4 ms·

That's a silly take IMO. I don't know where you're from but news outlet projections are taken as the de-facto actual result of the elections until the official

by simias 6y ago

That's a silly take IMO. I don't know where you're from but news outlet projections are taken as the de-facto actual result of the elections until the official counts are certified, often days or even weeks later. Note that these projections (in France and the USA) come from official, if only partial ballot counts. The only actual decision the news outlets have to make is to decide when to call the win when they judge that the winner is statistically almost impossible to change. In France for instance we get the first projections at 8PM sharp, once the last voting places close. Nobody, including the politicians involved, wait until the the final count to concede or celebrate their results. The only "americanism" I can see here is this odd electoral college system that leads to absurd situations where ~100k people effectively decide the elections for everybody else, while hundreds of millions in non-swing-states effectively don't count. If there's something worthy of scorn and foreign arrogance, it's probably that.

finikytou 6y ago
that you want the electoral college of the united states to become the electoral college of the united new york and california is one belief that do not align with the idea of what is america. once again something you can learn in history books. And no in france no media will declare a winner before being sure of it or they will withdraw it as soon as they see that the race isnt finished. again history should have taught them to be more prudent (gore/bush) but as they are partisan media they are just entitled to win.
- simias 6y ago
  I can't really come up with a reply to your comment that won't start a flame war. It's clear that the crux of the issue here is that you consider that at this very moment the American presidential race isn't "finished" and that it's partisan to say that it is. If you really believe that saying that Biden won the election is a partisan issue I don't think anything I could say would sway you at this point. I would just like to point out that in 2000 Bush won Florida by 537 votes, currently Biden is ahead by over 10k votes in all the contested states, and even if the projections were wrong for any single one of them he would still win the electoral college. I do think the news outlets learned from 2000, otherwise they'd have called the race as soon as Pennsylvania and Georgia flipped. The situation is really not comparable to 2000 where the news networks called Florida for Gore before the last polling stations had even closed in the state[1]. Now if it turns out that there was indeed fraud then of course it could overturn everything, but not having any conclusive evidence of anything it makes sense for news outlets to proceed as usual I think. I mean even Fox News called the race at this point... But even if we ignore these current events I still maintain that it's silly to expect the media (and all observers, including internationally) not to call the race when the numbers show that there's a clear winner. Maybe sometimes they'll get it wrong, but what's the alternative? Pretend that there's no winner for weeks waiting for the official count and you don't see the writing on the wall and precluding all analysis of the results? That would be rather silly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election#Florida_recount https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...

by simias 6y ago

finikytou 6y ago

that you want the electoral college of the united states to become the electoral college of the united new york and california is one belief that do not align with the idea of what is america. once again something you can learn in history books. And no in france no media will declare a winner before being sure of it or they will withdraw it as soon as they see that the race isnt finished. again history should have taught them to be more prudent (gore/bush) but as they are partisan media they are just entitled to win.

simias 6y ago
I can't really come up with a reply to your comment that won't start a flame war. It's clear that the crux of the issue here is that you consider that at this very moment the American presidential race isn't "finished" and that it's partisan to say that it is. If you really believe that saying that Biden won the election is a partisan issue I don't think anything I could say would sway you at this point. I would just like to point out that in 2000 Bush won Florida by 537 votes, currently Biden is ahead by over 10k votes in all the contested states, and even if the projections were wrong for any single one of them he would still win the electoral college. I do think the news outlets learned from 2000, otherwise they'd have called the race as soon as Pennsylvania and Georgia flipped. The situation is really not comparable to 2000 where the news networks called Florida for Gore before the last polling stations had even closed in the state[1]. Now if it turns out that there was indeed fraud then of course it could overturn everything, but not having any conclusive evidence of anything it makes sense for news outlets to proceed as usual I think. I mean even Fox News called the race at this point... But even if we ignore these current events I still maintain that it's silly to expect the media (and all observers, including internationally) not to call the race when the numbers show that there's a clear winner. Maybe sometimes they'll get it wrong, but what's the alternative? Pretend that there's no winner for weeks waiting for the official count and you don't see the writing on the wall and precluding all analysis of the results? That would be rather silly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election#Florida_recount https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...