Gary Johnson Drops Below One Percent In Popular Vote

ALBUQUERQUE – As absentee ballots and late returns continue to trickle in, it appears that Gary Johnson may not crack one percent after all. The latest unofficial national popular vote returns show that the Libertarian Party candidate now has only 0.9 percent of the popular vote.

Votes are still being counted, so there's a possibility Johnson could creep past one percent before the final vote count is certified in the coming weeks.

At time of publishing Johnson's uncertified popular vote total was 1,139,562.

Johnson's campaign said they expect the vote totals to change over time.

"We'll just have to watch," said Joe Hunter, Johnson's communication director. 

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

If libertarians vote at all, are they more or less likely to vote absentee?

[1955]

I would guess most absentee voters are team players.

[Emmerson Biggins]

according to all data sets I've looked at (which isn't really that many) capital-L Libertarians are less likely to vote early or vote absentee.

If the pool of absentee votes has a significant number of millitary voters, my anecdotal observation might be a bunch of crap. I don't know.

[Rich]

Johnson could creep past one percent

"Creep"?! Dammit, Garrett, why can't you say *surge*?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Very inconsistent on alt-text, but nothing is better than baseball references. Way to go!

[Ted S.]

Do you mean that baseball references are the best, or that they're so bad that even nothing is better than having a baseball reference?

I presume you mean the latter.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

The latter.

[Tim]

Peter Marshall: Paul, can you get an elephant drunk?

Paul Lynde: Yes, but it still won't go up to your apartment.

[Mickey Rat]

So Gary Johnson made a poorer showing than was thought? Shocking.

[The Late P Brooks]

I heard a lot of boilerplate waffling about how, "Well, neither candidate really represents what I believe."

Every time I heard that, I said, GARY JOHNSON IS YOUR GUY.

I'm sure every single one of those morons sleepwalked into the booth and pulled the handle for the Great and Powerful Zero.

Fucking dummies.

[Caleb Turberville]

There's options open to them, including third parties and abstention. These aren't secrets. If they continue to vote for either the Dems or Reps, then those people, in fact, DO represent what they believe.

[Josh M.]

Nah, most people vote based on who's easy to vote for. Gary Johnson is hard to vote for because you have to do your own research. Most Americans, let's face it, are mad lazy and will just vote based on party or who they see on TV. If every voter did research and voted based on who they believe would do the best job, I'd say Obama would have got 12%, Romney 12%, Johnson 1-million %. *My total my be off a bit.

[Mensan]

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of my friends who said they voted for Johnson. I don't even think I can take credit for swaying most of them.

[Joe M]

Like this is a crisis. The important thing is that Johnson got almost as many votes as the LP candidate got in the last three elections combined, and has the highest total ever. I'd say that's a worthy achievement, whether it's 1.0% or 0.96%.

[The Late P Brooks]

If they continue to vote for either the Dems or Reps, then those people, in fact, DO represent what they believe.

That's pretty much what I was getting at.

If somebody tells you he's an "independent" but it is plainly obvious he'd rather have his balls gnawed off by a rabid weasel than vote for a Republican, I think we can pretty easily determine his true political nature.

[Mensan]

So it's a choice between two republicans?

[Delroy]

I took a look at the voting results for my local precincts. What was odd was that while GJ was getting about 1 percent, other libertarian (& independent) candidates (US Senator, Representative, etc.) were getting more like 5 percent. this was both in precincts where Obama AND Romney had the most votes.

So, some people were unhappy with the Dem/Rep choices, but couldn't select an alternative choice for President. And it wasn't because they selected other third-party presidential candidates - Johnson was always the main 3rd party selection.

[Joe M]

That's pretty common. I think people tend to be less willing to vote 3rd party as the stakes get higher, and of course this presidential election was THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE EVER.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Ya I noticed similar things.

I also didn't understand Ted Cruz not getting some of the Libertarian voters. That was the only R vote I cast. I figure a Ron Paul endorsement earns him one free vote, and after I see how votes I'll decide if I'm going to stay "loyal" to him. Statistically speaking, other GJ voters in my area weren't thinking this way.

[tagtann]

That looks like its gonna be really cool! WOw.
http://www.Anon-Done.tk

[Masturbatin' Pete]

Yum yum, savor salty tears of Gary Johnson and everyone who thought he could get 5% of the vote! Let your delicious tears spill down from your Justin-Bieber's-creepy-uncle haircut and onto your gimmicky leather jacket!

It's okay though - libertarian prospects are sure to improve once we completely open the borders and invite in more poor people who come from political cultures that favor statism and corruption!

[darius404]

Your concern-trolling and contradictory desire for less freedom in support of more freedom are mildly amusing.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

More freedom? What you're talking about is granting other people the freedom to take away our freedom.

How long do you think the libertarian project is going to last when the United States imports millions of voters from countries that have no libertarian impulses whatsoever? Do you expect that letting someone who voted for Hugo Chavez cast a vote that determines what you can do with your property and body will work out well for you?

If everyone in the world could vote in American elections, the president wouldn't be Barack Obama. We'd be lucky to have a president who respected economic and personal liberty that much. But that's essentially what Reasonoids want to do: invite anyone and everyone to cast ballots in our elections. Because as we know, when you're in the United States for a while, you develop a taste for freedom and stop voting yourself free shit.

[darius404]

And as we all know, the best way to support freedom is to deny people the freedom to move across an individual line. Your hypocrisy is, again, rather amusing.

[np]

Yeah, it was all those brown people coming across the borders that voted for all the socialist and progressive policies over the last century. I guess not only can we blame the New Deal on them, let's blame prohibition on them too! The fundies that forced public education on us? History didn't tell you they were really Messican fundies! The socialists that hijacked liberalism from liberals? Yeah, them's Messican too!

the freedom to take away our freedom

You have no idea what freedom is then. It's not delivered nor secured by democracy. Fuck, your reliance on voting is what sent this country downhill since day one. Even Jefferson before the end of his generation had confessed that the American experiment was a failure

[darius404]

His basic philosophy on this matter is "freedom for me, but not for thee". He's afraid that some potential children of immigrants who might settle here will threaten his freedoms, and vote against them. So he's okay with denying their parents freedom.

By his logic, voter suppression of Democrats would be okay, since they might take some more freedom away. After all, in each case it's a matter of depriving a group of people of some freedom, because he fears they will violate his.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

By his logic, voter suppression of Democrats would be okay, since they might take some more freedom away.

No. Democrats are American citizens. They have rights to participate in our elections.

Being an American citizen is not a right of non-American citizens.

[darius404]

Saying the government should guarantee the rights of citizens, but should violate the rights of non-citizens, is not a rights-based principle. It's a "get them before they get me" fear-mongering mentality. Again, your fear that some people may have children here, and that those children might vote not vote your way, seemingly trumps the freedoms of foreigners.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

You have no idea what freedom is then. It's not delivered nor secured by democracy.

You're right. Freedom is NOT delivered or secured by democracy. It can be taken away by democracy, though, and that's what's going to happen if you extend the franchise to foreigners who don't love liberty.

[darius404]

You're right, freedom CAN be taken away by democracy, and that's what you endorse with your desire to keep using the law to keep people from coming here. RIGHTS, however, can neither be granted nor taken. Being born in another country does not deprive someone of the basic rights to movement and association. You're also trying to keep people HERE from associating with who they want.

Besides which, did you ever think that maybe it's CLOSED borders that makes them stay here? It's currently safer for them to bring their families here than it is for them to go back and forth between their families and here. Our borders make it less worthwhile to leave America.

And maybe it's the desire of Republican-leaning people like you that drive the descendents of immigrants to the Democratic party? You keep hearing "we must keep them out" form the Reps, and then you all wonder why they tend to vote Democrat. Hmmm....

[Emmerson Biggins]

I can't decode the parity bit on your sarcasm.

[chad c mulligan]

Not that it really matters, but I think Gary's vote total has been stuck at that 1,139,562 number for a couple days, while Obama/Romney's numbers keep increasing with late reporting precincts. It's kind of hard to believe that there were NO Gary Johnson votes reported in the past 72 hours?

CONSPIRACY!!!

[chad c mulligan]

Just checked Green Papers website, which seems to have its shit together on such things...

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/.....ails.phtml

They have Gary currently at 1,165,355 votes, or 0.97% of the total.

So let's round it up to 1% and call it a day.

[protefeed]

They've got the Democratic candidate running in 49 out of 51 jurisdictions, so their assertions are not completely accurate.

[chad c mulligan]

Actually it looks like in North Dakota Obama was the nominee of the "Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party" and in Minnesota on ballot as the "Democratic-Farmer Labor" nominee... These are apparently "fusion" state affiliate parties of the national DNC as opposed to separate parties with the same nominee.

So technically, he was only the "Democratic" party nominee in 49 jurisdictions + the two above = 51 total... ?

[Tonio]

Nice handle.

[Warren]

Good point. We need to coin a word for getting google fucked.

[Ryan60657]

More significant digits please. Is 0.9% actually 0.86% or 0.94%?

[protefeed]

I'm guessing it is more like 0.99%, and the writer of this article is math impaired, because a few absentee ballots are not going to drop 1.00% to 0.90%

[Warren]

In the past two days Johnson's percentage has gone from 0.956% to 0.946%. IOW, it hasn't moved much at all. But google reports only to the tenth of a percent so from 1.0 to 0.9 But google also reports the actual vote totals. Which means that Garrett Quinn is too fucking stupid to do the third grade arithmetic to figure it out himself. Jebus fucking kryste. Who ties your shoes for you. Idiot.

[Emmerson Biggins]

you don't even need to actually do the arithmetic either. You just cut and past into ... you know .. google.

[AddieAddie]

I'm sure if Johnson had had a real campaign, his percentage of the popular vote would have been higher. It's a shame that a week before the election the Johnson campaign aired only their second TV commercial in only six or seven states. Where were the Johnson campaign's National TV commercials and radio spots earlier in the campaign? If Gary Johnson runs again (and I hope he does) he'd better choose a campaign advisor who will not steal the campaign money. 85% of Johnson's money was paid to campaign advisor, Ron Nielson. So where did it go? I gotta good nose and I smell criminal activity!