I would like to begin by apologising for writing a closing statement that's so much longer than the RfC question. Because the close was so finely balanced and nuanced, I wanted to give my reasons in full.

This intriguing RFC concerns whether our article on the last US presidential election should mention the allegation that Russia attempted to influence the outcome; and if so, where, and using what language. This is potentially controversial, and to avoid some foreseeable problems in future, I think it's really important that I'm clear about the scope of the discussion. The RfC question is clearly and intelligently worded. It's about whether the allegation that Russia tried to influence the election should be mentioned in the lede and/or the main body of the article. In other words, nothing in this RFC could possibly authorise anyone to say, suggest or imply that Trump won because Russia helped him win.

There's majority support to include the disputed wording, but not so much support that it's a slam dunk, and on the numbers alone, I think this might fall just a little way short of consensus. But it's inexcusably lazy to rely on the numbers in closing an RFC. Closers are also required to evaluate the weight of the arguments against Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

In my view the available closes are (1) no consensus or (2) to include the disputed wording. It would not be reasonable to say there was a consensus against including it. But on Wikipedia, "no consensus" means the status quo ante continues to apply, so "no consensus" would mean not including the disputed wording for the time being. After reading the debate once, I formed the conclusion that this was a "no consensus" on the numbers, but a bit of additional weight accruing to the "include" side as a result of the strength of the arguments could tip it over into "consensus to include".

The choice between these options has to come down to the way I weigh the arguments against Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and having read the discussion very carefully, I've got to say that this is really close. The "include" camp cites WP:WEIGHT, which is a subsection of a core content policy (WP:NPOV). The relevant section says: Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. The "include" side do clearly establish that the published, reliable sources give Russia's attempted intervention quite a lot of attention, so in this respect the "include" side accrues additional weight. (People who're inexperienced with Wikipedia may note that the "include" side also cite WP:DUE. This is actually a pointer to the same place as WP:WEIGHT -- they're alternative links to the same spot in the policy, so this is not a separate point.)

The "exclude" camp cites WP:SYNTH and WP:LEAD. WP:SYNTH is a reference to another of Wikipedia's core content policies (WP:NOR) and what it boils down to, is that on Wikipedia you can't combine reliable sources to make them point to a conclusion not contained in the sources themselves. As a closer, I don't agree that WP:SYNTH is violated here because the only claim that the "include" camp are trying to introduce is that Russia tried to influence the debate. That conclusion is attested in the sources. WP:LEAD, on the other hand, is a link to a guideline rather than a core content policy. The relevant part of WP:LEAD says: The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. I read this particularly carefully because it's cited as a reason to exclude the disputed claim, but to my eyes, the guideline actually appears to support including it. I feel that yhis would count as a further influence in favour of the "include" camp.

WP:INTEGRITY is also cited by the "exclude" camp. It's again a link to a guideline rather than a core content policy but as guidelines go, this one (WP:CITE) is of absolutely central importance. What the relevant section actually says is If a sentence or paragraph is footnoted with a source, adding new material to that sentence without a new source—or without making sure it is supported by the existing source—is highly misleading. When new text is inserted into a paragraph, make sure it is supported. I asked myself whether the disputed wording really does violate this and I can't see where it does.

As a result I give the "include" side a little more weight on the basis of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and I think that just about edges it over into "include".

So I conclude that this RfC does authorise editors to add brief wording to the lede. This wording may indicate that US government bodies' position is that the Kremlin tried to influence the election. It may not in any circumstances say, suggest, or hint that Trump won the election because Russia helped him.

With my next edit, I will add the disputed paragraph to the article's lede. Editors are encouraged to improve the wording to make it clearer and more succinct, but please don't remove it entirely or use it as a platform for attacking Mr Trump.

This was an exceptionally difficult RfC to close because it was so finely balanced. Questions or comments are very welcome and should be directed to my talk page in the first instance. I hope this helps!—S Marshall T/C 20:21, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC on including Russian influence into the election

The following text has been suggested to be added to the article lede:

The United States government has accused the Russian government of interfering in the 2016 United States elections.[1] A joint US intelligence review stated with high confidence that, "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Hillary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency."[2] Further, the US intelligence community stated "Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."[3]

Reference list
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

References

  1. ^ Ryan, Missy; Nakashima, Ellen; DeYoung, Karen (December 29, 2016). "Obama administration announces measures to punish Russia for 2016 election interference". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 30, 2016.
  2. ^ "Intelligence Report on Russian Hacking". The New York Times. January 6, 2017. p. 11. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
  3. ^ Blake, Aaron. "The 11 most important lines from the new intelligence report on Russia's hacking". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 7, 2017.

The questions of the RFC are.

1. Should the lede of the article United States presidential election, 2016 mention 2016 United States election interference by Russia?

2. Should the article include the above text?

Casprings (talk) 19:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
If you read the report, that is not true on the confidence. The NSA had moderate confidence on the motivation of the Russians. No agency had anything but high confidence that the Russians were behind the attach.Casprings (talk) 20:13, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the correction. However, it still does not support the statement that intelligence had high confidence that the Russians intended to help Trump, since the NSA had only medium confidence. TFD (talk) 02:22, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
All agencies agreed that to the following "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments." The NSA only changed with the following: "We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence." See page ii.Casprings (talk)
  • As we are entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts, the last sentence is a direct pull from the intel assessment. See page ii. The arguments on WP:SYNTH and WP:INTEGRITY are without merit, IMHO.
Casprings - Gee, the editor asserts he doesn't see the problem. But that's why you're here at RFC, and I'll explain in a bit more detail. Look, the text as proposed is not showing that as an attribution, another nit to fix for WP:CITE. What the proposal is showing is a problem of second source second quote that is clearly a WP:SYNTH synthesis (combining of pieces) with some joinery editing rather than a connected single quote or completely quoted sentences. This raises unnecessary WP:INTEGRITY concerns. You should have either proposed a connected single quote from a single source or to have done a paraphrase from multiple cites, not a mix-up of styles. Doing a mix back and forth of your phrasing then one quote then your phrasing the another quote is an unnecessary digression and an impropriety to the RS. I'll suggest that a clean paraphrase would be preferable, or to use attribution to ODNI report on a quote from them and to use Washington Post attribution on any conclusion from them. But avoid using multiple cites as sources for selecting snippets of ODNI words when direct sources are available, the WP:SWYRT is just not needed. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Markbassett I disagree. To me, this uses the language the intel community used to hit at the two major points from multiple WP:RS. 1. They intervened. 2. They did so in support of Trump. The two quotes are mentioned multiple times but are used from the primary to be as WP:N as possiable. That being said, I am certainly open to changing it, if that is the consensus. However, whatever the wording, more weight belongs in the article.Casprings (talk) 23:33, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Casprings - well the writer isn't expected to see agree to what criticism is. So long as you understand I object to having a construction of quote 1 saying it's from pg 11 of NYTimes and then your interjection and then quote 2 saying from Washington Post then I think you've received the comment. Markbassett (talk) 01:14, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The RFC was one to provide guidance to add it to a number of articles and templates. While the consensus was that this needs to be dealt with one article (or template) at a time, this continues to be what dominates the coverage of this election in WP:RS. As such, I believe it requires more WP:Weight. If you disagree, so be it. However, as the coverage continues to be dominated by Russian interference, so does the argument for more WP:Weight in the article.Casprings (talk) 02:16, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Dr. Fleischman: You can see decades ahead? May I borrow your wisdom to find out how we shall survive the Singularity? — JFG talk 15:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Regardless of any findings by the FBI, CIA & NI, there's no way to prove that enough voters were swayed to vote for Trump/Pence instead of Clinton/Kaine. GoodDay (talk) 02:35, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. I think the fact that we can never know the effect of the interference is partly why the interference is so important. Objective3000 (talk) 02:51, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. But that matters little for the historical significance that an outside nation interfered in another nations elections. Whatever the effect, that is one of the most important facts of the election and needs to be represented with more WP:Weight.Casprings (talk) 02:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Objective3000 Your "I think important" doesn't suit. That just signifies WP:OR or WP:SOAPBOX -- it has to show WP:WEIGHT predominance in WP:RS coverage to pass WP muster. This just isn't at this time looking like a big percentage of election coverage by Google check, it's more of a recent item and just gotta wait for a WP:NOTNEWS need to see if it has any significance beyond a 7-day wonder. Markbassett (talk) 04:27, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hardly soap. I've already said that I think this is undue on Donald Trump and have not yet !voted because of notnews. But, it is more relevant to this article, coverage has been high, Congress is talking about investigations, and there are now over 40 lawmakers skipping the inauguration apparently, primarily as fallout from this. Doesn't look like it's going away. Objective3000 (talk) 12:14, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Objective3000 - Yup, OK. Sounds like my thinking of it has WP:WEIGHT suitable for now as a subsection. If it persists and grows -- or if additional related events occur -- then I think the greater external WP:WEIGHT prominence will drive for something more. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:07, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Incorrect vote totals?

It seems like something is wrong with the Clinton/Trump vote totals. When I add up the state totals using the same numbers in the chart, I get 65,844,952 for Clinton and 62,979,860 for Trump, as opposed to the 65,845,063/62,980,160 listed. Is there an error in the formula? Is my spreadsheet broken? Please help.

ETA: Given the incorrect Utah number, the totals should be 65,844,954 and 62,979,880.

Abbey Bartlet (talk) 17:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like some of the vote totals in the chart were not certified. We have been using Dave Leip's US Election Atlas website as a source of truth for this. The latest totals are Trump: 62,985,105, and Clinton: 65,853,625. The preferred (and consistent with historical Wikipedia pages on US presidential elections) source of truth is the FEC report on the election. Once available, my expectation is some helpful WP editor will come along & source this information from there & link it. Happysomeone (talk) 17:01, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, the FEC now has their official results page up http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2016/2016presgeresults.pdf It is not the full report sadly, so it does not have voter registration numbers. That won't come out until July, according to their calendar. It does give official votes cast results, however. 108.80.193.145 (talk) 19:29, 7 February 2017 (UTC)Frank (Not an WP editor, just someone who signed up for email notifications from the FEC : )[reply]

New York Times forecasting controversy

I don't see a compelling reason for this revert: [2]

The omission introduces WP:NPOV issues because the Forecasting section now quotes NYT staff directly from nytimes.com, relying entirely on a primary source, hence making the section read more like uncritically sourced pollster trivia, not less.

I propose to add back the removed text, perhaps adding further media coverage if the existing Verge and New York Magazine articles written about NYT's forecasting controversy aren't sufficient: Quartz[3], Daily Dot[4], Slate[5]. A random selection of international coverage of the incident highlights relevance and historical significance: France[6] Germany[7], Dominical Republic[8]

Takers? OliverHargreaves (talk) 04:09, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Further confusion was attributed to The New York Times' live presidential election forecast website for misleading graphing after analyst Alp Toker identified the use of pseudorandom jitter to give the impression of live fluctuations in its outcome predictions.[1][2]

Exit polls

Should we mention that Trump over-performed the previous nominee (Romney) among whites, African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Asian-Americans, in the section dedicated to the exit polls? It only mentions the religious breakdown (Muslims), but not by race. Thank you. 72.141.9.158 (talk) 03:07, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nah - goes against the "Trump is a racist" narrative, which is prevalent by the Wikipedia editors/mods. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.132.10.250 (talk) 15:36, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Results by congressional district (maps)

Would it be possible for some-one to add a map with only the winning candidate by congressional district, not shaded by margin, in the results section? Thank you. 72.141.9.158 (talk) 03:09, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of section for 'newspaper endorsements'

Could an editor explain why this section is really crucial/necessary for, or to, the article? It doesn't seem to be significant enough to me. Thank you. 72.141.9.158 (talk) 03:11, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Potential addition of section for swing states

It seems a bit more plausible on here than it is for the swing state page. Please check the link for the precise form, although that's definitely not set in stone and I'd be welcome to any changes. They'll definitely needed to be adjusted somewhat to be put on this page. What are your thoughts? 72.141.9.158 (talk) 03:38, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Add table?

I've copied the source here, in case anyone would want it. I would recommend that it goes into the 'forecasting' section, since that's where it seems best-fitted. In any case, I'd appreciate if taken a look at.

The following table displays the final winning probabilities given by each outlet, along with the final electoral result. The states shown have been identified by Politico,[3] WhipBoard,[4] and the New York Times,[5] and the Crystal Ball as battlegrounds.

An explanation would go something like what has been written at swing state:

By Election Day, even less states were in play. FiveThirtyEight's final polls-plus forecast predicted 18 states, plus the second congressional districts of Maine and Nebraska, with an interval of confidence lower than 90%.[6][7] However, every major forecaster, including FiveThirtyEight, the New York Times Upshot, prediction markets aggregator PredictWise, ElectionBettingOdds from Maxim Lott and John Stossel, the DailyKos, the Princeton Election Consortium, the Cook Political Report, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, and the Rothenberg and Gonzales Report, called every state the same way (although Cook and Rothenberg-Gonzales left two and five states as toss-ups, respectively). The sole exception was Maine's second congressional district. Of the forecasters who published results on the district, the Times gave Trump a 64% chance of winning and PredictWise a 52% chance, FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton a 51% chance of winning in polls-only and 54% in polls-plus, Princeton gave her a 60% chance, Cook labelled it a toss-up, and Sabato leaned it towards Trump.[8]

State New York Times Upshot[8] FiveThirtyEight[8] PredictWise[8] Princeton Election Consortium[8] Sabato's Crystal Ball[8] 2012 margin 2016 margin
Alaska 83% R 76% R 94% R 96% R Likely R 14 R 15 R
Arizona 84% R 67% R 82% R 91% R Lean R 9 R 4 R
Colorado 89% D 78% D 95% D 96% D Likely D 5 D 5 D
Florida 67% D 55% D 77% D 69% D Lean D 1 D 1 R
Georgia 83% R 79% R 91% R 88% R Likely R 8 R 6 R
Iowa 62% R 70% R 79% R 74% R Lean R 6 D 10 R
Maine (statewide) 91% D 83% D 98% D 98% D Likely D 15 D 3 D
Maine (CD-2) 64% R 51% D 52% R 60% D Lean R 9 D 10 R
Michigan 94% D 79% D 95% D 79% D Lean D 9 D 1 R
Minnesota 94% D 85% D 99% D 98% D Likely D 8 D 2 D
Nebraska (CD-2) 80% R 56% R 75% R 92% R Lean R 7 R 3 R
New Mexico 95% D 83% D 98% D 91% D Likely D 10 D 8 D
Nevada 68% D 58% D 91% D 84% D Lean D 7 D 2 D
New Hampshire 79% D 70% D 84% D 63% D Lean D 6 D 1 D
North Carolina 64% D 56% D 66% D 67% D Lean D 2 R 4 R
Ohio 54% R 65% R 67% R 63% R Lean R 3 D 9 R
Pennsylvania 89% D 77% D 93% D 79% D Lean D 5 D 1 R
Utah 73% R 83% R 86% R 99% R Lean R 48 R 18 R
Virginia 96% D 86% D 98% D 98% D Likely D 4 D 5 D
Wisconsin 93% D 84% D 98% D 98% D Likely D 7 D 1 R

Thanks! 72.141.9.158 (talk) 03:15, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wasted votes

I have calculated the proportion of Wasted votes at 80.20% or 109,949,984 votes that's all votes for any candidate other than Trump also excess votes for Trump (these count as wasted because they could have stayed home and the result have been the same) in every state he won and also all votes for Trump in Florida and Ohio as there were also excess electoral college votes. Theofficeprankster (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And your point is?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 06:03, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Might be a good stat to include. Theofficeprankster (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See No original research. Objective3000 (talk) 16:40, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Is that original research, the data's there it just needed figuring out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theofficeprankster (talk • contribs) 12:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The lead used to have incorrect information in it. It said, Donald Trump "lost [the popular vote] by a greater margin than the four other presidents who lost the popular vote." This is factually incorrect. The four previous presidents who lost the popular vote were John Quincy Adams (1824), Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), Benjamin Harrison (1888), and George W. Bush (2000). The margins by order of size were 10.5% (Adams), 3% (Hayes), 2.1% (Trump), .8% (Harrison), and .5% (Bush). That puts Trump third, not first. The only way in which Trump was first was by total number of votes, which is not the natural reading of the statement. Or he was first among the more recent three (leaving off Adams and Hayes).

I don't have a problem with this particular piece of trivia being included somewhere. I do think that it is rather trivial for the lead. First is one thing. Third, well behind first, is something else. Particularly considering that unlike Samuel Tilden, Hillary Clinton did not win a majority of the popular vote. So he is well short of second qualitatively if not quantitatively. If put elsewhere, it should be explained properly, in appropriate context. The lead already links to United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote which has a table showing all the results in comparison. Perhaps that is sufficient. Mdfst13 (talk) 05:28, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reference list
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

References

  1. ^ Alp Toker [@atoker] (November 8, 2016). "Looking for trends in @nytimes's presidential forecast needle? Don't look too hard – the bounce is random jitter from your PC, not live data" (Tweet) – via Twitter. in McCormick, Rich (November 8, 2016). "The NYT's election forecast needle is stressing people out with fake jitter". The Verge. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
  2. ^ "The Fake Twitchy Hell Dials of the Times' Forecast Only Made Last Night Worse". New York Magazine. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
  3. ^ "The 2016 Results We Can Already Predict". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
  4. ^ "Voter profiles in ten 2016 swing states". Whipboard. 2016-08-08. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
  5. ^ Katz, Josh (2016-07-19). "2016 Election Forecast: Who Will Be President?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
  6. ^ "Election Update: Don't Ignore The Polls — Clinton Leads, But It's A Close Race". FiveThirtyEight. 2016-11-06. Retrieved 2017-01-26.
  7. ^ Silver, Nate (2016-06-29). "2016 Election Forecast | FiveThirtyEight". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved 2017-01-26.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Katz, Josh (2016-07-19). "2016 Election Forecast: Who Will Be President?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-01-26.

The polls were more biased to the left than described

Arizone was presented as swinging state (NOT republican) Iowa was presented as safe D (not lean R at all) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.138.239.112 (talk) 13:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

another Repetition of above. BETTERmaid (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Polls were more biased to the left than described

Iowa was presented as SAFE D (not lean R). Arizona was presented as a swinging state (not lean R). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.138.239.112 (talk) 13:08, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have some reliable sources we can read ourselves so we can add this information to the article? --Jayron32 14:26, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And is Trump truly right-wing? I'd say he's a mix.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:49, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

3family6, irrevelant to discussion topic. And iowa was not safe d anyware! almost everyone called it somewhat republican. not true, according to source included. BETTERmaid (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: From quick search 1. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map.html Take a look at the map. Many states were shown in gray - as polls average indicates them as swinging. 2. - Arizaona : http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/az/arizona_trump_vs_clinton-5832.html Although described in recent polls as "lean R", during time, most of polls so tie and "lean D". "lean D" for 3.5 months - 3 months from May to August and a half month in October. Either was is not "lean R" but swinging. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.138.239.137 (talk) 11:27, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mississipi "close"?

In the final paragraph of Battleground States, it lists the result of Mississpi as "relatively close" and as a result "taking experts by surprise". Considering that Trump won that state by 17 points, and given that most pre-election polls I've seen have given a slightly narrower margin (the fivethirtyeight forecast listed as source gave him just a 13 point lead in the lead-up to the election), I don't understand why this claim was made.222.65.41.186 (talk) 15:40, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Clinton performed approximately 3 points worse than Obama did both times. MB298 (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Me neither. seems weird. BETTERmaid (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate Image Sizes

I recommend that the size for the images of Hillary and Trump to be the same, similar to Obama and Romney's images on the 2012 election page. It looks a lot better that way. LoginRice (talk) 07:53, 9 February 2017 (UTC) They already are. BETTERmaid (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of lead size

"This was the first time since the landslide 1984 re-election of Ronald Reagan that Wisconsin voted for the Republican nominee, and the first time since 1988 that the Republican nominee won the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Maine's 2nd Congressional District, though the results in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan were very close."

The bold section has no relevance to the statement preceeding it. The bold section belongs in results, not the opening. Obama won Indiana, North Carolina and Nebraska 2, three solidly republican states in 2008, all by smaller margins that Trump carried these three states, and there isn't any reference to the margins in that opening. Bomberswarm2 (talk) 14:15, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with bomber, but I don't know that Obama's margins were smaller, even though that Motnana, missouri, etc. very close in 2008. Anyways, don't think it should be up on there, at all, really. Also, me-2 is not a state, shouldn't be mentioned since it's already said that trump is the only candidate to split maine's votes since the new rule/law was made and instated, also only worth 1 vote and doesn't count on map (faithless, etc. and not). Also, other states were part of firewall (nc, fl, nc is actually a swing statte, and also others in bush/obama states and so on. BETTERmaid (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Provisional votes? Crosscheck votes?

I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to find out how many provisional votes were cast, how many of those were thrown out, and how many votes (if any) were invalidated due to the Crosscheck program.

Is there any way to find this information from a reputable source?

Thank you. Therealex (talk) 23:02, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I know of, but...you can try to check. BETTERmaid (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note a

In state-by-state tallies, Trump earned 306 pledged electors, Clinton 232. They lost respectively 2 and 5 votes to faithless electors. Pence and Kaine lost one and five votes, respectively. This basically means that Pence has lost one pledged elector. 306-1=305, but in the results it says 304. Can someone please explain this? Ping or mention me if you have an answer. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:16, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's about the ticket. 304 votes for ticket of trump-pence, 1 for some one-else (I dont remeber) and pence. but his total is actually was 305, trump is 304. BETTERmaid (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think the "some one-else" was Ron Paul. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:44, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yep! BETTERmaid (talk) 02:35, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Great neutrality!

Pictures with angry Trump compared with smiling Hillary are the best demonstration of WP:NEUTRAL. Speakus (talk) 19:07, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Speakus: File:Donald Trump official portrait (cropped).jpg is the official White House portrait. clpo13(talk) 19:10, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect Total Votes

In the table of results the total vote overall and for individual cantidates is wrong. These totals have clearly been calculated in Excel using =SUM. They count not only Nebraska and Maine at large, but then include in their calculations the 5 congressional districts of these two states, effectivly counting these states twice. I put it in Excel myself and used =sum, and got the same total on here. When I manually deleted Maine and Nebraska's districts from the table, leaving the at-large votes, there were different numbers. This means everything including total votes, turnout, victory margin, votes for each cantidate and any references to this on Wikipedia (and potentially everywhere if the media use this total) are incorrect.

Wikipedia total: 137,098,601
Total of =sum in Excel: 137,098,601
Total of =sum in Excel after removing Maine and Nebraska's districts: 136,469,983


This appears to be a extremely major error that could affect dozens of pages so this needs to be fixed ASAP

Bomberswarm2 (talk) 10:34, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2017

The current election map shows Maine's First district in red. and the second (north) district in blue. Please change the color of the Second District to red, and the First to blue. Harry Snyder (talk) 19:28, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The current popular vote totals and percentages as listed in both the info box and the popular vote table in the article is not the same totals as found in the source cited. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 20:14, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Final vote tallies

Numbers on page are uncorroborated and unsourced. Dave Leip and Cook Political Report refuted these numbers PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 22:00, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Screwy percentages?

I am puzzled by something here. Perhaps someone can explain it; if not, perhaps it is a problem that needs correcting.

In one chart (Ballot Access), the Johnson/Weld Libertarian ticket is credited with receiving 4,489,233 votes, and a percentage of 3.27% of the total. In a second chart (showing the Popular Vote as a percentage only), the Johnson/Weld Libertarian ticket is credited with receiving 3.15% of the total. And in the text itself, I read this sentence: "With ballot access to the entire national electorate, Johnson received nearly 4.5 million votes (3.28%), the highest nationwide vote share for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1996..."

Now, I can understand there being slight variations in how votes, and percentages, get counted in the above cases.

But then, immediately under the Heading 8 of this article, "Results," how do we find a chart that shows "Presidential candidate" Gary Johnson with 4,310,762 votes, but only 1.88% (!) of the popular vote? How does that happen? How does Johnson suddenly drop from over 3 percent elsewhere in this text to under 2 percent here? Particularly when the other minor-party presidential nominee in this race, Jill Stein of the Greens, consistently shows up as receiving 1.06% of the vote in all of those contexts?

[Ballot Access chart] Stein/Baraka 1,457,222 [votes] 1.06%

[Results chart] Jill Stein 1,480,067 [votes] 1.06%

[Popular Vote chart showing only percentages] Stein 1.06%

[Text:] "Stein received almost 1.45 million votes (1.06%), the most for a Green nominee since Ralph Nader in 2000."

By any measure shown here, Johnson received more than twice the number of actual votes as were cast for Stein. So I don't see how Johnson's alleged 1.88% of the vote in the "Results" chart can be accurate.

Incidentally, when I total up all the popular-vote percentages under that Heading 8 "Results" chart — including all of the various minor candidates plus the "Other" vote — they don't reach 100 percent. Adding up the percentages for Trump, Clinton, Sanders, Johnson, Stein, McMullin, Castle, de la Riva, and the generic "Other" gets one to only 99.39 percent.

The credited source for this chart (Leip, David. "2016 Presidential Election Results," from Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections) doesn't support these figures either. That link shows, for example, Jill Stein with (again) 1.06% of the vote, but Gary Johnson with 3.27 %. What's the cause of the discrepancy here?

NicholasNotabene (talk) 01:23, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So fix it. Final results were not available till long after the election and not all results may have been updated or re-calculated. TFD (talk) 04:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Put districts into a seperate table

It caused a summing error before, and the 5 districts are in a seperate table in the elections 2000 - 2012.

On a related note, the listed total votes and actual summing of votes are different. Double counting Maine and Nebraska or single counting them, neither of them are the same as the total votes.

Bomberswarm2 (talk) 09:02, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Petition for SCOTUS to nullify the elections

I saw on Twitter that there was a petition for the Supreme Court to hear the case about nullifying the elections due to Russian hacking. It's Twitter, so I was skeptical. Turns out it's true. Secondary source, primary source. I have no clue if it should be included? I am not very familiar with these kinds of edits. Callmemirela 🍁 {Talk} ♑ 14:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't add it, as a US presidential election has never been nullified. This gave me a good laugh, though. GoodDay (talk) 16:56, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
True, but not going anywhere. Although I was thinking of petitioning SCOTUS to reverse the election of Warren G. Harding. Objective3000 (talk) 19:10, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This has received too little attention in relation to overall coverage of the election to be included. We don't even include it for 2008, when it received far more attention. We do mention it in the 2000 election article, but it was daily news. Note though that in 2000, the litigation was conducted before the electors had voted. TFD (talk) 15:14, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If this gets legs, there will be secondary RS reporting that will guide any content decisions. Right now, we have none. SPECIFICO talk 15:18, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Vote Table Margins

In every Wikipedia page on elections except this one, the popular vote winner is given the positive number margins in the table showing vote totals state-by-state. Could someone alter this table to match the others? 207.98.144.226 (talk) 16:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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