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Pet Pev about how percentages are counted
So in NC Obama has about 56.7 percent of the vote which is most likely to go up slightly due to votes in pro Obama areas not done counting. Such as my home county of Mecklenburg which went 7-3 Obama. Hillary got about 41.8 of the vote which is most likely go down slightly due to what i said above. So what does the media do? They round down for Obama to 56 and round up for Hillary to 42 and round down the undecided vote of like 1.5 or something to 1.
Who else sees this uneven math as BS? They are not using the same calculations to determine the percentages. The most accurate way to put it IMO would be to have it 57-42. When all the counting is done however the most accurate might be 57-42-1 which is a least a 15 point difference NOT A 14. Its so dam annoying how they are using different ways of rounding in different states. In PA they rounded Obama down and Clinton up to change it from 9 to 10 and in NC they are round Obama down and Clinton up to make it a 14 point instead of 15.
56.7 - 41.8 = 14.9 yet it is a 14 point win for Obama not 15. and PA was a 9.3 or w/e win for Hillary and it gets bumped up to 10.... WTF!!!
From a CNN article on their main page "Obama held a 14-point lead over Clinton" Even though CNN's own numbers say its a 15-point lead.
/rant
Comments (8)
And... TPM is following suit with the rest of the media and showing a 42-56 margin. Does the media hate odd numbers or something?
May 7, 2008 2:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I too was wondering how this would look with more precision... Here's what those percentages look like rounded to two decimals places (based on totals from CNN):
Indiana
Clinton 638,192 50.89%
Obama 615,753 49.11%
Other
Total 1,253,945
Difference 1.79% Clinton
North Carolina
Clinton 657,943 41.87%
Obama 890,705 56.68%
Other 22,713 1.45%
Total 1,571,361
Difference 14.81% Obama
May 7, 2008 2:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
14.81 = 14 in NC
1.79 = 2 in IN
9.4 = 10 in PA
Why do IN and PA get rounded up and NC gets rounded down?
May 7, 2008 2:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think PA was just mathematical laziness -- rounding the percentages and then subtracting the difference. I'm sure the media has been doing that all along, and it only became an issue because the punditry had (perhaps arbitrarily) decided that 10% was the dividing line in that critical race.
May 7, 2008 2:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes but why are they only lazy in favor in Clinton is the question, if they did the same thing they did in PA they would of rounded up both then subtract so it would be 57-42. But instead they only rounded up Clinton's and then rounded down Obama, thus giving us a 14 point spread. No matter when you round this time the outcome is the same, however they rounded down a 56.7 and then proceed to round up a 41.9, what is going to be truly telling though is when all the votes are counted and its something like 56.8-41.8 and then they round down for Obama and up for Hillary.
May 7, 2008 2:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, NC looks like it's just plain incorrect and got propagated.
May 7, 2008 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
They've been doing this since Jan. 3rd. They always round up Clinton's numbers and round down Obama's numbers. Good thing he's beat her by 20+ pts. in so many races.
May 7, 2008 2:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
It should be clear by now who the corporate fascist media wants to win.
May 7, 2008 2:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
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