When I was 14 or thereabouts, I played a lot of computer games on my Apple ][e. One game that I particularly enjoyed was “President Elect”. It was an early example of what we would now call a turn-based strategy game, simulating a presidential campaign. You could play in ‘historical’ mode, in any election from 1960 to 1984; or you could alter the candidates and/or economic conditions.

After playing it for a while, one day I felt very impish, and I decided I would try and create a series of conditions that the game couldn’t effectively handle. So, I set up an election in which the Republicans had nominated the very liberal Jesse Jackson; the Democrats had nominated the very conservative Jesse Helms; and then moderate John Anderson ran as an independent.

To the extent my objective was to create chaos, I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams: My recollection, a third-of-a-century later, is that the outcome of the election ultimately hinged on a margin of 7 votes in Hawaii. (Not that I can remember who actually won.)

I bring that up because I’m starting to feel like we’re all living in somebody’s simulation of an ultra-close chaotic presidential election…

There have been no new developments in Nevada or North Carolina since I last wrote several hours ago, but the other three states keep tightening:

• in Georgia, Trump’s lead is now down to about 1,900 votes, with both candidate’s share rounding to 49.4%;
• in Pennsylvania, things keep narrowing and it’s now Trump 49.7%, Biden 49.0%; and
• in Arizona, things also keep narrowing in the other direction, with things now at Biden 50.1%, Trump 48.5%.

It’s very, very tight. If Biden does win, there could be multiple states where Biden’s margin of victory over Trump is less than the meager percentage of votes that went to the Libertarian candidate, Jorgensen: AZ (1.4%), GA (1.2%), PA (1.1%), NV (1.0%), and WI (1.2%).