots, how can they be checked? And with the short amount of time it takes them to tally up the votes now? Also nice how we don’t get to know the results for the other third parties who were on the ballot. But when you think about it, I don’t think all this voting problems only existed in this election. It’s gone on for a long time. Decades. Did you ever read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair? I think the book was published around 1906, and there was a part in the story of how the Packingtown bosses paid their employees to vote even tho they didn’t know what they were voting for. The bosses would just herd their employees up (many foreigners who barely spoke English), show them how to fill out the ballots (i.e. which names to check), then take them to the polling offices. I remember in high school reading about how the various workers’ unions did these things, too, with their members so that they could get more votes for their candidates. Apparently it’s a thing that’s been going on for decades. Also, did you see or read the book on John Adams? They made a 6 part series off the John Adams book, and if there is any truth to it, our “first” election was rigged! The story goes that Alexander Hamilton didn’t want John Adams to become President, so he made sure that George Washington won by a landslide. And I don’t know how much truth there is to this, too, but I also read online one time that the reason why they later made the rule that the President should be born in the U.S. is because they were afraid of Hamilton becoming President. Since Hamilton was born in the Caribbean, he would never be eligible to become U.S. President. A technicality, but I guess it would ensure they wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore, ha! Apparently even way back then they also did a lot of mudslinging. Must be a tradition. . .
Oh, the border thing is another issue! I’ve heard that there are “ideas” of combining Mexico, the U.S. and Canada so that we would all be one and share the same currency called the “Amero.” This is a similar concept to the “Euro.” And because of this concept, there is no urgency to keep our borders secure. Supposedly this is not a Republican vs. Democrat thing, either. It’s supposedly a mutual goal. True? Who knows? But that had been a topic on the net for some time now.
patti said,
November 7, 2008 at 10:14 pm
The unification of America with Mexico has been a hot button issue for several years now. Bush is a globalist (as have been the last several presidents). I am adamantly opposed to this move as it removes America’s ability to stand on her own and requires “agreement” with the other countries regarding laws, etc. We’ve been following this for quite some time. As of late, there hasn’t been a lot of new stuff. The public outcry when it started coming out was intense. And much of the outcry was coming from staunch republicans, not RINOs. Hopefully, that put a squelch on it for the meantime (not likely).
Yep, election fraud has been around a very long time.
Unrelated to the above, but election related (because of Obama) – two issues that are starting to come to the fore front in the last two days are the UN Treaty on the rights of the child (or something like that) and the creation of a compulsary service requirement for 18-23yr olds that Obama wants to put in place. There is little known yet. Like, will people have a right to not do it if they disagree? Who knows? The UN Child treaty is just plain scary.
So, those are two issues we are watching very carefully here because we have children it would affect.
Should be interesting………..and scary. Even so, come Lord Jesus……
Administrator said,
November 8, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Yes, it appears that we’re headed toward a one world government. I recall seeing a list of some Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) members and both McCain and Obama were on that list. As far as I understand, a one world government is an objective of the CFR. And from what I’ve heard is that you only become a member if you’re “invited,” not just anyone can be a member. It makes sense that they’d invite those who they feel would help them get closer to their goals.
I’m with you regarding the UN Treaty for the Children. Definitely alarming. Apparently, it’s already been signed in 1995, but not ratified. Here’s what wiki has:
United States
The United States has signed the Convention, but not completed the ratification processes.[17] On 16 February 1995, Madeleine Albright, at the time the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, signed the Convention. Though generally supportive of the Convention, President Bill Clinton did not submit it to the Senate for its advice and consent. [18] President-elect Barack Obama has described the failure to ratify the Convention as ‘embarrassing’ and has promised to review this.[19]
Opposition to ratification
The United States has not so far ratified the CRC, in part due to potential conflicts with the constitution and because of opposition by some political and religious conservatives to the treaty.[20]
The administration of President George W. Bush has explicitly stated its opposition to the treaty:
“The Convention on the Rights of the Child may be a positive tool for promoting child welfare for those countries that have adopted it. But we believe the text goes too far when it asserts entitlements based on economic, social and cultural rights. … The human rights-based approach … poses significant problems as used in this text.” [21]
Active opposition to the Convention in the United States has been concentrated in politically conservative groups.[22] Senator Jesse Helms, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described it as a “bag of worms,” an effort to “chip away at the U.S. Constitution.”[23]
Legal concerns over ratification have mostly focused on issues of sovereignty and federalism.[24] The United States generally does not sign treaties that it believes would impair its sovereignty.[25] American laws for the protection of children are at the state, rather than the federal level, and the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution restricts the authority of the federal government to pass legislation or ratify treaties that will protect children. The U.S. Constitution not only limits federal jurisdiction over children, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that to some significant degree, no government—federal, state, or local—may interfere with the parent-child relationship.[26][27].
The Heritage Foundation sees the conflict as an issue of national control over domestic policy: “Although not originally promoted as an entity that would become involved in actively seeking to shape member states’ domestic policies, the U.N. has become increasingly intrusive in these arenas.”[28] They express concern about “sovereign jurisdiction over domestic policymaking and preserving the freedom of American civil society”,[29] and argue that the actual practice of some UN Committees has been to review national policies that are unrelated, or are marginally related to the actual language of the Convention.[30] Some supporters of homeschooling have expressed concern that the Convention will subvert the authority of parents.[31]
David Smolin argues that the objections from the religious and political conservatives stem from their view that the U.N. is an elitist institution, which they do not trust to properly handle sensitive decisions regarding family issues.[32] He suggests that legitimate concerns of critics could be met with appropriate reservations by the U.S. [33]
So hopefully, we still have advocates on our side. We definitely need to keep an eye on this one. And we definitely need to “pray, pray, pray” that God will move Obama’s heart ,and those who will be presented with the decision to ratify it, in our favor on this one.
The Compulsory Service Requirement is also concerning us. And according to AO Report, they seem to think that things will be moving swiftly. Here’s a link to one of their articles. http://aoreport.com/mag/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1082&Itemid=44
I agree it is a bit scary, but Brian reminds me that God will not put us through what we can not bear. We’re mid-trib’ers, so we think it’s very possible that we will see more than we want. We’re also keeping a close eye on what’s going on with those RFID chips. But of course, in the end, we know who will triumph. I pray that we will be faithful and endure to the end.
Administrator said,
November 8, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Oh, I forgot to “add” this tidbit from wiki regarding who is in “favor” of the UNK Treaty for Children:
World Vision, which is a large evangelical Christian relief NGO, has supported ratification of the Convention.[36] Smolin states that this support is probably more typical of worldwide evangelical Christian opinion because, globally, Christians who seek to help the “vulnerable, poor, needy, and oppressed…apparently find more inspiration than fear in the words of the CRC.” [37] Other organisations which have supported ratification include Church World Service[38], the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States[39], Church Women United[40], and the National Council of Churches.[41]
Sigh. . .
Administrator said,
December 8, 2008 at 10:43 am
This morning I found an article that followed up on the lawsuit regarding Obama’s eligibility to serve as President. Here’s the link http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081208/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_obama titled, Court Won’t Review Obama’s Eligibility to Serve. Surprisingly in the article the same guy who claimed that Obama isn’t eligible to serve as President also claimed that McCain is also not a natural-born citizen, so would also not be eligible to serve. . . Hmmm. And apparently there were two claims, one that he was a British subject at birth due to his father, and the other claim that he has a dual citizenship with Indonesia.
Oh well, so so far that looks like that puts an end to that.
Marla