President-elect

[pne]

I keep hearing Obama referred to as "president-elect".

Strictly speaking, though, he won't be until the Electoral College up and elects him, though, won't he? Right now, people have only voted for electors; they just (many of them) thought they're voting for the next president.

Though I imagine having an elector vote for someone other than they pledged to do (or not voting at all) is probably rather rare.

Comments

[jixel.livejournal.com]

aren't there also a few states already that split the electors by proportion, or was that just during the primaries?

[leora.livejournal.com]

There is at least one state which does not necessarily give all of its electors to the same candidate. But it doesn't do it by proportion, it does it by regions within the state... like the election in miniature. I forget which state and as we haven't heard about it, I suspect it is all going the same way.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Maine and Nebraska both do this -- and Nebraska *almost* split for the first time ever. (The numbers were really close -- the last district wasn't called until the next morning, iiuc.)

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Latest word I've heard is the Nebraska 2nd district still isn't called, and is leaning back towards Obama.
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2835&u_sid=10480262

As crschmidt metions, if it is called for Obama it would be the first time either of the states which theoretically split their vote have actually split for different candidates.