How come every vote is not actually counted in the US election?

This election has the most mail-in voting than ever before. I think that is because of covid. Many were probably afraid to go to the polls to vote.

As long as each vote can be determined to be as legal vote, there should not be a problem with voting in person, by mail, by proxy, online or by whatever method.

@lovebuglena That was the case with my husband and me.

@lovebuglena Not exactly. Each state is allocated a certain number of Electoral College members based on the number of representatives they have in the Government. No State has less than three Electoral College members, including D.C. but many have more, of course. In total, there are 538 Electoral College members, which is why 270 is the 'magic number', being a majority of the votes cast (i.e. more than 50% of the votes cast by E.C members, NOT of the individual voters.The system was set up specifically to avoid the problem of the more populous States over-running the outcome and to give the less populous States a fairer chance - too lengthy to explain here and you can find a clearer explanation on the Internet, if you need to. Each E,C, member has one vote for the President and Vice President which they will cast on December 3rd. Most will vote according to the popular vote for the whole State but some vote according to the popular vote in a particular region of their State. A few may be what is called "Faithless Voters" and may cast their vote in opposition to the popular vote (but there may be a penalty for doing this and only those prepared to pay the penalty may do so). In practice, 'Faithless Voters' have influenced the outcome very little in the past. It is actually not a bad system, though not exactly 'democratic' in the strict sense that each person's vote counts directly in the result. 'Universal suffrage' can never be a really effective method of choosing a candidate except in very small communities of a few hundred people. Choosing a person to represent you in a government is one thing: choosing someone to lead your government and to represent your nation is quite another. Some would say that your nation's representative should be apolitical (as the Queen in the United Kingdom is). Others would say that the Nation's representative should be the Leader of the political party who can form a majority in parliament (as our Prime Minister is). Your President is really neither of those, though it may happen that his Party also has a majority in the House and/or in Congress, though neither is a forgone conclusion.

@owlwings Thank you for the explanation.

I thought that the candidate that gets the most popular votes in a certain state gets the electoral votes for that state. Is that not the case?

Hmmm, last time I looked they said it was too close to call @lovebuglena

Many states say Trump or Biden won and yet it says less than 100% of the votes are in. In some states way less than that %. Shouldn't 100% of the votes be in before the winner is declared in that state?

@rebelann I realize all these are projections. So does that mean that if say Biden is called the winner in a certain state that in the end he may not be?

@lovebuglena Biden is going to win no matter what, once the remaining states finish counting their ballots.

@moffittjc Why do you say that? It ain't over till it's over. And what about the lawsuits?

But why make a call in a certain state when a lot of votes still haven't been counted? These projections make people believe that Biden is gonna win when in fact that might not be the case. And they called Arizona too early.

@lovebuglena The Electoral College is a joke and should have been abolished decades ago. Maybe it served a purpose a couple hundred years ago but it sure doesn't now.

@anniepa I think the electoral college should not exist. Wonder why they are not abolishing it...

This whole process is confusing to me.

@lovebuglena You're right that the media doesn't determine who will be president but the networks have people who study trends and keep track of what happened in past elections in order to project what they THINK may happen. The truth is they're surprisingly accurate.

I do not watch CNN or MSNBC. I don't really watch Fox News either but I watched them on election night. I do not believe that the outcome is the real outcome... And I am not the only one who feels that way. The media, no matter who, do not determine who will be president. So, in some way, whether they call a state too early or not shouldn't matter as their call is a projection and not necessarily what will be the result in the end once the whole election process is over.

@lovebuglena Oh so they will take a time to be able to count all those my goodness. Here we have to go out to vote and be there in the actual place itself.

@lovinangelsinstead21 This election there has been way way more mail-in voting than in any other election. Maybe due to covid.

Yeah. There was a lot of mail-in voting during this election. Way more than in 2016.

@lovebuglena nope it’s not based on the popular. The final say depends on how many electoral you have. Those electoral s can actually vote for the unpopular. They don’t have to take in account what the people say. Actually each person doesn’t have a say just those of your electoral. It’s based off of you areas population. Virginia has 13 and all 13 voted for blue this year

@ShyBear88 But if the electors don't vote for the candidate with the higher popular vote in that state then what is the point of people voting?

The electoral votes is what determines who wins. But aren't the electoral votes based on popular votes?

It s been investigated and even Trump's own Attorney General said there's no evidence of fraud.

Wow! That is a huge number. What's the difference between an absentee ballot and a mail-in ballot?

@lovebuglena They are basically the same.

I know all this now. What I want to know is exactly what has to happen officially January 6th and what can happen January 6th that can change the outcome of the election. Like what is the process...? I also don't get the early calls for a winner by the media when a huge % of votes has not been counted. That is not right and then they make people believe a certain person is the supposed winner when that may not be the case.

@lovebuglena I think this election the media called some states too early. But of course the media has/had an agenda. As for what the process is, it is kind of hard to explain. Basically, the electoral votes were all cast back in December, and now the Senate simply certifies those votes (or puts them to the official record), and calls the election officially for the presumed winner...in this case Biden. The senators do not have to certify votes if they choose not to. Pence CAN toss out votes he calls into question. And if he does that, those votes cannot be certified, and then the only votes that do count are the certified ones. If that tips the votes in Trump's direction... Trump wins. BUT, this decision would not be without contest either. All sorts of things would have to happen to verify that not certifying the votes was valid or with merit. Our system of electing presidents is simple, yet complex, but there are TONS of checks and balances within it, in part to make it more difficult for an election to be stolen. Our founders were very wise to set it up the way that they did.

@porwest I knew that today electoral votes get certified but I wasn't sure exactly what happens if some object... So it is only the Senate that certifies the votes? I thought it was a joint session. Objections definitely will happen, if didn't happen already. Not sure what time they actually do this... I wonder if the media will still claim that Biden won, even with the objections happening.

With these projections Biden has way more electoral votes than Trump. Biden is 6 points away from hitting the 270 electoral votes, which is the number needed to win the election. Trump is at 214.

That is true.