Well, SOMEONE Has Already Won the Election

I've seen a bunch of articles, tweets, and Facebook posts this morning along the lines of "no, Trump has not already won the election, the votes aren't counted yet."

I don't know whether Trump has won the election or not, but someone has. The votes have been cast. Counting them doesn't decide who wins the election. It just tells us who already did.

Now, the caveat: Winning the election and winning the presidency aren't the same thing.

There are various ways in which the process of selecting the president by election might be thwarted.

For example, stuffing ballot boxes with fake votes.

Or getting the courts to stop the counting while one candidate is ahead, when the other candidate actually has more votes in the remaining pile

But that doesn't change the actual outcome of the election. It just steals the office which was supposed to be decided by the election.