2012 Presidential Election Results (Updated)

Here are the 2012 Presidential Election Results (Popular Vote) as of Sunday, January 13, 2013.  Not all votes have been tabulated at this point.

2012 Presidential Election

Barack Obama (D) 65,899,583

Mitt Romney (R) 60,928,966

Gary Johnson (Libertarian) 1,275,821

Jill Stein (Green) 468,907

Virgil Goode (Constitution) 121,754

Roseanne Barr (Peace and Freedom) 67,436

Rocky Anderson (Justice) 43,088

Tom Hoefling (America’s) 40,624

Others:  288,664

What are your thoughts on these updated totals?

Source:  Dave Leip’s Atlas of US Presidential Elections

2012 Presidential Election Results (Updated)

Here are the 2012 Presidential Election Results (Popular Vote) as of Wednesday, November 28.  Not all votes have been tabulated at this point.

2012 Presidential Election

Barack Obama (D) 64,916,510

Mitt Romney (R) 60,493,449

Gary Johnson (Libertarian) 1,266,693

Jill Stein (Green) 459,125

Virgil Goode (Constitution) 119,364

Roseanne Barr (Peace and Freedom) 64,742

Rocky Anderson (Justice) 41,233

Tom Hoefling (America’s) 38,903

Others 225,930

There were significant increases in the vote totals since I first posted them on November 8.

What are your thoughts on these updated totals?

2012 Presidential Election Results

Here are the 2012 Presidential Election Results (Popular Vote) as of 12:09pm on Wednesday, November 7.  Included in the data are the popular vote totals from the 2008 Presidential Election.  The 2008 results are listed in parentheses.

2012 Presidential Election

Barack Obama (D) 59,725,608 (69,498,215)

Mitt Romney (R) 57,098,650 (59,948,240)

Gary Johnson (Libertarian) 1,139,562 (523,713)

Jill Stein (Green) 396,684 (161,680)

Virgil Goode (Constitution) 108,195 (199,437)

Roseanne Barr (Peace and Freedom) 48,797 (116,385)*

Rocky Anderson (Justice) 34,521 (N/A)**

Others 177,996 (323,984)

Vote totals for both the Democrats and Republicans were down from 2008. Libertarian and Green Party candidates saw an increase in their respective party’s vote totals from 2008.  The Constitution Party also saw a decrease from 2008.

*Ralph Nader ran as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate in 2008 in California and Iowa.  However, his status on many ballots was listed as “Independent”.

**The Justice Party did not run a candidate in 2008.

What are your thoughts on these totals?

Will Anyone Receive 5%?

Third Party Candidate Vote Totals

Florida Presidential Ballot

From the informative website, Ballot Access News, comes this ballot from Palm Beach County, Florida.  The ballot, for the purposes of this website, contains all of the candidates who qualified for President in the state of Florida.  As mentioned before on this blog, ballot access laws in the 50 states differ from state to state.  In order to qualify as a candidate for President in Florida, a candidate must belong to a party that is recognized by the state.  The qualification for candidacy is less stringent than in other states.  Oklahoma for example with the toughest ballot access laws in the country, will only have two candidates for President on the ballot.

Here is the list of Presidential candidates and their Vice-Presidential selections as they are listed on the ballot in Florida.

Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan–Republican

Barack Obama/Joe Biden–Democrat

Thomas Robert Stevens/Alden Link–Objectivist

Gary Johnson/James P. Gray–Libertarian

Virgil H.  Goode Jr./James N. Clymer–Constitution

Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala–Green

Andre Barnett/Kenneth Cross–Reform

Stewart Alexander/Alex Mendoza–Socialist

Peta Lindsay/Yari Osorio–Party for Socialism and Liberation

Roseanne Barr/Cindy Sheehan–Peace and Freedom Party

Tom Hoefling/Jonathan D. Ellis–American Independent Party

Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson/Luis J. Rodriquez–Justice Party

Should there be a limit to how many Presidential candidates qualify for a ballot?  Is this ballot an example of how democracy is supposed to work in the United States by being open to many who desire to run for office?

 

 

Give Me A Way Out

I can remember visiting my grandparents in Parlin, New Jersey for several holidays and occasions each year.  My grandpa and I would sit and watch a television show called, “The Uncle Floyd Show” which was a New Jersey institution in the form of a low-budget comedy-variety program.  The show bounced around, year after year, from low frequency channel to low budget cable channel so many times that my grandpa would tease me and say that “Uncle Floyd” was on “Channel 52 and a Half”.  Inevitably, we would talk up some baseball stories, mainly focusing on who should and shouldn’t be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  We wouldn’t get into stats too often, but I would question him about the merits of certain ballplayers, like Steve Garvey, for instance, who I thought should be in Hall and who my grandpa thought should not.  Our selections to the Hall were based on straight up and down votes.  Either he’s allowed induction into the Hall or he’s not.

Voting for someone into the Baseball Hall of Fame is not the same as voting for the next President of the United States yet many polling companies typically give the respondent two candidates to choose from.  Either you vote for the Democrat or you vote for the Republican.  There is little middle ground.  In the United States, voters are more likely to consider themselves, Independent, than Democrat or Republican.  Furthermore, there are extremes to both the left and to the right of our two major parties.  You have your Greens, Socialists and the newly formed Justice Party to the left of the Democrats and the Libertarians and Constitution Party supporter to the right of the Republicans.  However, when asked to choose a Presidential preference, many voters are left with one or the other.  Is it going to be Barack Obama or Mitt Romney?  I know we get a chance to say, “I Don’t Know” or “Unsure” or “Other”, but I want my “other” choice to be a specific name.  When I buy a drink from the store, I have a choice of Coke, Pepsi, and other cola brands, such as RC.  The labels never read, “Other Cola”.

Why not list, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Virgil Goode, or Rocky Anderson as polling choices?  In Colorado, you could add the name of Roseanne Barr, who is also a third-party candidate for President in some states.  How about adding the Prohibition Party candidate to a poll in Louisiana, the only state where the party qualified this year?

Polls should list all candidates running for President, and for other offices, where applicable.  If it’s a nationwide poll, then all candidates who are running if enough states to qualify for the Electoral College should be listed.   State by state Presidential polls should include all qualified candidates from that state in the survey.  Polls for Gubernatorial, Senate, and House races should also not leave third party or Independent candidates off of their questionnaires.  It is the honest way to go to promote electoral choice in the United States.  Polling companies that offer multiple survey choices only inform the voter more about who is running for a particular office.  There is no harm in doing so.

My grandpa passed away a few years ago.  I miss those baseball discussions with him.  Looking back, it seems that our final decisions on who should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame were pretty rigid.  Making a choice for President in a poll, however, should not have to be as rigid.

What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment below.