My views on Wikipedia are evolving.  While I still think it does not replace or even equal peer reviewed scholarship, if you stick to non-controversial topics then it is pretty good.  I still would not cite it though.I have recently taken to doing some active editing on a select list of pages an topics I am knowledgeable about.  I also started building an info page about the town in which I live.  I am not devoting a lot of effort to it but it is fun to improve a page and then watch it so you can stop the idiots that put stuff up that is plain wrong.  Many of the vandals are deliberate vandals either doing it for kicks or doing it to prove a point as I used to do.  I changed my mind decided it was better to make sure what is there is accurate than to try and discredit the site because it is not going away and it is increasingly being used as a primary source of information for lots of people.

An interesting visualization if nothing else.

Here are the Rules for voting and counting the ballot from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

There are four possible forms of election: scrutinium, compromissum, accessus, quasi-inspiratio. The usual form is that of scrutinium, or secret ballot, and in it the successful candidate requires a two-thirds vote exclusive of his own. When there is a close vote, and only then, the ballot of the pope-elect, which, like all the others, is distinguishable by a text of Scripture written on one of its outside folds, is opened to make sure that he did not vote for himself. Each cardinal deposits his vote in the chalice on the altar and at the same time takes the prescribed oath: “Testor Christum Dominum qui me judicaturus est me eligere quem secundum Deum judice eligi debere et quod idem in accessu præstabo“—”I call to witness the Lord Christ, Who will be my judge, that I am electing the one whom according to God I think ought to be elected”, etc. (For the form of the oath see Lucius Lector, “Le Conclave”, 615, 618.) The ballot reads: “Ego, Cardinalis N., eligo in summum Pontificem R. D. meum D. Card. N.”For this election by secret ballot three cardinals (scrutatores) are chosen by lot each time to preside over the operation of voting, three others (revisores) to control the count of their colleagues, and still three others (infirmarii) to collect the ballots of the sick and absent cardinals. If the sick cardinals cannot attend the balloting, then the three infirmarii go to their cells and bring back their votes in a box to the three cardinals presiding, who count them and put them in the chalice with the others. Then, all the ballots having been shaken up and counted, if the number agrees with the number of electors, the chalice is brought to the table and the ballots, on the outside of which appear the names of the candidates, are passed from hand to hand to the third cardinal who reads the names aloud. All present are provided with lists on which the names of all the cardinals appear, and it is customary for the cardinals to check off the votes as they are read. Then the three cardinal revisors verify the result which is proclaimed as definite.…When the required two-thirds are not obtained, the ballots are consumed in a stove whose chimney extends through a window of the Sistine Chapel. When there is no election, straw is mixed with the ballots to show by its thick smoke (sfumata) to those waiting outside that there has been no election.

The only way the press could know what the vote tally was is if a Cardinal talked and for some reason I don't see any Cardinal being particularly friendly to a journalist, especially in regards to the Conclave after the way Catholicism in general has been treated by the press in the last 10-15 years.

He nearly won the last time.  It's not that big of a surprise that he won this time.  Apparently he is a compromise that most of the Cardinals could agree on.

How do we know he nearly won last time? Because the press says so?  The ballots are destroyed after every vote, that is where the smoke in the chimney comes from and the Cardinals are sworn to secrecy about the vote tallies.  If I remember it right there are only two cardinals who tally the votes and they are both non-voting.

Do people actually harbor those conspiracies nowadays?  I thought they were the kind of thing you'd find in historical writings of decades or centuries ago.

You never listen to coast to coast am do you?  Conspiracy is alive and well my friend.  I listen to it streaming every once in a while for light entertainment.  It ain't just Wal-Mart where the freaks come out at night.