US 2016: The Election That Has Not Ended

Mr. Stratocaster, Post-Doc

The day of December 19th is a "key" date in the year of the american electoral process. It is the day on which the delegates officiate the results of each of their states, assigning the votes to the winning candidate and therefore officializing the electoral result.

The winning party in the polls in each state receives the totality of the delegates(1). Usually, the date is merely a protocolary and commemorative occasion.

But that was not what happened on 12/19/2016.

Several analysts, websites and media vehicles had raised questions about the possibility of state delegates voting differently than the polling results. This way, the official verification of the votes of the delegates and the official proclamation of the winning plaque was changed to 1/6/2017.

The reasons for this suspense are as follows:

1. The victory of Democratics over Republicans in popular vote by a margin of nearly 3 million votes (2,2%): Democrats 65,844,954 X Republicans 62,979,879.
2. States considered as "key" had last-minute turns with very balanced election results and differences close to 1%, such as Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The state of Michigan had a difference of only 0.3%. Changing results in these States would change the final outcome of the election(2).
3. The results differ in sources considered reliable. Sites like Bloomberg, CNN, Fox and Politico.com have shown differences between each other in the results displayed as "final". As an example, CNN credits a total of 65,844,954 votes for the Democratic plaque, while Bloomberg assigns it 62,521,739, a disparity of more than 3 million votes.
4. Some numbers are still open, and the strongest confirmation of this fact is that the last CNN summation is dated to 12/21/2016, 2 days after the delegate’s meeting for official voting.
5. CNN's website - undoubtedly the most complete and up-to-date - points to several states that are still in progress (although with mathematically defined results).
6. Requests for recount caused unrest in american society.
7. The controversy involving the alleged hacker attack, which led to the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats for "significant malicious cyber activities."

Independent of the events on day 01/06/2017, and regardless of each person's preference, the sharp sword of doubt hangs over the 2016 election result, which will go down in history as the election that has not ended.

The question remains: How will this impact on the social and economic process and on the main indicators of the global economy, such as the price of a barrel of oil, the international price of the dollar, the price of gold and the Nasdaq and NYSE indices?

(1) Except for 2 states: Nebraska and Maine. (2) Considering that together they totaled 75 delegates and that the final result of the delegates was 306 X 232, that is, the change of 37 delegates would provoke the draw of the election.