Yes, I'm pretty sure everybody here understands that AP doesn't officially decide who wins the election.

It still has significance.

Joe Biden has added "president elect" to his bio. When Trump tweets that he won, Twitter flags it.

The difference being Joe did not call himself that. He waited for AP to call it.

That's my point. AP doesn't decide who won the election.

Surely somewhere in the emanations and penumbras of the constitution we can find that the AP’s decision is binding.

As Hamilton famously wrote in Federalist Paper #85:

"It's not official until it's Facebook Official."

It's predictive of a forthcoming legally-significant event.

Do you realize no one thinks it has legal significance?

But it is a marker that people use as shorthand. There is no getting around the fact that Biden will have 270 electoral votes.

There absolutely is room for Biden not to have 270 electoral votes, if investigations reveal (... correctly or incorrectly) big enough issues that some states don't send electors.

I don't think there's a realistic way for Trump to have 270 electoral votes, but he could still possibly be awarded the Presidency by a weird-ass one-vote-per-state vote in the House.

> Do you realize no one thinks it has legal significance?

Almost everyone does.

what an obnoxious way to rain on a parade. everyone is more than aware of how the electoral system works.

Looking around the thread you'll see that might not be the case. I think the comment meant to correct a (hopefully uncommon) misconception that the election is now final before all the votes have been counted, which of course isn't true.

Yes, but note how quickly it was picked up by general populace as fait accompli.