Cellar US presidential election exit poll 2012
 

Let's have an exit poll with a very small self selected group of respondents.

If you voted in the US presidential election, who did you vote for? Please don't vote in this poll until you have voted for real. Your vote is secret.

Your vote is secret, IF you want your vote to be secret.



oh... there's a poll. oops.

eta:

I voted over a week ago. I put my ballot in the dedicated ballot drop box (not the mailbox) last Saturday, along with the ballot of BD. Mom's ballot went in the previous Sunday.

I voted early, last week.

i'm officially both an Obama voter and a Bernie Sanders voter. Proud to say it!

not only was there no wait at my polling place - they had cupcakes and coffee!

also, since i don't know - or care - at all about voting for justice of the peace, to tell the truth, I just wrote in Lizard People.

I voted today ... first election I haven't worked in a number of years. It felt a bit weird. Happy to be non-affiliated in every way!

... as ye do.

WTF!!!! 15 people have voted and I'm the only vote for Romney??? I guess I am the only enlightened one

Don't worry Sarge, tons of people in my upper-middle-class Texas suburb made up for it.

I mean, not me, but tons of my neighbors, for sure.

Sorry, Sarge. I would've voted for Mittens, but the thought of having to look at Eddie Munster for 3-1/2 years after he had his leader offed...I just couldn't do it. ;)

zing!

I was the 5th voter in my polling place... hmm.. looked like 4 poll workers. I voted for Biden and whoever his running mate was then did a blender ballot. A healthy mix of Dems n Reps and threw in a Lib.

Vote early and often!

You missed that Age by about 300 years.

Couldn't vote.

Haven't bothered getting my rights back.

:lol2:

Benighted. The word you are looking for is benighted, not enlightened. That means something different. ;)

also sad.

but I'm glad you're out here, hanging with us!

I think Sarge should be knighted... the Cellar's own knight errant.

huzzah!

Yeah, I know.

Butbutbut, I gotta fill out two (2) forms, fold 'em up, put 'em in an envelope, stamp it, and then walk all the way to the end of the driveway.

Sounds like a lotta work.

Thank you, but I must confess I would probably be a better jester/fool.

I now realize I am surrounded by a bunch of "damn heathen democrats" as my momma used to say. ;)

I voted for Obama but IMO this condition is not the healthiest for the Cellar.

if the republicans had managed to shut their nutjobs up for a while I suspect a lot more dwellars would have voted Romney.

I suspect there are probably just as many conservatives here as there ever were, it's just that the republican party has become so characterised by its lunatic fringe that ordinary sensible conservatives no longer feel they can support them.

From what I have seen on news coverage and current affairs programmes, the majority of Americans seem to be fiscal conservatives and social liberals. And by fiscal conservatives I don't mean the neo-con hand it all to super corporations brand. This is simply not reflected by the party which would historically have most represented their views.

Still, it was a 51-49 kind of election, no matter what the basic belief system is.

It may just be inevitable that any community, over time, winds up on one side or the other.

I don't think everyone on the cellar thinks the same way but it is more that we are exposed to the same narrative. This election was so polarizing because the narratives of each candidate were so different. Obama supporters see things one way and Romney supporters see something completely different. While everyone here has our own unique views, we were able to more or less agree that the narrative the Romney camp was promoting is bad for the country.

It was extremely frustrating for me to have a rational discussion with strong Romney fans or even read articles written by Romney supporters because there are so many fundamental disagreements. Virtually no common ground exists on the issues that were being discussed. That is why there was talk on both sides about the world collapsing if the other guy gets elected.

I think the unity of this discussion board depends on how Republicans react to this election. I'm not against many conservative ideas, but I would never be able to get behind anything they are pushing right now.

I voted for Gary Johnson, and I have decided that Obama and Romney are both bad for the country.

Well, quite a number of the strong right wingers just don't post here anymore...in any of the forums including politics.

I think that's a shame. Although I'm definitely left leaning, I miss the ones you all love to hate. They were my friends. Not that you all aren't, but it's a shame it gets so messy here at times.

People like this guy are why this country can't move forward with ALL of its peoples and ideas. He would make all Democrats (and any non-hard line Republicans I'm sure) second-class citizens with no voting rights if he could, in complete contrast to his beliefs. This self-styled Libertarian just needs to remember that the rights he fights for with so much froth and venom allow me to double-tap his face if he ever offered me violence because I'm not a raving Libertarian myself.

His solution to the situation at hand: Become the most intolerable asshole to random people and encourage others to ruin their lives to march in step. Hah... and they call others 'sheeple'.

I never would have voted for Romney in a million years, myself, but there are plenty of situations where I would vote for a Republican over a Democrat. I did vote for several local Republicans in our state races. But yes, on the national level they have to stop putting up social conservative, big-money nutjobs.

Even the GOP knew Romney was a shithead, remember how they didn't even pretend to be happy when he won the nomination? "Maybe not the guy you or I would have chosen, but, you have to go with what you have." The Dems knew Kerry was a bad choice in 2008, too. Nobody really good ever runs against an incumbent, they save their mojo for a clean year.

2016 could be a really amazing election year. Or the GOP could continue to pander to a minority base. We'll see. But another thing: I'm really not sure we're more divided than we've ever been. In the 50s/60s, people actively shunned neighbors and in the right crowd it was a scathing insult to say "their family is all Democrats (or Republicans.)" We always want to believe it's the worst it's ever been, but usually it's exactly the same as it's ever been.

Lately that's true, but Clinton ran against Bush I and I thought he was pretty good. He probably only won because of Perot though.

And remember Dukakis against Bush I? That was my first presidential election. Dukakis wasn't exactly strong. LOL. Neither was an incumbent.

In the "awesome but never gonna happen" file, I think it would be incredible if we could turn it into a two-vote system: You get one vote for your guy, and one second-place vote in case your guy doesn't win. I bet Gary Johnson would have won this election if that had happened.

I'm WAY in favor of having an alternative vote system.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...wchart.svg.png

How so?

As long as two parties dominate I don't see how an alternative vote would have a major effect. That type of system seems to work well in 4+ party systems.

Plus, if Gary Johnson/Ron Paul became viable candidates, Democrats and Republicans would attack their stances instead of ignoring them. There are true libertarians but from the people I have talked to (all around my age), most Gary Johnson/Ron Paul supporters only gravitate towards them because of a few select issues. Those issues are currently only discussed by libertarians and therefore, in my opinion, the discussion is extremely one-sided.

If the mainstream parties joined in we would hear the other side along with a full dissection of Libertarian's other stances. I would guess a lot of those one or two issue Gary Johnson/Ron Paul supporters would abandon them at that point.

I'm not saying that would be bad, I would welcome most of those discussions, but I think the Libertarian stance would remain unpopular.

But the two parties only dominate because of the way the curent voting system works.

I think the hardcore libertarian stance would remain unpopular as well, in the end. But a lot of Romney's supporters would have preferred (or at least think they would have preferred) *anyone* other than Obama. So they'd mark first choice Romney, second choice Gary Johnson. Same for Obama's supporters: first choice Obama, second choice Gary Johnson. And depending on how the numbers played out, the third party candidate could very possibly win. And that, in turn, would force the Republicans and Democrats in subsequent elections to field more moderate candidates who didn't spur complete and utter hatred from the other side.

But I thought you worked up from the least popular candidate, as Ibby's post shows? If that happened, then the Gary Johnson vote would have been split between Romney and Obama (assuming his supporters would actually make a choice, which I'm guessing most wouldn't).

This would encourage third party support (protest votes) but unless one group really took off, which I don't think any would for the reasons stated above, the election ultimately would remain with two major parties.

I agree that this type of system would help keep third parties as possible options once they gained enough support but I don't think that process would really help getting that initial support unless you had a centrist party.

Well yes, if you go with the flow chart Ibby posted, then a third party still wouldn't have much of a chance unless they garnered a significant number of "first choice" votes. But I can also imagine a more mathematical system where, for example, your first vote counts as two points, and your second vote counts as one. Say the vote is split 40-40-20, with each major party's voters naming the third party their second choice out of spite. Reps and Dems get 80 points each, and the third party gets 120. Even if the third party voters went 100% in one direction for their second choice, the R or D would still only gain another 20, and lose.