romney as the winner. we'll be watching the percentages and the rankings of the other candidates as the percent of the vote increases. this is exciting. this is election night. republicans of the great state of illinois making big decision about whether to punch their ballot for newt gingrich or rick santorum or mitt romney. that's not the way it's worked at all. have you seen the ballot? have you seen what the ballot looks like that republicans were using today in illinois? it's different in every county but this is representative. let's put up the macon county ballot. if you're going vote in illinois, if you want mitt romney to be president, you can i understand indicate that mitt romney is your preference for president of the united states right here on this part of the ballot. whether or not you do that, doesn't really mean anything. it doesn't get totalled for any official purpose. we will tell you tonight what the final results are. that's essentially as important as it is, that's the end of it. those results don't go toward any other purpose. if you want to commit an act of furtherance toward mitt romney getting the nomination, it does not matter whether or not you vote for mitt romney today in illinois. it's true. what you have to do, if you want to help mitt romney become the republican party's nominee for president is today in illinois, you would have had to vote for habib habib and january miller and david newberg. it does not matter who you vote for for president. it matters which individual delegate you vote for. let's say you hate this guy jimmy john or you hate one of these other people. you can't bring yourself to vote for one of these delegates because you had a dispute over the height of a fence. i don't know. you have some random personal dispute with one of the delegates. you do not have to vote for that delegate. you can pick all of the other people that are listed but not the guy you don't like. let's say maybe you're other delegate choice is jim hendrix. this is all hypothetical. he's for newt gingrich. you know this guy is a really nice guy even though you're thot for newt gingrich. that's okay. you can pick him as a delegate. if you did that, how would your vote be counted? should that be seen as a vote mostly mitt romney but a little for newt gingrich. your expression of what you want to happen in the no, ma'minatio president who have some relationship if who might be nominated it's an esoteric thing voting in illinois. macon county is in one of the four congressional districts where your ballot is different. there's a whole swath of illinois that has a different ballot in one important way. say you live in macon county and you're not a rmitt romney. you want rick santorum to be president. pr that reason it felt awesome and you made your mark and punched that ballot. you indicated your vote for the republican party's presidential nominee is for rick santorum. he's your guy. in some place like macon county, that means nothing at all. you stated your preference and nbc and the other news agencies will report how many people kmilted that feeling, but if you don't just want to feel like you're president, if you turned out to vote because you want to secure the gnome nation, your were out of luck. there's nothing you could do on your ballot. even though you can express that you want him to be your party's nominee, there are no delegates to vote for that have rick santorum's name next to them. in macon county and other parts of the state, three guys there for romney and three alternates. three for ron paul, three alternates. three guys for gingrich and three alternates. there's no way that your vote mattered if you're santorum supporter. even in some counties where rick santorum did get some dell delegate, he didn't get enough of them. each candidate is supposed to have four. ron paul only has two. rick santorum only has one. what are you going to do if those are your candidates. you're going to split your delegates around. how should the rest of us interpret the importance of what you do. if you're a republican voting in illinois today, you were quite within your rights to vote for buddy roemer for president and vote for one delegate from each of the four campaigns that have delegates. kbrou could ha you would split them all up. how should a vote like that be consideringed. as i mentioned at the top, nbc news has declared mitt romney the projected winner of illinois. that means he's been chosen by people who expressed a nonbinding preference unrelated to delegates in terms of who ought to win the republican party's nomination in illinois. ultimately what will have been achieved in illinois heightens whether the republican nominated contest is understandable. whether the results reflect the will of the voters who make the membership of the party. that will be one result tonight. the other result is for voters trying to figure out a ballot that looks like this. you turn out today thinking all i want to do is vote for ron paul, aim and shoot. at this point with a ballot this complicated, what are you going to do. macon county is one of the counties where the ballot didn't fit into the tallying machine. the ballot was too wide and they could not be put through the machines. good luck trying to vote on this puppy without any mechanical assistance. just aim . the illinois primary is impenetrable. this is one of the bad ones this week. [ boo ] >> that's illegal. that's illegal. >> this is what happened in the previous republican presidential contest this week. this was a republican kcaucus i missouri. missouri state law required republicans there to hold a primary on february 7th because that would earn them a punishment. they tried to change the date until later. they couldn't get it together to change that state law despite controlling the entire legislature. they decided to spend $7 million taxpayer dollars holding that primary even though the primary did not count for anything. rick santorum was very proud to have won that missouri contest. he went to the republican stronghold of st. charles county. he gave them a big speech thanking for the fake win that meant nothing. this is what it looked like in that same st. charles county. >> remove the chair. remove the chair. remove the chair. remove the chair. remove the chair. >> st. charles, missouri is just outside of st. louis. it's a republican stronghold in the state, so much so this county has more delegates to allocate than any other place in the hole state. they have so far allocated none because their process was this. it was shut down by police over the weekend before they thought it was going to turn into a r t riot. they called the police and had them shut down their caucus without voting on any delegates. one republican official told the st. louis dispatch nupd, saying i don't know what's going to happen because i don't think this has happened before. another local republican said i think we embarrassed the party. remember, this is the place that has the most delegates that there are to give in that entire state. this was the state's republican stronghold. missouri republicans can't even figure out how they're going to figure it out. they can't figure out how the delegates will be allocated and please stop asking. thank you very much. it wasn't just st. charles county where the republicans unravelled. this was the seen in clay county mo oh on the other side of the state. >> the chaos inside the caucus started before the pledge of allegiance. >> sir, have a seat. >> ron paul supporters tried to take control by electing their own chairman and ousting the lay county gop leader. he sometimes lost control of the meeting and threatened to people out. >> clay county missouri did threw that process pick some delegates. the chaos among missouri is not over yet. they are expected to go on for weeks. this is just what it's like in the republican contest. there's opinion crazy kau issueses but there's never been this much chaos in state after state in modern times. from the iowa caucus results being reversed to republicans announcing before a swath been reported. this has been an absolute mess. remember when you read that wyoming voted back this february. they have still only allocated half their delegates. today they decided to take one of the rick santorum delegates away and give it to rom instead. i sprain something trying to figure it out. i still don't understand how ron paul won the u.s. virgin islandss vote. he got the most votes. mitt romney got 26 prs. despite ron paul having won the vote in the u.s. virgin i lands, it was mitt romney who was given seven of the nine delegates there. illinois tonight, huge deal? maybe. we can tell you what the latest results that is that nbc news projects that mitt romney has won the state of illinois. at this point the total number percentage of the vote in is 27% of the vote. rick santorum with 30% of the vote. the closer you look at this thing, i have to say on a night look this looking at ballots like those, looking at delegate allocation it does sort of give you a little sympathy for people in the campaigns who say frankly, if you're only reading the headlines here, you don't have any idea how this race is going. people that you think have a shot night not and people who you think don't have a shot, might. it's possible that none of us know what's going on in delegates are the real game. i don't think the republican party has any idea either. mitt romney and rick santorum are expected to speak shortly to their supporters. we're going to bring it to you. stay with us. we're looking at a live picture here of mitt romney and his wife speaking to their supporters in illinois, which is west chicago. mr. romney has been projected the winner of tonight's republican primary in the great state of illinois. the polls closed at 8:00. it was not yet 9:00, not even an hour been nbc news was able to project that result tonight. usually as these things go in terms of election night speeches, mrs. romney will do the heavy lifting in terms of thanks the state based volunteers and staff for the campaign as well as some of the national staffers. she will name the names and mr. romney will step up and make a prepared speech. as mr. romney is about to start speaking to his supporters, we're expecting rick santorum to be addressing his supporters tonight. he's not giving a victory speech but we can expect mr. santorum to be focusing on the next campaign, the next contest which is this upcoming saturday in louisiana. right now the polling heading into louisiana shows mr. santorum having a good chance there. mr. romney has not faired well so far in deep south contests and next one of those whether it's going to be good news for mr. gingrich or good news for mr. santorum is likely to be louisiana. as we're waiting for mr. romney to take the podium, we're joined by john harwood and steve schmidt is with us. he's now a political analyst for msnbc. as we wait for mr. romney's remarks, thanks for being with us. >> you bet. >> this looked to be a relatively easy win for mr. romney. the this an opportunity to make a nationally televised address? what should he aim for? >> they have an opportunity to get out there and talk to millions of americans across a multi-network policemlatform. we have seen the candidates have some good nights where they hit the mark on these speeches and other nights where they have been out of it. every tuesday is a big night. we'll see how he does tonight. >> steve, thank you. if you can stick with us. i'd love to get your comments on mr. romney's remarks when he's done. we're joining mitt romney live. >> in this room and across illinois. what a night. thank you, illinois. what a night. and, of course, i'd like to congratulate my fellow candidates on a hard fought contest. i'd like to thank volunteers and our friends across the state. i appreciate their unwaving support through good times and bad. tonight we thank the fepeople o illinois for their vote and this extraordinary victory. thank you so much. you know elections are about choices. today hundreds of thousands of people in illinois have joined millions of people across the country to join our cause. this movement began on a small farm in new hampshire on a sunny june day. we were surrounded by a small group of our friends and supp t supporters and family. we shared a conviction that the america we loved was the trouble and adrift without strong leadership. three years of barack obama have brought us fewer jobs and shrinking fa checks that many of us believe we were in danger of losing something more than the values out of our homes and 401 ks after years of many apologies and not enough jobs, history drops in income and history highs in gas prices, a president who doesn't hesitate to use the means necessary to force through obama care on the public be leads from behind in the world. it's time to say these words, this word, enough. we've had enough. we know our future. we know our future is brighter than these troubled times. we still believe in america. we deserve a president who believes in us. i believe in the american people. you know that yesterday i was giving speech at the university of chicago. not very far from here, not very far from where professor barack obama taught law. it was a speech on economic freedom and as i was writing the speech i thought to my lifetime of experiences. i've had a lot of opportunity to learn about the unique genius of america's free enterprise system. it started with my dad. he didn't graduate from college and he would tell me about his dad who was a contractor. you know about construction, up and down years. he never quite made it, but he never gave up and raised great kids. i helped start companies and those began with just an idea and somehow they made it through the difficult times and were able to create a good run for investors and thousands of jobs. those jobs helped families by their first homes. those jobs put kids through school. those jobs helped people live better lives, dream a little bigger. for 25 years i lived and breathed business and the economy and jobs. i had successes and failures. each step of the way i learned a bit more about what it is that makes our american system so powerful. you can't learn that teaching constitution law at university of chicago. [ applause ] >> you can't even learn that as a community organizer. the simple truth is that this president doesn't understand the genius of america's economy or the secret of the american economic success story. the american economy is fueled by freedom. [ applause ] >> the history of the world has shown that economic freedom is the only force that's consistently listed people out of proverty. it's the only principle that has been able to sustain prosperity. over the last three years this administration has been engaged in an all out assault on our freedom. bureaucrats prevent drilling rigs tr going to work in the gulf of. they keep coal from being mined. they tell farmers what they're kids are able to do on their farms. this administration's assault on freedom has kept this so called recovery from meeting their projections let alone their expectations. the president is trying to erase his record with some new rhetorics. he said we are inventors, we are builders, we are makers of thing. we are thomas edison, we're the wright brothers, we're bill gates. we're still jobs. i missed that. we're steve jobs. the problem is, he's still barack obama. >> rick, rick, rick, rick, rick, rick. >> you see under barack obama those pioneers he mentioned would have faced a very difficult time trying to innovate and invent and invest and build jobs. under d dd frank thai would have thought it impossible to get a loan from their community bank. the regulators would have shut down the wright brothers for dust pollution. the government would have banned thomas edison's lightbulb. by the way, they just didn't, didn't they? [ applause ] >> now you know that the real cost of these misguided policies, these attacks on economic freedom, this intrusion of the government into our freedom, the cost of that are the ideas that are not pursued and the dreams that aren't realized and the little businesses that don't get started and the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of workers that don't get hired. the american dream has met opportunity to build something new. some of america's greatest success stories are people that started out with nothing but a good idea and a corner in their garage. too often today americans who want to start a business or launch a new venture, they don't see promise and opportunity. they see government standing in the way. i'm going to change that. we're going to get government out of the way. we once built an interstate highway system and the hoover dam. now we can't even build a pipeline. we once led the world in manufacturing and exports, investment. today we lead the world in lawsuits. when we replace a law professor with a conservative businessman as president, that's going to end. i think you know this. every great innovation, every world changing business breakthrough begins with a dream and nothing is more fragile than a dream. the genius of america is that we nurture those dreams and the dreamers. we honor them and yes, we reward them. that's part of what's uniquely brilliant about america. day by day, job killing regulation by job killing regulation, bureaucrat by bureaucrat this president is crushing the dream and the dreamers and i will make sure that finally ends. the proof of the president's failure is seeing how tepid this economic recovery is. this administration thinks that the economy struggling because the stimulus wasn't large enough. the truth is the economy is struggling because the government is too big. you and i know something the president still hasn't learned even after three years and hundreds of billions of dollars of spending and borrowing. it's not the government that creates the prosperity. the prosperity is the product of free market and free people and they must be protected and nurtured. [ applause ] >> tonight was a primary but november is the general election. we're going to face a defining decision as a people. our choice will not be about party or even personality. this election will be about principle. our economic freedom will be on the ballot. i'm offering a real choice and a new beginning. i'm running for president because i have the experience and the vision to get us out of this mess. we don't -- [ applause ] >> look, we know what barack obama's vision is. we've been living it these last three years. my vision is very, very different than what his is. you see, i see an america where the prospects for our children will be better than even those we enjoyed during our lives. where the pursuit of success by all of us wiunite us, not divid us. where a government finally understands -- i see a time where we will have a government that understands it's better for more people to pay less in taxes than for a very few to pay a lot more. i see an america where the values we pass onto our children are greater than the debts we leave them. i see an america where poverty is defeated by opportunity not enabled by a government check. i see an america that is humbled, excuse me, i see an america that is humbled, but it is never humble that leads but is never led. i see an america that is so unquestionably strong that no one in the world would ever think of testing the might of mi our military. [ applause ] >> today we took an important step towards that america. tomorrow we'll take another. each day we move closer not just to victory, but to a better america. join us. join us. together we're going to ensure that america's greatest days are still ahead. thanks you guys. thank you so much, and god