Thanks to sources like CNN we all know that Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, received almost 64.3 million popular votes (and counting) and 349 electoral votes (and counting).  And we know that he defeated John McCain, the Republican candidate, who received “only” 56.7 million popular votes (and counting) and 153 electoral votes (and counting).  As a result of these statistics, McCain delivered a concession speech on Tuesday night and Obama’s prefix is now “President-elect.”

If you check out the CNN site, though, you will notice that Obama received 53% of the vote, and that McCain received 46% of the vote.  This adds up to only 99% of the popular vote.  So what happened to the other 1% of the tabulated vote?  Fortunately, CNN also provides the full results of the Presidential election (well, “full” considering three states have not yet announced their vote tallies.  Here is the top tier of the results:

It now becomes obvious that, besides Obama and McCain, other candidates received votes.  Most notable is 3rd place candidate Ralph Nader, who received over 660,000 votes!  For the record, this would make the fictional Nader Nation the 48th most populous state, between Alaska (population: 683,000) and North Dakota (population: 639,000).

After Nader, though, the obscurity level increases.  I find it amazing that someone like Moore receives 6,547 votes from across the country.  Chances are that Moore was on the ballot of one or several states.  If not, that means 6,547 people wrote Moore in — and I’m assuming that nobody has that many friends or family members willing to write their name on a presidential ballot!  On the bright side, Moore did finish with 296 more votes than “None of these candidates,” the last of the candidates to beat the candidate with such a cumbersome last name =)

Even more impressive is the entity that received 509 votes:

It would be great if “Phillies” was the result of write-in votes from 509 citizens of Philadelphia, where we are still in a daze from last week’s World Series victory, which ended a 25-year championship drought (perhaps you heard something about this?).  But, alas, there is actually a candidate named George Phillies, who was running in New Hampshire on the Libertarian ticket.

Perhaps Mr. Phillies would have had more luck if he had registered for the Pennsylvania ballot; no doubt more than a few Philadelphians would have been so excited that they would have voted for Phillies out of sheer passion!  I think I have my running mate for my campaign in 2020; hopefully the Phillies’ dynasty is fresh off of winning its 13th straight World Series!

In other news, I am still waiting to see CNN’s coverage of the concession speech by Bradford Lyttle of the United States Pacifist Party, the 25th highest vote getter (103 votes).