2012 Presidential Predictions

November 6, 2012

Today is Election Day in the United States and we eagerly await the results to determine the most important outcome (the winners of our contest). Before the votes are tallied, I thought I would give my predictions for the outcome...

Barack Obama:
285 Electoral College Votes
51.1% of Popular Vote

Mitt Romney:
191 Electoral College Votes
48.5% of Popular Vote

By noon on Wednesday, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio will be too close to call. Most polling aggregate sites agree that Florida and North Carolina are the two closest states and several see Obama and Romney within one percentage point of each other in these two states. On the other hand, there are four other states that are closer than Ohio (Colorado, Iowa, Virginia, and New Hampshire). So why do I think that state won't be called by Noon tomorrow while the others will be?

On Saturday, the Secretary of State in Ohio changed the voting rules. He was previously called before a judge twice before for changing the rules, so there's already grounds to legally challenge the rule changes. There's currently a lawsuit regarding software on the voting machines that won't be settled till 9:00 a.m. local time. There were tens of thousands who were falsely told they were ineligible to get absentee ballots before, which is a portent for screw-ups on election day. They legally can't count absentee ballots for ten days after the election. Ohio could be a nightmare this time around. Fortunately, it likely won't matter in the presidential race. Unfortunately, there is a Senate race, not to mention some close races for the House of Representatives, as well as state and local level races. If it is half as bad as I think it will be, then someone needs to lose their job over this.


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