Visual Demonstration of Why Your Vote Actually Counts
Office: U.S. Senate
Precincts Reporting: 2304 of 2443 (94.31%)
Registered Voters: 4,555,686 Total Voting: 2,164,556 Voter Turnout: 47.51 %
Candidates Party Vote Totals Percentage
G F Allen Republican 1,075,216 49.67%
J H Webb Jr Democratic 1,063,284 49.12%
G G Parker Independent Green 23,936 1.11%
Write Ins 2,120 0.10%
View Results by District Locality Total: 2,164,556
I just gotta say...Webb is down by less than 12,000 votes and the combined Independent Green and Write In candidates amount to twice that. I'll spare everyone the poli sci major babbling about public choice and end result but it's interesting to see where your vote actually goes: If the self-identified liberal population didn't split, the results would be different.
Note: These results are still unofficial. A little over 5% of the results are still at large but even that much shift is unlikely.
Edit @ 11:42: The gap's down to less than 5,000 votes for Allen. Only 2.5% of the vote is uncounted but...geez. Webb just closed 7,000 votes in the same amount. This might be better than football.
I have no fabulously apolitical icon for this. So I'll just go for the booze.