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Electoral College Decision Tree

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Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#231

Post by gdubs »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #224
roywiggins wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and then nobody bothered to watch as her chances drifted downward every subsequent day until the election... and they drifted down because the polls changed and the model got more information. It's not really fair to say the model was wrong- it just wasn't clairvoyant. Really, Trump won by a hair's breadth. 538 shouldn't have given him a huge chance to win- he just barely scraped through. It's a genuinely hard…

What should the number have been, then? The final results were essentially a tie with Trump winning the tie breaking coin toss. So 50/50 is right in hind sight. Te systemic error could just have been as easily in Clinton's favour as Trump's, so the number should have been smaller than 50% for Trump. Maybe not as small as 28%, but they weren't far off, IMO.

The model predicts a chance of winning, it doesn’t reflect the final vote percentages. In other words, a win is a win, regardless of whether it’s by a few votes or a landslide. That’s what the 80/20 represented. This is different than the polling averages. Though, electoral vote percentages are captured in 538’s model — they show a spread of possible win scenarios based on many numbers of runs of the model.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#232

Post by rayiner »

erichocean wrote: post #219
rayiner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I really have no idea. It just seems hard for me to believe Biden will win either Florida or Pennsylvania, even though I see the polls are predicting that.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#233

Post by beachy »

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.

We verify signatures as part of our service (online background checks).

It's an entirely human process and imprecise might be the best word for it.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#234

Post by syshum »

wvenable wrote: post #175
icegreentea2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the electoral college is that opaque, or complex. It's certainly more complex then a straight popular vote. But consider that there are many many parliamentary systems in the world that have a degree of complexity and subtly on the same order as the electoral college (though the unequal sizes of states does mean the EC is more complex). I certainly don't think the electoral college is a good system for…

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.

I have always found it odd, and sadly commentary on the state of the nation that soo many people put so much weight on the office of president.

It is become itself a title of nobility in a way something the founders opposed.

With the consolidation of power, and congress' continual abjection of their responsibility to legislation (something BOTH parties are guilty of) and instead passing more and more power to the executive and courts the office of president and now the Supreme Court are considered more of a legislative body than the actual legislature. That is equal parts alarming and sad

Ideally the president should be one of the least important races a person casts for vote for, not the most important

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#235

Post by rootusrootus »

gpm wrote: post #209
dragontamer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that if Texas goes blue, I think its safe to say that Biden won the election. But I also think that Texas going for Biden is very small: Trump is still leading by 2% or so by official polls. Its important to push Texas a little bit since there's a chance for victory. In the most likely event: Texas goes red (as it has gone for the past several decades), and we're left wondering about Florida, Ohio, and P…

I'm not sure what you mean by "official" polls, but in 538's polling average Trump is only leading Texas by 0.5%. I also tend to like 538's model. 538's model gives Trump an average vote share of 2.2% more than biden (more than the polling average because the model thinks the demographics and fundamentals favor trump) but still gives Biden a 35% chance of winning. Biden winning is not very likely, but it's also not a…

> Biden winning is not very likely, but it's also not a not very small chance

Coincidentally, that's pretty close to the odds that 538 gave to Trump winning overall in 2016.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#236

Post by syshum »

tekkk wrote: post #191
icegreentea2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the electoral college is that opaque, or complex. It's certainly more complex then a straight popular vote. But consider that there are many many parliamentary systems in the world that have a degree of complexity and subtly on the same order as the electoral college (though the unequal sizes of states does mean the EC is more complex). I certainly don't think the electoral college is a good system for…

As the other children comments noted, I think the biggest problem of the system is game theory wise that there is no considerable pay-off when voting in a heavily blue or red state. There should be either a two-tier system with points from winning a state and from getting the most votes, or just straight popular vote. Granted, in that case the smaller states would probably lose meaning but eh. Isn't that what democra…

>>> Granted, in that case the smaller states would probably lose meaning but eh. Isn't that what democracy is about?

Which is exactly why the founders set up the electoral collage in the first place, because they had no desire for a strait democracy, nor do I

democracy is 2 wolfs and a lamb voting on what is for dinner, I have no desire to live in such a system. I prefer a constitutional republic of independent states bound by a common defense, economic and legal system aka the United States of America

>There should be either a two-tier system with points from winning a state and from getting the most votes

Something like that be done under the current system in fact 2 states already do this by Proportionally allocating their electors instead of winner take all

There is nothing under the current system preventing a state from doing that

Personally I have always been in favor of Every congressional District being awarded by the popular vote of that district, which would leave 2 "At Large" votes per state to be given out based on the popular vote of the state.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#237

Post by rayiner »

UncleMeat wrote: post #230
remarkEon wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You should be careful about that. The College Board's APUS curriculum is heavily criticized by the americanists I know and it can be a grave error to assume that you've got the full picture from a high school textbook.

The debates are mainly about what is included and what isn’t. For example it’s very thin on Reconstruction and the end thereof; about the civil rights abuses under the New Deal; etc. There’s also debates about how to characterize certain things (for example Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric was called “bellicose” in a 2014 revision and that generated a kerfuffle.) So yes, don’t assume you learned all the history you need to know.

At the same time, don’t make the opposite mistake of assuming “everything your history teacher told you was a lie.” The New York Times made some bold assertions in the 1619 Project and has had to walk back some of the most fundamental assertions: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/nyt-1619-project-.... If you go through and strip out all the rhetoric based on factual premises that have been abandoned or debunked (even by the left, see: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-c...) what’s left is a really interesting take on aspects of history your AP US History curriculum doesn’t cover, but which doesn’t fundamentally contradict what you learned in school.

With respect to this particular issue: the AP US History curriculum correctly taught what the 3/5 compromise was (and it was what it was). And it also correctly taught that the Connecticut Compromise was about small states versus big states, not slavery. It was a slave-owning southern state, Virginia, that proposed proportional representation in both houses. And the small states that benefited from the structure of the Senate included both northern states and southern states.

The connection is also a weird thing to bring up today, because most of the small states that benefit from the structure of the Senate today were free states. Several, like north and South Dakota, were split up when admitted to break the power of the slave states in the Senate. Midwestern states like Iowa and Minnesota made a huge contribution to beating the south. Iowa sent troops to fight before the union army was even ready to go to war; they sent the largest percentage of their population to war of any state; and they had the highest percentage of casualties: https://valleynewstoday.com/news/local/iowa-played-a-large-r....

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#238

Post by AstroJetson »

anthonyrstevens wrote: post #119
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.

The numbers disagree with your assertions. https://data.tallahassee.com/early-voting-turnout/florida/ About 500,000 more D than R voters have voted early. This is a MUCH bigger gap than we saw in 2016.

Thanks very much for posting this link. I'm interested in how other states are doing. It's nice that all of the states that publish data is aggregated here.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#239

Post by Kye »

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.

Integrity theater exists to suppress turnout for the party that wins when people turn out to vote and is primarily supported by the party that wins by suppressing the vote. It only does this. It does nothing to lower the already insignificant amount of voter fraud.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#240

Post by divbzero »

zachberger wrote: post #185
srtjstjsj wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US uses the Vice President instead of a lottery.

Not for the electoral college. For that the House of Representatives picks the President and the Senate picks the VP. You should also note that in the House, normal voting rules don't apply: each state receives one vote, the reps from each state will need to caucus together to determine which candidate receives that vote. Pretty crazy. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/10/21/what-happen...

It is pretty crazy. The equal-by-state House vote that you mention is particularly mind bending, an odd exception to population-based representation in the House. Furthermore, the District of Columbia would not have a vote in the tiebreaker, despite having 3 votes in the Electoral College.
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