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Electoral College Decision Tree

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Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#211

Post by Fellshard »

remarkEon wrote: post #201
rayiner wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false for several different reasons. There were two initial proposals for Congress: the New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan. (Virginia, of course, being the leading slave-owning state.) Under both plans, the President would have been elected by Congress. There were concerns that having Congress elect the President would jeopardize separation of powers. So the Electoral College was created, with one elector…

I remember reading about all of this in AP US History back in high school, and it's going to forever confound me that we seem to have uninstalled this history from our collective memory.

Narrative takes precedence over reality at this time.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#212

Post by nl »

CyanLite2 wrote: post #160
nick_gur wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TX and FL going blue? Have you seen the early voting? Rs are LEADING in Miami-Dade, a Clinton county. Voter registrations are crazy for GOP in FL and the D-R voter gap is only at around 130,000 (used to be 650,000 when Bush won FL in 2000) Other than polls, I have yet to see any indication that FL will go blue despite going red in 2016 and then electing an R Governor on 2018.

TX has a better chance of going blue than FL. Beto O'Rourke has registered 1.8 million new voters in the past 4 years in the state of Texas, 300k of those were registered in the past 2 weeks. Beto lost Texas by 200k votes. And so far, TX has been killing it in terms of early-voting. About 75%(!!) turnout so far than what they had in 2016. And we still have 11 days left to go before E-day. Biggest turnout percentage i…

Most modelling puts Florida as about 52/48 Biden's way but Texas 60/40 Trump's way.

It would be a mild surprise if Biden won Texas. It would be astonishing is Biden won Texas without also winning Florida.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#213

Post by mmaunder »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #24

Another similar tool, with very different visualization. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-ma...

Interesting that the tool above makes it appear that Trump has a much longer journey to win, and this tool shows that if he wins FL and PA, he's 92% likely to win the election. Guess, as always, the lens you're using affects your interpretation of the data.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#215

Post by codyb »

speeder wrote: post #197
CyanLite2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida is one of the few states that are reporting mail-in ballots the night of the election. They've already started counting them and tabulating the results. After polls close, they press a button and it spits out the final results. With early voting getting nearly 60% of all registered voters in FL, I suspect we'll get 99% of precincts reporting FL numbers within 30-45 minutes after the polls close. Thus, I perso…

The signature verification part was dropped by court. And to be honest I don't understand why.

My guess would be an inability on the part of those who wanted inconsistent signatures to be a valid reason for throwing out a ballot to show evidence that such a move would prevent widespread fraud, and a significant amount of data on the part of those arguing that signature verification would instead disproportionately throw out qualified ballots filled out by people whose signatures vary sometimes (my certainly does).

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#216

Post by Gwypaas »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #194
wvenable wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in a safe state that's a different political leaning than you are, there isn't much incentive for you to vote. Your vote, for President anyway, is effectively meaningless.

Right, but for all systems that isn't directly proportionate to popular vote (that means no geographic grouping of representatives), that's true. Parliamentary systems, and both American house of representatives suffer from this failure mode - it's not particular unique to the American presidential election. Finally, I would not defend the EC as a particularly good system, and certainly from a campaigner's standpoint…

You will never get it completely right but at least do something with a true grounding in math aiming for the most precise outcome.

Every vote, in every election, should count for something and not only be a participation point on all other levels than local because you live in a gerrymandered district in Chicago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_me...

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#217

Post by yellow_postit »

speeder wrote: post #197
CyanLite2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida is one of the few states that are reporting mail-in ballots the night of the election. They've already started counting them and tabulating the results. After polls close, they press a button and it spits out the final results. With early voting getting nearly 60% of all registered voters in FL, I suspect we'll get 99% of precincts reporting FL numbers within 30-45 minutes after the polls close. Thus, I perso…

The signature verification part was dropped by court. And to be honest I don't understand why.

My hypothesis is signature verification where it’s minimally trained individuals doing the comparison seems quite open for inaccuracies. I couldn’t find any large scale studies though looking into this.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#218

Post by pavlov »

speeder wrote: post #197
CyanLite2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida is one of the few states that are reporting mail-in ballots the night of the election. They've already started counting them and tabulating the results. After polls close, they press a button and it spits out the final results. With early voting getting nearly 60% of all registered voters in FL, I suspect we'll get 99% of precincts reporting FL numbers within 30-45 minutes after the polls close. Thus, I perso…

The signature verification part was dropped by court. And to be honest I don't understand why.

I’m 40 and trying to imagine what my signature looked like twenty years ago. Probably rather different.

It would suck to have my vote thrown away because some overworked election worker looks at it for a second and decides the letter P is bent the wrong way compared to the 1999 version.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#219

Post by erichocean »

rayiner wrote: post #42
bryanlarsen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-ma... If Biden wins Florida, then it's a >99% chance of a Biden victory. But if Trump wins Florida, it's a 58% chance of a Biden victory. So Florida is essential for Trump, but not for Biden. Biden has a 70% chance in Florida. So I wouldn't say the fate of the world rests in the hands of Floridians. However, an early Biden win in Florida could all…

If Trump wins Florida and Pennsylvania, there is a 92% chance of Trump winning.

I get the sense you are expecting a Trump win, correct?

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#220

Post by CameronNemo »

tgb wrote: post #19
atonse wrote: post #2

Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).

I agree with your emotions. 538 puts Biden up only about 6 points in Pennsylvania (their tipping point state). If the race tightens by a few points and the polls are off by a few points, then a very tight race in Pennsylvania is plausible and due to his Electoral College advantage Trump would have a plausible path to victory that doesn't require anything shocking. It just requires several unsurprising things aligning…

Of course the supreme court could force PA to throw out ballots at the eleventh hour on election night.
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