You're pounding your own head against an unyielding brick wall of obduracy and innumeracy, Kevmo.
Team Mittens' paid online shills steadfastly cling to the long-debunked belief (or claim to, at any rate) that one might somehow increase the volume of the contents in Glass "A" by adding to the amount already within Glass "C."
It's cargo cult-level "thinking," demonstrably. You can't possibly reason them out of it, because they were never reasoned INTO it to begin with. ;)
Excuse me for butting in to your conversation here, however I believe I have a relevant point to share:
First, let me say this, you are correct in your larger point in that "a vote not cast for Romney is not a vote FOR Obama". That's just simple mathematics and thus, I do not feel requires further elaboration here.
However secondly, I feel I should point out the following: Your pictorial analogy of the voting tally is not entirely accurate. As people vote, they fill a certain "glass"; to look at the final outcome (as your pictorial analogy does) is irrelevant as far as what effect a certain vote has on the final outcome. Indeed, what your pictorial analogy would represent is a tie between Mitt, Barak, and some fortunate 3rd party candidate. A tie, at the end of an election; we don't redistribute votes at the end of an election (unless we're in some third world hell hole or unless we're talking about deciding who should be Wisconsin's US Senator but I digress) ...
No, the best analogy is simply looking at a more limited voting pool for easier comprehension. To whit: Say there are only 100 votes available and necessary to become President. Then also say that 50 people vote for Obama, and 49 vote for Mittens. Then let's say I (or you, or anyone) has the final vote. Then let's say this final vote is cast for "other" (doesn't matter who that is).
That makes the final tally: Obama 50, Mittens 49, and "other" 1. In this scenario, one can't say I voted "for" Obama because I didn't, but clearly my vote for "other" ALLOWED Obama to win so...what's he best way to describe my vote?
I would say as others have said: My vote was, "IN EFFECT", "for" Obama or I "INDIRECTLY" enabled Obama to win. So, when one or both of these caveats (the ones in quotes and capitalized in the previous sentence) are employed, when describing the third party "protest vote", it is correctly stated. IMO.
Just as mathematics forbid the flat out statement, "A third party vote is a vote for Obama", mathematics permit the statement, "a third party protest vote is in effect an (indirect) support of Obama". The above analogy I provided proves this.
So I'll say this now, and probably not again: If one is willing and able to abandon one's conservative principles to indirectly support Obama, then they are free to do so". It's all anyone can say, as each man is free to vote as he wills.