Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I'm not an American, can you explain how are able to determine a winner if the votes are still being counted?


It's not the simple national popular vote that determines the winner, there's this thing called an electoral college where the states get a certain number of votes. You end up with "swing states" which decide the election, and some states are dyed blue or red. So once enough votes have been counted in the swing states to determine their color, it's effectively over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...


Fundamentally it doesn’t matter whether 51% or 99% of a state goes for candidate A, assuming it is winner-takes-all in that state (a few aren’t.)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: