Electoral College Decision Tree • Hacker News Board

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#341

Post by newacct583 » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #334

newacct583 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have done this analysis repeatedly, you just aren't reading it. And polling in 2018 was generally quite good. But again, there's nothing wrong with their "methodologies". Polling errors in 2016 were in fact not far from historical norms. Numerate consensus (c.f. 538) picked a likely but not certain Clinton victory and the result was an extremely narrow loss instead. That stuff happens. Unfortunately a bunch of…

You're arguing against a straw man. I never said that polls are always wrong. My political desires don't hinge on the current polls being wrong. I'm simply asking a question about whether the pollsters have corrected their methodologies. There was clearly something wrong in 2016 when they repeatedly failed to predict the GOP primaries and failed to predict swing states and even some states that weren't considered swi…

Uh... polls reliably predicted Trump's win in the primaries long before anyone in the pundit class believed it. For months and months it was explained away as simple name recognition. But he was ahead the whole time.

Honestly, you're misremembering this. Polls were not wrong in 2016 like you think they were. Just browse through the article history at 538, they really are the best source for this stuff.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#342

Post by parsimoniousplb » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #292

parsimoniousplb wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have been corrected This sounds like something a soviet comission would declare after an accident. What went wrong and how was it corrected? You needn't know, it has been corrected .

These pollsters explain their mistakes and changes in methodology. Read, or stop opining.

My deepest apologies for opining, comrade throwawaygh

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#343

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #334

newacct583 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have done this analysis repeatedly, you just aren't reading it. And polling in 2018 was generally quite good. But again, there's nothing wrong with their "methodologies". Polling errors in 2016 were in fact not far from historical norms. Numerate consensus (c.f. 538) picked a likely but not certain Clinton victory and the result was an extremely narrow loss instead. That stuff happens. Unfortunately a bunch of…

You're arguing against a straw man. I never said that polls are always wrong. My political desires don't hinge on the current polls being wrong. I'm simply asking a question about whether the pollsters have corrected their methodologies. There was clearly something wrong in 2016 when they repeatedly failed to predict the GOP primaries and failed to predict swing states and even some states that weren't considered swi…

> I'm simply asking a question about whether the pollsters have corrected their methodologies. There was clearly something wrong in 2016 when they repeatedly failed to predict the GOP primaries

Polls don't predict anything. Poll-based forecasts are different than polls, and done by different people.

The major polls in 2016 conducted close to the election were well within the MoE of the actual results, so as far as polls go there is very little evidence that anything was wrong.

Some of the poll-based forecasts made errors like assuming independence of state-level deviations from polling averages woere independent rather than linked, which gave Trump a very small chance of victory; that doesn't accord with history, was called out by 538 before the election, and I doubt anyone is making that mistake again.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#344

Post by nl » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #334

newacct583 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have done this analysis repeatedly, you just aren't reading it. And polling in 2018 was generally quite good. But again, there's nothing wrong with their "methodologies". Polling errors in 2016 were in fact not far from historical norms. Numerate consensus (c.f. 538) picked a likely but not certain Clinton victory and the result was an extremely narrow loss instead. That stuff happens. Unfortunately a bunch of…

You're arguing against a straw man. I never said that polls are always wrong. My political desires don't hinge on the current polls being wrong. I'm simply asking a question about whether the pollsters have corrected their methodologies. There was clearly something wrong in 2016 when they repeatedly failed to predict the GOP primaries and failed to predict swing states and even some states that weren't considered swi…

Here's the analysis.[1]

It points out that (to quote):

As this report documents, the national polls in 2016 were quite accurate, while polls in key battleground states showed some large, problematic errors. (which is my claim: national polling is ok, state polls aren't great).

The education weighing issue is commonly accepted as the reason for the inaccuracy. The evidence for that isn't as strong as people assume.

Section 3.4 talks about the weighing issue, and shows some where reweighing worked:

Following the election, two different state-level pollsters acknowledged that they had not adjusted for education and conducted their own post-hoc analysis to examine what difference that would have made in their estimates. Both pollsters found that adjusting for education would have meaningfully improved their poll’s accuracy by reducing over-statement of Clinton support.

but also:

Despite this, it is not clear that adjusting to a more detailed education variable would have universally improved polls in 2016. Analysis of the effect from weighting by five education categories rather than three categories in four national polls (Appendix A.H) yielded an average change of less than 0.4 percentage points in the vote estimates and no systematic improvement.

It's worth noting that in previous elections this had never been the case before (which was why it wasn't done).

[1] https://www.aapor.org/Education-Resources/Reports/An-Evaluat...

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#345

Post by dane-pgp » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 8:05 AM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #326

dane-pgp wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the principle of "1 person, 1 vote", it would also seem impermissible to assign electors in a "winner takes all" way. Indeed, there is a campaign to test the constitutionality of states doing this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/10/winner-tak...

It is the sovereign State (1 entity) casting its electoral vote, so splitting the vote makes less sense than a single winner. We're not a parliamentary style government.

If a state is one entity, it should have a single vote. Instead, there is a college of electors, and those electors should at least reflect the electoral outcome in the nominal congressional districts that they represent, as in Maine and Nebraska. (I know that's not how elector assignment generally works, but I think it's just as valid an interpretation as your "1 entity" view).

Neither that per-district system, nor my original popular vote proportional system, would require a parliamentary style of government. Indeed, under a parliamentary system, the executive would be chosen by parliament itself and there would be no need for the electoral college or even the presidential vote at all.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#346

Post by dane-pgp » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 8:12 AM UTC

gen220 wrote: post #332

dane-pgp wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to hear anybody poke holes in this idea. I really like the idea, but I'll volunteer to offer the criticism you'll probably hear. If a state can give itself more power by counting more votes, then state governments which are confident that their dominant party will win will have a lot of incentive to allow fraudulent votes, and potentially a lot to gain. For example, if the state government knows that 70% o…

> then they can risk encouraging 10% of the population to cast, say, 4 extra votes (for their deceased grandparents), without worrying that the dreaded Purple Party might exploit this laxness and give Purple the win. The calculus of voter fraud will definitely change. But I don't know. In order for an individual to commit voter fraud, they have to believe that the benefit is worth the risk them as an individual. And,…

Voter fraud is not currently much of a problem, because solid-red and solid-blue states don't have much incentive to allow it (since the ruling party is already confident of its majority), and swing states don't want to risk encouraging it in case the other side gets into power and uses it against them.

Once there is even a suggestion that some state might be increasing its power by encouraging voter fraud, there will be an arms race of other states trying to "counteract" this by encouraging their own voter fraud.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#347

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 8:35 AM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #177

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you’d need either every state to agree or an amendment. Neither of those is actually necessary because the states decide on their own how their electoral college votes are allocated. In principle Texas or California could allocate their delegates proportional to the popular vote of the people in that state. Which might be in the interests of the people in that state, because then candidates would actually bother to…

Only within the internal context of that state, though. Apportionment based on factors external to the state is likely unconstitutional, based on the voting rights act and resultant scotus decisions. The supreme court has said (over-simplifying here) that the right to delegate this legislative power to a popular vote is only constitutional when it adheres to 1 person, 1 vote weighting. Taking into account votes exter…

> The supreme court has said (over-simplifying here) that the right to delegate this legislative power to a popular vote is only constitutional when it adheres to 1 person, 1 vote weighting.

> Taking into account votes external to that state likely violates this.

I don't see anything approximating an argument that National Popular Vote violates any rule that has been applied to Presidential elections (“one person, one vote” is a districting rule, which doesn't really apply to elections per se, and arrangements which do not treat all voters in the state equally—such as the 2 for the statewide winner plus one for the winner of each CD method of assigning electors, which more heavily weights votes in Congressional districts with lower turnout in assigning state electors—survive under current law, and NPV doesn't even have that flaw.)

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#348

Post by AniseAbyss » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 10:09 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #213

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.

Fascinating isn't it? Makes you wonder why people in New York and California even bother to vote at all.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#349

Post by beerandt » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #347

beerandt wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only within the internal context of that state, though. Apportionment based on factors external to the state is likely unconstitutional, based on the voting rights act and resultant scotus decisions. The supreme court has said (over-simplifying here) that the right to delegate this legislative power to a popular vote is only constitutional when it adheres to 1 person, 1 vote weighting. Taking into account votes exter…

> The supreme court has said (over-simplifying here) that the right to delegate this legislative power to a popular vote is only constitutional when it adheres to 1 person, 1 vote weighting. > Taking into account votes external to that state likely violates this. I don't see anything approximating an argument that National Popular Vote violates any rule that has been applied to Presidential elections (“one person, on…

Deciding how to apportion electors falls squarely within the rights of a state legislature. There's no need for proportion of popular vote to correspond to electoral votes.

What the supreme court has said, is that if any decision is delegated to a vote, then that vote must meet constitutional muster.

Using votes cast in another state to determine the results of what is a state election likely violates rights of voters within that state.

And those rights are not wholely the legislature's to delegate away.

It's essentially extrajudicial gerrymandering.

Separately, and coming from another angle- it likely violates the constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#350

Post by beerandt » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #345

beerandt wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the sovereign State (1 entity) casting its electoral vote, so splitting the vote makes less sense than a single winner. We're not a parliamentary style government.

If a state is one entity, it should have a single vote. Instead, there is a college of electors, and those electors should at least reflect the electoral outcome in the nominal congressional districts that they represent, as in Maine and Nebraska. (I know that's not how elector assignment generally works, but I think it's just as valid an interpretation as your "1 entity" view). Neither that per-district system, nor…

The constitution literally says the States shall choose the president.

Not the people.