Especially since if we could just make it secure, computer tabulation of votes during the month long election could give us a real time look at the election (most people don't realize this, but due to universal mail in voting my home state of Oregon can have ballots turned in, but not counted, as early as October 6th if the mail delivery is on time).
If we went with a straight popular vote the President would be selected by 7 major metropolitan areas. The EC forces the President to be accountable to all 50 states.
As somebody in flyover country, I would rather not be forgotten.
That's the excuse- but is it really true that the 7 major metropolitan areas have more than 50% of the population of the country? I have some doubts about that one.
But the answer is easy- LAND & INTERNET GIVEAWAYS. Since India has taught us that in an information economy location doesn't matter, small counties can gain population quite easily by purchasing land, dividing it up into Wi-Fi enabled homesteads, and giving them away for free. What city dweller doesn't dream of having their own yard?
Name those areas. What, are you going to say "The DC-NYC corridor", "Coastal California", and other similarly broad terms?
Besides, your vote *should* count the same as your average person in NYC or LA, and it *would* if it weren't for the electoral college. Why shouldn't it? Are you better than them?
> If we went with a straight popular vote the President would be > selected by 7 major metropolitan areas.
Only if all 7 metro areas agreed, which is by no means a given. The alternative is that your "rural" vote counts more than one from a New Yorker. Is that democratic? One vote per person, no one "more equal" than anyone else, if you ask me.
Only if all 7 metro areas agreed, which is by no means a given. The alternative is that your "rural" vote counts more than one from a New Yorker. Is that democratic?
Thank God we live in a Republic. But to answer your question, no. People in more populous states like New York are represented by more electors than the people of Iowa. So all votes have roughly the same value.
You must live in a highly populated state. Those of us in less populous areas appreciate the two baseline electoral votes we get -- just like the big states!
You must live in a highly populated state. Those of us in less populous areas appreciate the two baseline electoral votes we get -- just like the big states!
Most people have forgotten, or never learned, the reason for the electorial college. In the US, the states select the president, not the people.
I'd say many of us know the reason, but the reason is about two centuries out of date. The fairest way to have your vote count (and if the state is solid red or blue, it won't) is to have national instant run-off voting.
I'd say many of us know the reason, but the reason is about two centuries out of date. The fairest way to have your vote count (and if the state is solid red or blue, it won't) is to have national instant run-off voting.
If you're going to change the voting system, why replace a broken system with a semi-broken system? IRV is better than plurality but has plenty of problems of its own. Condorcet voting [electionmethods.org] is a much better choice.
Right now we have tyranny of small states.
This is a understandable, and common, error, but it's still wrong. The EC has two conflicting effects. The most obvious is that it gives residents of low-population states a slightly larger fraction of an electoral vote than residents of populous states. The other arises from the fact that most states deliver their votes in a bloc. This means that large states are much more likely than small states to swing an election. We saw evidence of this in 2000; even though Florida wasn't the only close state, it was the only one that mattered because Florida has a large population and lots of electoral votes.
Several mathematicians over the last few decades have performed a rigorous analysis of the relative effects of these facets of the EC, based on a simple measurement of the power of a single vote: What is the probability that a given vote will swing the entire election? The result is that a voter in a larger state has more power to decide the presidential election than a voter in a small state, because the advantage of a big bloc of electoral votes outweighs the advantage of fewer voters per electoral vote.
It's also worth noting that a more detailed analysis [caltech.edu] which takes into account the current political structure of the nation was done recently, and it found that, currently, the EC doesn't favor either party and that the EC will currently only return a result different from a popular vote when the electorate is very evenly divided. In those cases, a single new story, or even just some bad weather, might change the outcome in any case. In other words, the EC might "change" the outcome when the difference in the popular vote is statistical noise anyway.
True, this is an inherent problem in a winner-takes-all powerful-executive style of government. We really need a weaker executive branch. We keep adding new powers onto the branch (more cabinet level positions in direct charge of more facets of government administration, the acceptance of "policing actions" without congressional approval, the shifting of the vice president from the second place candidate to a running mate, etc). On a system where a statistical fluke can pick, you don't want so much power
True, this is an inherent problem in a winner-takes-all powerful-executive style of government. We really need a weaker executive branch.
Hear! Hear!
This is the *right* fix to the problem of people feeling like they're un-empowered in the presidential election. That feeling is actually a symptom of the fact that nearly all governmental power has migrated to the Federal level, which is simply too far removed from the average person. A strict popular election won't change that. Other election styles, o
Well this is how the union was originaly intended.
Yep.
It was changed by supreme court judges writing law!
Nope. That's why I referred to the 16th and 17th amendments, which are the basic source of the massive expansion of the Federal government we've seen in the last hundred years.
The 16th amendment gave the Federal government the right to levy income taxes. Prior to that, it had to get most of its money from the states. Remember the old saw about the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the
And, they only get to interpret laws that are badly written. Well written laws don't cause "confusion" and don't need "interpreting". Only bad ones do.
So... next time you hear some politician telling you the problem is "activist" judges, you can now realize it is actually because of politicians passing shitty laws so they can make their contributors happy.
As a Democrat, and the original poster of this subthread, I agree completely. I especially think municipalities need to have more freedom of operation; states intervene in city and county operation a lot more heavily than you'd expect. "States Rights", once a heavily Democrat/Republican divide, is becoming less and less so, and more related to individual stances.
The only real problem with states rights arguments is that both sides agree that certain things need to be federally legislated (say, "No slaver
"There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones(Ed:... which were official policy, and he could have been court marshalled for violating orders if he didn't). I conducted harassment and interdiction fire (Ed: Same). I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people(Ed: explici
The problem is, if he really did take part in these atrocities and did nothing to stop them, then he's just as guilty as anyone else. You can't hide behind the claim of "I was ordered to." It's funny that he evoked the My Lai massacre via reference to Lieutenant Calley, but today we know that massacre was STOPPED by a non-commissioned Navy Officer (Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson) saying essentially "Screw orders, this is wrong." He stood to be courtmarshalled for countermanding a higher officer, but he did i
The fairest way to have your vote count (and if the state is solid red or blue, it won't) is to have national instant run-off voting.
First, I've gotta say it: of course your vote counts! How do you think the state gets to be solid one color or another!? Votes.
But there are some other interesting issues to point out:
Instant run-off voting has some problems [electionmethods.org], including paradoxical cases where voting for someone can actually increase their chances of losing. Plus, it's relatively hard to implement, given th
Which would be fine if we still thought of ourselves as Pennsylvanians, Ohioans, or New Yorkers. But, we most identify ourselves on a national scale as Americans.
Our voting system needs to evolve to reflect the society which we have become.
It's not too late for Deep Blue states to have their legislatures direct the electors to re-elect Dubya by Popular Acclaim.
Actually, it probably is. The Supreme Court frowns on changing the method of choosing electors this late in the game, and even in Colorado -- which is not taking this sort of a step, but is going to try to retroactively change their method of choosing electors for 2004 by proportional representation instead of winner-take-all -- it is unclear whether the Supreme Court will allow it,
You must live in a highly populated state. Those of us in less populous areas appreciate the two baseline electoral votes we get -- just like the big states!
So long as everyone understands that there's nothing inherently better about the current system. I'm sure Bush appreciates the two baseline votes you get, too. Just like Gore appreciates the winner-takes-all nature of the electoral vote. By changing either one of these games, you'd have changed who became president in 2000.
So long as everyone understands that there's nothing inherently better about the current system.
But the current system is better: rather than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad, the 2000 election only resulted in such nonsense in Florida. I believe that the Electoral College system tends to make very close elections (in electoral votes) less common, which to me is a very good thing--we don't need Florida 2000 to happen again every time the electorate is almost evenly divided.
Ah, a representative of the Michael Moore-school of selective quoting.
Quoting me:
But the current system is better: rather than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad
while leaving out:
, the 2000 election only resulted in such nonsense in Florida
The current system is better than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad. Do you know anyone that has advocated such a system? Me neither.
Did not the 2000 election in Florida result in a statewide hunt for hanging chad? It seems that you are advocating applying th
Ah, a representative of the Michael Moore-school of selective quoting.
This is a dialog. You are the only person I am responding to. I trust that anyone can read exactly what you said. I was attempting to direct your attention to specific elements of your post. I did not intend to misrepresent your position, and I did not intend to weaken your point. I honestly didn't understand it.
I certainly don't understand it any better now that you've reinserted the rest of that sentence. Don't be a dick.
You must live in a highly populated state. Those of us in less populous areas appreciate the two baseline electoral votes we get -- just like the big states!
In a smaller state with 3 electoral votes, there actually is more representation per person than in a larger state. However, wouldn't voting count for more if it weren't an all-or-nothing proposition? If I vote in Whateveria (a made-up, hyopthetical US State) for a candidate who doesn't win the state electorate, my vote doesn't count at all. I
In any winner-takes all race, only the marginal voter (the hypothetical one guy who puts the winner 50%, or whatever the threshold is in that election) has a vote that really decides the election. Nobody else's vote, for or against the winner, matters.
Voting for one guy to be president insures that voting will be an all-or-nothing proposition, and there's no way to change how that one guy is picked that will change that.
Note that the electoral college system does not require that all votes go to one man,
So now instead of isolating the effect of voter fraud to a small number of electorial votes - you propogate it across the whole nation. Lets assume I live in a mythical windy city, where a certain party controls the electorial process so tightly that votes can be created, destroyed, and even the dead get to vote for a party.
Now instead of only affecting the electorial votes of a mythical state called Lincoln, it can effect the whole country. So rather than only create enough votes for the party in favor
Yes, EC has several effects, and one of them is the firewall effect that you mention. A corrupt machine (Chicago 1960 as you mention) can tilt just one state.
More than that, though. Consider a swing state that is very evenly contested. That's the kind of state where vote fraud is most valuable. But that's also a state where both parties have plenty of resources to bring out pollwatchers, media coverage, lawyers and judges.
In a state where Party X has all the resources and Party Y has few resources, Pa
The system is not archaic, in the sense that it does not serve the function which it was created to do. For better or worse, the founders decided that the unity of the country was a higher priority than strict popular power, and so a deal was struck that gave small states proportionately more power. Obviously, it raises the possibility of a candidate winning while losing the popular vote (or at least the votes of the most populous states), otherwise the founders would have specified popular elections (or e
Not sure the 500,000 number is releavant if you change the rules. Had the system been based on popular votes, the actual turnout in FL and elsewhere might have been dramatically different. Changing the rules in how votes are counted is a variable that could impact the motivation of a voter to actually cast his/her vote.
Given a choice between pure pluarality and the current electoral college system, I tend to lean toward the EC. My preference would be to see more states adopt practices such as Maine wh
So, If we actually read this amendment [cornell.edu], we see what? The number total available of electoral votes would have changed? I don't think that that number of people who weren't able to vote of the population (or the population that voted) would move the number of electoral votes.
The part about how states may not deprive people of the right to vote for electors, once that right has been granted. And that means that they must follow federal guidelines for what does and does not constitute a fair election. And that means the Supreme Court gets to decide, as they did in Bush v. Gore, where seven of the nine justices ruled that the then-current Florida recount was unconstitutional, whether the election is fair or not.
"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of elect
until you realize that the brother of the other candidate is governor
Well, the Governor does not supervise elections. County election officials do. And the county election officials in the three counties in question were all democrats.
not to mention Black voters illegally and unjustly barred to vote "by mistake".
You mean all 4 of them that the US Civil Rights Commission could find to testify? Oh wait, 3 out of those 4 actually ended up voting.
I should also point out that white people were twice as
Which happen to be the counties where the voting equipement is by far the most defective, which is odd, until you realize that the brother of the other candidate is governor
Where are you getting this stuff? The Governor does not buy the voting equipment. He doesn't even determine how much funds go to voting equipment. 99% of these decisions are made at the county level.
not to mention Black voters illegally and unjustly barred to vote "by mistake".
I assume you are referring to the felon scrub list. I'l
I know this is off-topic, but there doesn't appear to be a forum to discuss this type of thing with other slashdot readers.
Is there a way to block politics stories from the home page? I checked "Politics" in my home page preferences under "Exclude Stories from the Homepage" so that they wouldn't show up but I still see them. Games stories also still show up even though I have them selected to not show up as well. Is this a bug or is there some other setting I need to turn on or off?
Unfortunately, you SHOULD care. American politcis affect the lives of every person on the planet - like it or not.
But in the bigger picture, you should contribute... If you can help one person see the facts about international politics - you have helped the cause...
In the mean time, we will try and make it so that our politics impact you less... It might not be soon, however...
Is there a way to block politics stories from the home page? I checked "Politics" in my home page preferences under "Exclude Stories from the Homepage" so that they wouldn't show up but I still see them. Games stories also still show up even though I have them selected to not show up as well. Is this a bug or is there some other setting I need to turn on or off?
I just tried this, and it worked for me, after I turned off the "Collapse Sections" preference. That is, I had all the sections shown on the fr
I have been to this site several times before. And while I certainly think it is great from the standpoint that the information presented is (as far as I can tell) totally void of bias, the source of the information isn't quite so grand.
While polls certainly give a reasonable idea of how votes would fall, it's well-known that poll numbers can be fairly easily slanted.
All things considered, I enjoy reading it every morning.
He's admitted that he's a Kerry supporter, but it doesn't affect his presentation of the data.
I do question the use of some of the polls, because you have three basic polling types that get used: adults, registered voters, and likely voters.
While there's been a swing away from adults and registered voters (those polls lean heavily towards democrats), some of the polls he puts up do use those criteria.
He goes strictly upon newest poll gets posted. I'd prefer that a poll of likely voters have more weight
Likely voter polls are already highly subjective. Each polling outfit has their own method of determining likely voters, usually based on historical trends. Democrats will tell you that their base is more likely to vote this year than in elections past, due to their extreme dislike of George W. Bush.
How would you weight the likely voter polls higher? What weight would you use? Any method in which you weight certain types of polls higher seems highly subjective to my mind. I'd prefer a main projection
If anything, I think being a Kerry supporter would make him more likely to make it look like Bush was ahead, the better to encourage Democrats to take action.
The problem with electoral-vote.com is that the staunch non-bias requires them to use whatever the most recent state polls are, regardless of the source. Last week, there was something like a 50-vote swing from Kerry to Bush when a firm hired by the Republican side (they do most of the Republican internals) released eight or nine new polls with a large Bush lead, when previously most of them had been Kerry states.
One that I've been frequenting, thought I don't agree with his political beliefs, is electionprojection.com [electionprojection.com]
Lot's of state by state information.
Here is a good site for betting odds on upcoming state and federal elections. Although the odds change over the course of the campaigns, they claim to have a pretty high rate of eventual accuracy.
This election will stand out as one in which the statistics were nearly useless. For all practical purposes the two candidates are tied. This means that a very small random event could tilt the balance towards either candidate. Say, a simple slip of the tongue near election day and the candidate takes the day.
Furhtermore enough things have gone wrong with the current incumbent (no WMDs found, bin Laden still on the lam, Iraq is a quagmire, the ballooning deficit) that a sudden shift in favor of Kerry could
My guess is that the polling folks will spend the week after the election going around the talk-show circuit explaining how their polls managed to be so wrong.
Pretty much all the polls we see are of "likely voters", a group which is made up mostly (or entirely) on the people who voted in the last election. This may be a useful measure in the average election, but not this one.
The 2004 election will have a much, much higher turnout than 2000. In 2000, it didn't seem to matter a whole lot who got elected. In 2004, most everyone knows someone who has lost their job and/or knows someone in Iraq. A lot of people are still genuinely angry about Florida's lack of concern for voting rights or even following their own laws. At the same time, Bush hasn't given his more casual supporters a reason to come vote for him -- the best they've managed to do is spread a bunch of half-truth (or outright lying) reasons why they *shouldn't* vote for Kerry.
More new voters have already registered for this election than any other since 1992. That should tell you something, and logically it doesn't seem like good news for Bush if these polls are showing a close race...
The 2004 election will have a much, much higher turnout than 2000. In 2000, it didn't seem to matter a whole lot who got elected.
Care to bet on that? 51% turnout last election. Higher than for Clinton's last election. I wouldn't bet on the number being higher than 55%, as it was in Clinton's first election.
A lot of people are still genuinely angry about Florida's lack of concern for voting rights or even following their own laws.
Yah, it was terrible the way three or four counties counties in Florida
You are correct in your assertion that a lot of people who in the past haven't been interested in voting will be doing so this time around, but fail to take into account the biggest factor between this election and the last: September 11.
People who in the past didn't have much interest in politics or world events have seen that these things can have an all-too direct effect on their lives. Bush has provided strong, decisive leadership in difficult times. If anything, his critics may accuse him of being t
You conveniently forgot to mention the millions of "Reagan Democrats" who are planning on pulling the lever for another Republican President, out of outrage at their party's choice to play political games with their national security.
Actually, those Reagan democrats haven't voted republican since Bush Sr., and they won't vote GOP this time either. In fact it is more likely that the fiscally conservative wing of the republican party will vote for Kerry. The numbers can potentially be large enough for th
You conveniently forgot to mention the millions of "Reagan Democrats" who are planning on pulling the lever for another Republican President, out of outrage at their party's choice to play political games with their national security. As much as the far left would like to paint Zell Miller as a crazed voice in the wilderness, he expresses the sentiments of many progressive Democrats who intend to put country before party.
Perhaps. But then you'd have to count all of us us true conservatives who are out
As much as the far left would like to paint Zell Miller as a crazed voice in the wilderness, he expresses the sentiments of many progressive Democrats who intend to put country before party.
For some Iraqis, obviously our GIs are liberators. For others, we're clearly occupiers. Apperantly a pretty vocal group thinks we're occupiers, since liberators generally don't get attacked 2700 times a month. [nytimes.com] Bush and Cheyney call it an occuption from ti
Actually, most elections are like that. Virtual deadheats. The best part about this site is that you can see how tiny swings in the polls sometimes will produce MAJOR swings in hypothetical Electoral Vote. And contrariwise, from time to time, large swings in the polls will produce negligible effects on the Electoral Vote.
Yeah, if it comes to the debates, Kerry should be able to bury W.
Although... how do you beat a retarded person in a debate and look good doing it? I mean, it's like smacking a puppy around... Just like with Gore, Bush might get that sympathy vote: "You can't do that to him, you monster! He's a little simple, he doesn't know what's going on, why are you so mean to him?"
I generally agree. Keep in mind though that Reagan's initial campaign was relatively lacklustre. It was only late into the campaign that he came into his own.
Did you see the "reporting for duty" speech by Kerry? Two or three more performances like that to a broad audience near the election and he could take this home.
So far, he's looked more like Gore, as you point out.
Your prediction of higher turnout for the democrats seems quite plausible.
Also checkout this site [geekmedia.org] which displays an electoral map/vote projection based on contract prices scraped from TradeSports.com/InTrade.
TradeSports.com is an online gaming site which sells contracts for all sorts of assertions: from sports betting, to political election outcomes. Some of the most actively traded contracts on TradeSports.com are related to the U.S. Presidential Election.
The site above scrapes the average bid price data from each of the state-by-state contracts for the assertion "George W. Bush to win the November 2004 Election."
A winning contract pays $USD 10, and a point costs $0.10. Thus, it can be assumed that a bid price > 50 indicates that the TradeSports.com market believes George W. Bush will win the election in that state, while a bid price below 50 indicates a win for John Kerry.
If you don't like the default rulesets (Bid prices between 45-55 unprojected; projection made with the bid price rather than the ask price; etc), the site allows you to configure your own parameters.
The state-by-state contracts trade rather thinly -- usually, only a few hundred dollars a day -- so take day-to-day movements with a grain of salt. The total size of the market is quite large, however -- totalling just under $1 million when all the states are combined.
The site currently projects a win for George W. Bush, with 284 electoral votes.
but has anyone got any statistics on average schooling levels in each state? It would be fun to see if the more educated crew votes more for one side than the other.
I hear you. I saw that big red streak through the deep south, too. Yee-haw! Bush for four more!
Dude, I've met and worked with the red-state "Yee-haw" crowd, and I grew up with and live within the blue-state over-educated pinhead crowd. Although one group may statistically have more years of book-learnin', it is clear to me that neither has a lock on wisdom, and I'd far rather have our leaders elected by the very wise than the highly-schooled.
Don't be an "Urban Supremacist" and slam entire swaths of peo
Especially the parts where they show their ignorance:
The race is complicated by Louisiana's quaint view that politics should be kept out of politics, so the Senate election is nonpartisan. Rep. Chris John, Rep. David Vitter, state treasurer John Kennedy, and some minor candidates are all running without party affiliation in the Nov. 2 election. If no candidate gets 50%, there will be a runoff election a few weeks later. Insiders think it will be Chris John vs. David Vitter in a runoff. Runoffs are general
Interactive map here. [latimes.com] Flash based, it lets you change between different scenerios and see how the outcome would differ if certain states go one way or the other.
Is 270 simply more than half of the EVs? If a viable 3rd candidate gets 100 EVs, does the presidency still go to whoever gets the most EVs even if it isn't a majority?
If nobody gets more than half the electoral votes cast (270) the house of representatives decides, one vote per state, out of the top three electoral-vote winners.
This [uky.edu] site says the House still needs 26 states to elect a President. Does that mean if the House votes 20, 10, 10, they have to keep voting until 6 switch to the 20 for a majority?
Yes. There has to be a majority for the house to pick a president, and if they fail to before the previous president's term ends (they have from noon on Jan 3, when their term and session begin, to noon on Jan 20, when the new presidential term begins), normal presidential succession decides who will be acting president until they work it out.
I realize that. If all the states would give EVs proportionally, and 3rd parties could get some representatives in the House, it would be a start. Of course the system is broken since the House votes by State. Unless the 3rd party has more representatives in a state than either of the other parties, it is powerless.
This graph has just been bouncing wildly, like people haven't already decided who they will (or won't) vote for. I'm sure that in the end most of them will just let the media decide, then rush to the polls to pass on that decision, to give them a sense of community. Maybe vote for Bush because the president said they should.
I find it rather curious that the states with the highest support for Ralph Nader are Idaho and Montana, both at 6%. Does anybody have any insight as to why he is (relativly) popular in this corner of the country?
Looking at the numbers, there are a few states that they say are "exactly tied." That's probably not going to happen, but it seems there's still a chance that somebody might not get the required majority of the electoral votes this time around.
Does everybody know who their member of Congress is?
We need popular votes to count! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:3, Insightful)
If we went with a straight popular vote the President would be selected by 7 major metropolitan areas. The EC forces the President to be accountable to all 50 states.
As somebody in flyover country, I would rather not be forgotten.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
But the answer is easy- LAND & INTERNET GIVEAWAYS. Since India has taught us that in an information economy location doesn't matter, small counties can gain population quite easily by purchasing land, dividing it up into Wi-Fi enabled homesteads, and giving them away for free. What city dweller doesn't dream of having their own yard?
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Besides, your vote *should* count the same as your average person in NYC or LA, and it *would* if it weren't for the electoral college. Why shouldn't it? Are you better than them?
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:3, Insightful)
> selected by 7 major metropolitan areas.
Only if all 7 metro areas agreed, which is by no means a given. The alternative is that your "rural" vote counts more than one from a New Yorker. Is that democratic? One vote per person, no one "more equal" than anyone else, if you ask me.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Thank God we live in a Republic. But to answer your question, no. People in more populous states like New York are represented by more electors than the people of Iowa. So all votes have roughly the same value.
NTITE
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:4, Informative)
Most people have forgotten, or never learned, the reason for the electorial college. In the US, the states select the president, not the people.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Right now we have tyranny of small states.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:5, Informative)
I'd say many of us know the reason, but the reason is about two centuries out of date. The fairest way to have your vote count (and if the state is solid red or blue, it won't) is to have national instant run-off voting.
If you're going to change the voting system, why replace a broken system with a semi-broken system? IRV is better than plurality but has plenty of problems of its own. Condorcet voting [electionmethods.org] is a much better choice.
Right now we have tyranny of small states.
This is a understandable, and common, error, but it's still wrong. The EC has two conflicting effects. The most obvious is that it gives residents of low-population states a slightly larger fraction of an electoral vote than residents of populous states. The other arises from the fact that most states deliver their votes in a bloc. This means that large states are much more likely than small states to swing an election. We saw evidence of this in 2000; even though Florida wasn't the only close state, it was the only one that mattered because Florida has a large population and lots of electoral votes.
Several mathematicians over the last few decades have performed a rigorous analysis of the relative effects of these facets of the EC, based on a simple measurement of the power of a single vote: What is the probability that a given vote will swing the entire election? The result is that a voter in a larger state has more power to decide the presidential election than a voter in a small state, because the advantage of a big bloc of electoral votes outweighs the advantage of fewer voters per electoral vote.
It's also worth noting that a more detailed analysis [caltech.edu] which takes into account the current political structure of the nation was done recently, and it found that, currently, the EC doesn't favor either party and that the EC will currently only return a result different from a popular vote when the electorate is very evenly divided. In those cases, a single new story, or even just some bad weather, might change the outcome in any case. In other words, the EC might "change" the outcome when the difference in the popular vote is statistical noise anyway.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:3, Interesting)
True, this is an inherent problem in a winner-takes-all powerful-executive style of government. We really need a weaker executive branch.
Hear! Hear!
This is the *right* fix to the problem of people feeling like they're un-empowered in the presidential election. That feeling is actually a symptom of the fact that nearly all governmental power has migrated to the Federal level, which is simply too far removed from the average person. A strict popular election won't change that. Other election styles, o
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well this is how the union was originaly intended.
Yep.
It was changed by supreme court judges writing law!
Nope. That's why I referred to the 16th and 17th amendments, which are the basic source of the massive expansion of the Federal government we've seen in the last hundred years.
The 16th amendment gave the Federal government the right to levy income taxes. Prior to that, it had to get most of its money from the states. Remember the old saw about the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
The interpret law.
And, they only get to interpret laws that are badly written. Well written laws don't cause "confusion" and don't need "interpreting". Only bad ones do.
So... next time you hear some politician telling you the problem is "activist" judges, you can now realize it is actually because of politicians passing shitty laws so they can make their contributors happy.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
The only real problem with states rights arguments is that both sides agree that certain things need to be federally legislated (say, "No slaver
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Approval voting [approvalvoting.org].
IRV still has spoilers.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Condorcet [electionmethods.org] would [electionmethods.org] be [electionmethods.org] better [electionmethods.org] than [electionmethods.org] IRV.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
First, I've gotta say it: of course your vote counts! How do you think the state gets to be solid one color or another!? Votes.
But there are some other interesting issues to point out:
Instant run-off voting has some problems [electionmethods.org], including paradoxical cases where voting for someone can actually increase their chances of losing. Plus, it's relatively hard to implement, given th
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:1)
Which would be fine if we still thought of ourselves as Pennsylvanians, Ohioans, or New Yorkers. But, we most identify ourselves on a national scale as Americans.
Our voting system needs to evolve to reflect the society which we have become.
Re:states rights & electoral college (Score:2)
Actually, it probably is. The Supreme Court frowns on changing the method of choosing electors this late in the game, and even in Colorado -- which is not taking this sort of a step, but is going to try to retroactively change their method of choosing electors for 2004 by proportional representation instead of winner-take-all -- it is unclear whether the Supreme Court will allow it,
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
So long as everyone understands that there's nothing inherently better about the current system. I'm sure Bush appreciates the two baseline votes you get, too. Just like Gore appreciates the winner-takes-all nature of the electoral vote. By changing either one of these games, you'd have changed who became president in 2000.
But there's no essential re
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:1)
But the current system is better: rather than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad, the 2000 election only resulted in such nonsense in Florida. I believe that the Electoral College system tends to make very close elections (in electoral votes) less common, which to me is a very good thing--we don't need Florida 2000 to happen again every time the electorate is almost evenly divided.
Realistically, it is bette
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Many developed nations have figured out how to accurately, precisely, and cheaply count votes on a national level.
But the current system is better: rather than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad
Agreed. The current system is better than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad. Do you know anyone that has advocated such a system? Me neither.
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:1)
Quoting me: But the current system is better: rather than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad while leaving out: , the 2000 election only resulted in such nonsense in Florida
The current system is better than a nationwide hunt for hanging chad. Do you know anyone that has advocated such a system? Me neither.
Did not the 2000 election in Florida result in a statewide hunt for hanging chad? It seems that you are advocating applying th
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
This is a dialog. You are the only person I am responding to. I trust that anyone can read exactly what you said. I was attempting to direct your attention to specific elements of your post. I did not intend to misrepresent your position, and I did not intend to weaken your point. I honestly didn't understand it.
I certainly don't understand it any better now that you've reinserted the rest of that sentence. Don't be a dick.
Did not th
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
In a smaller state with 3 electoral votes, there actually is more representation per person than in a larger state. However, wouldn't voting count for more if it weren't an all-or-nothing proposition? If I vote in Whateveria (a made-up, hyopthetical US State) for a candidate who doesn't win the state electorate, my vote doesn't count at all. I
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Voting for one guy to be president insures that voting will be an all-or-nothing proposition, and there's no way to change how that one guy is picked that will change that.
Note that the electoral college system does not require that all votes go to one man,
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
Re:We need popular votes to count! (Score:2)
What else could possibly explain a desire to have greater voting power per person?
Yes, so vote fraud can blanket the nation (Score:3, Interesting)
Now instead of only affecting the electorial votes of a mythical state called Lincoln, it can effect the whole country. So rather than only create enough votes for the party in favor
EC == vote fraud firewalls (Score:1, Insightful)
More than that, though. Consider a swing state that is very evenly contested. That's the kind of state where vote fraud is most valuable. But that's also a state where both parties have plenty of resources to bring out pollwatchers, media coverage, lawyers and judges.
In a state where Party X has all the resources and Party Y has few resources, Pa
Not archaic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not archaic (Score:2)
Re:Not archaic (Score:1)
Given a choice between pure pluarality and the current electoral college system, I tend to lean toward the EC. My preference would be to see more states adopt practices such as Maine wh
What about... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What about... (Score:1)
Re:What about... (Score:2)
Re:What about... (Score:2)
Except where that electoral system violates the Constitution (specifically, Amendment XIV, Section 2).
Re:What about... (Score:1)
Re:What about... (Score:2)
"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of elect
Re:What about... (Score:1)
Well, the Governor does not supervise elections. County election officials do. And the county election officials in the three counties in question were all democrats.
not to mention Black voters illegally and unjustly barred to vote "by mistake".
You mean all 4 of them that the US Civil Rights Commission could find to testify? Oh wait, 3 out of those 4 actually ended up voting.
I should also point out that white people were twice as
Re:What about... (Score:2)
Where are you getting this stuff? The Governor does not buy the voting equipment. He doesn't even determine how much funds go to voting equipment. 99% of these decisions are made at the county level.
not to mention Black voters illegally and unjustly barred to vote "by mistake".
I assume you are referring to the felon scrub list. I'l
Please fix the section exclusion in preferences! (Score:1, Offtopic)
How much longer until this is fixed, and I can exclude this stuff from my front page?
Re:Please fix the section exclusion in preferences (Score:1)
Homepage preferences? (Score:2)
Is there a way to block politics stories from the home page? I checked "Politics" in my home page preferences under "Exclude Stories from the Homepage" so that they wouldn't show up but I still see them. Games stories also still show up even though I have them selected to not show up as well. Is this a bug or is there some other setting I need to turn on or off?
Re:vegetables (Score:1)
Re:vegetables (Score:1, Flamebait)
But in the bigger picture, you should contribute... If you can help one person see the facts about international politics - you have helped the cause...
In the mean time, we will try and make it so that our politics impact you less... It might not be soon, however...
Re:Homepage preferences? (Score:2)
I just tried this, and it worked for me, after I turned off the "Collapse Sections" preference. That is, I had all the sections shown on the fr
Great site (Score:2, Insightful)
I have been to this site several times before. And while I certainly think it is great from the standpoint that the information presented is (as far as I can tell) totally void of bias, the source of the information isn't quite so grand.
While polls certainly give a reasonable idea of how votes would fall, it's well-known that poll numbers can be fairly easily slanted.
All things considered, I enjoy reading it every morning.
Re:Great site (Score:2)
I do question the use of some of the polls, because you have three basic polling types that get used: adults, registered voters, and likely voters.
While there's been a swing away from adults and registered voters (those polls lean heavily towards democrats), some of the polls he puts up do use those criteria.
He goes strictly upon newest poll gets posted. I'd prefer that a poll of likely voters have more weight
Too subjective (Score:2)
How would you weight the likely voter polls higher? What weight would you use? Any method in which you weight certain types of polls higher seems highly subjective to my mind. I'd prefer a main projection
Re:Great site (Score:2)
Re:Great site (Score:1)
Take it with the requisite amount of NaCl.
Re:Great site (Score:1)
on August 30th it was:
Kerry 249 Bush 232
http://www.electoral-vote.com/aug/aug30.html [electoral-vote.com]
on August 31st:
Kerry 242 Bush 280
http://www.electoral-vote.com/aug/aug31.html [electoral-vote.com]
Slashdot Them? (Score:2)
Electionprojection.com (Score:2, Informative)
Electoral Survey Agregators (Score:2)
Princeton Professor Sam Wang's Electoral College Meta-Analysis [princeton.edu]
Ed Fitzgerald's Electoral College Survey [blogspot.com] (updated on his blog [blogspot.com])
Market-based prediction (Score:2)
Another (Similar) Site (Score:4, Interesting)
I also like Rasmussen Reports [rasmussenreports.com].
Rasmussen Reports is another great source (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/
Re:Rasmussen Reports is another great source (Score:2)
Odds-On Favorite? (Score:1)
http://www.campaignline.com/oddsmaker/ [campaignline.com]
Not very useful... (Score:2)
Furhtermore enough things have gone wrong with the current incumbent (no WMDs found, bin Laden still on the lam, Iraq is a quagmire, the ballooning deficit) that a sudden shift in favor of Kerry could
I'd say the polling methods have a basic flaw (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much all the polls we see are of "likely voters", a group which is made up mostly (or entirely) on the people who voted in the last election. This may be a useful measure in the average election, but not this one.
The 2004 election will have a much, much higher turnout than 2000. In 2000, it didn't seem to matter a whole lot who got elected. In 2004, most everyone knows someone who has lost their job and/or knows someone in Iraq. A lot of people are still genuinely angry about Florida's lack of concern for voting rights or even following their own laws. At the same time, Bush hasn't given his more casual supporters a reason to come vote for him -- the best they've managed to do is spread a bunch of half-truth (or outright lying) reasons why they *shouldn't* vote for Kerry.
More new voters have already registered for this election than any other since 1992. That should tell you something, and logically it doesn't seem like good news for Bush if these polls are showing a close race...
Re:I'd say the polling methods have a basic flaw (Score:2)
Care to bet on that? 51% turnout last election. Higher than for Clinton's last election. I wouldn't bet on the number being higher than 55%, as it was in Clinton's first election.
A lot of people are still genuinely angry about Florida's lack of concern for voting rights or even following their own laws.
Yah, it was terrible the way three or four counties counties in Florida
Re:I'd say the polling methods have a basic flaw (Score:2)
You are correct in your assertion that a lot of people who in the past haven't been interested in voting will be doing so this time around, but fail to take into account the biggest factor between this election and the last: September 11.
People who in the past didn't have much interest in politics or world events have seen that these things can have an all-too direct effect on their lives. Bush has provided strong, decisive leadership in difficult times. If anything, his critics may accuse him of being t
Re:I'd say the polling methods have a basic flaw (Score:2)
Actually, those Reagan democrats haven't voted republican since Bush Sr., and they won't vote GOP this time either. In fact it is more likely that the fiscally conservative wing of the republican party will vote for Kerry. The numbers can potentially be large enough for th
Re:I'd say the polling methods have a basic flaw (Score:2)
Perhaps. But then you'd have to count all of us us true conservatives who are out
Re:I'd say the polling methods have a basic flaw (Score:2)
Hey, I'm not saying he's crazy, I'm just saying he's a liar [msn.com].
For some Iraqis, obviously our GIs are liberators. For others, we're clearly occupiers. Apperantly a pretty vocal group thinks we're occupiers, since liberators generally don't get attacked 2700 times a month. [nytimes.com] Bush and Cheyney call it an occuption from ti
Re:Not very useful... (Score:2)
Re:Not very useful... (Score:1)
Although... how do you beat a retarded person in a debate and look good doing it? I mean, it's like smacking a puppy around... Just like with Gore, Bush might get that sympathy vote: "You can't do that to him, you monster! He's a little simple, he doesn't know what's going on, why are you so mean to him?"
Re:Carter-Reagan (Score:2)
I generally agree. Keep in mind though that Reagan's initial campaign was relatively lacklustre. It was only late into the campaign that he came into his own.
Did you see the "reporting for duty" speech by Kerry? Two or three more performances like that to a broad audience near the election and he could take this home.
So far, he's looked more like Gore, as you point out.
Your prediction of higher turnout for the democrats seems quite plausible.
TradeSports.com Electoral Projection (Score:3, Interesting)
TradeSports.com is an online gaming site which sells contracts for all sorts of assertions: from sports betting, to political election outcomes. Some of the most actively traded contracts on TradeSports.com are related to the U.S. Presidential Election.
The site above scrapes the average bid price data from each of the state-by-state contracts for the assertion "George W. Bush to win the November 2004 Election."
A winning contract pays $USD 10, and a point costs $0.10. Thus, it can be assumed that a bid price > 50 indicates that the TradeSports.com market believes George W. Bush will win the election in that state, while a bid price below 50 indicates a win for John Kerry.
If you don't like the default rulesets (Bid prices between 45-55 unprojected; projection made with the bid price rather than the ask price; etc), the site allows you to configure your own parameters.
The state-by-state contracts trade rather thinly -- usually, only a few hundred dollars a day -- so take day-to-day movements with a grain of salt. The total size of the market is quite large, however -- totalling just under $1 million when all the states are combined. The site currently projects a win for George W. Bush, with 284 electoral votes.
In accurate (Score:2)
Second Virginia is not a toss up state and is heavily bush the last time I looked Bush was ahead by almost 9 points!
So who knows.
this might be the worst comment I have ever given (Score:1)
Re:this might be the worst comment I have ever giv (Score:2)
Re:this might be the worst comment I have ever giv (Score:2)
Dude, I've met and worked with the red-state "Yee-haw" crowd, and I grew up with and live within the blue-state over-educated pinhead crowd. Although one group may statistically have more years of book-learnin', it is clear to me that neither has a lock on wisdom, and I'd far rather have our leaders elected by the very wise than the highly-schooled.
Don't be an "Urban Supremacist" and slam entire swaths of peo
Skewed Results (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:2)
The race is complicated by Louisiana's quaint view that politics should be kept out of politics, so the Senate election is nonpartisan. Rep. Chris John, Rep. David Vitter, state treasurer John Kennedy, and some minor candidates are all running without party affiliation in the Nov. 2 election. If no candidate gets 50%, there will be a runoff election a few weeks later. Insiders think it will be Chris John vs. David Vitter in a runoff. Runoffs are general
LA Times also has a Good Electoral Calculator (Score:1)
The WSJ thinks otherwise (Score:2)
Just thought I'd chime in with the WSJ map - they only update a few times a month but it's fairly in-depth.
what happens if there's ever a viable 3rd party? (Score:2)
Re:what happens if there's ever a viable 3rd party (Score:2)
Re:what happens if there's ever a viable 3rd party (Score:2)
Re:what happens if there's ever a viable 3rd party (Score:2)
Re:what happens if there's ever a viable 3rd party (Score:2)
Make up your minds damnit (Score:2)
http://www.electoral-vote.com/info/graph.html [electoral-vote.com]
Nader support (Score:2)
This could get ugly... (Score:2)
Does everybody know who their member of Congress is?