512 Paths to the White House • Hacker News Board

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#121

Post by abraham_s » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 5:48 PM UTC

caf wrote: post #76

cletus wrote: post #60

Well I guess it's that time in the cycle again: for people to complain about the electoral college (disclaimer: I'm not American). Over the years in different elections in different countries I've heard this complaint [1] > The electoral college is incredibly unfair to voters who live in states that lean opposite their view. Translation: > It's unfair that I don't get my way even though I'm in the minority. Also, thi…

The two most important electoral reforms that the US could adopt would be to switch voting to Saturday, so that most people don't have to take time off work to vote; and to put the administration of federal elections in the hands of an independent, professional, non-partisan electoral commission.

>>>and to put the administration of federal elections in the hands of an independent, professional, non-partisan electoral commission.

Even if you have a federal electoral commission, the "foot soldiers" who will be working in the election booths will be the same people who is doing it now. (Based on what I know about the system in India, there it a election commission, who provides the administration and drafts Central/State government employees to carry out the elections). I agree that the net effect of such a measure will be positive, if there is more uniformity in the voting rules.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#122

Post by jsnell » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 5:50 PM UTC

leif wrote: post #98

btilly wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a huge and incorrect assumption that both parties care based on raw population. In fact the more urban someone is, the more likely they are to vote Democrat. The more rural, the more likely they are to vote Republican. If you're targeting swing votes, you're interested primarily in suburbs and smaller cities.

That correlation does exist, but surely it's influenced by the voting model.

That's basically correct. The correlation between population density and political affiliation is worldwide, but is apparently much stronger in countries without proportional representation.

A recent podcast on the subject: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/10/rodden_on_the_g.htm...

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#123

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 5:59 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #60

Well I guess it's that time in the cycle again: for people to complain about the electoral college (disclaimer: I'm not American). Over the years in different elections in different countries I've heard this complaint [1] > The electoral college is incredibly unfair to voters who live in states that lean opposite their view. Translation: > It's unfair that I don't get my way even though I'm in the minority. Also, thi…

Most American voters do not understand what the President is which is part of why they find the Electoral College confusing.

The President is not the President of the people. It is the President of the States. Only the States have a vote. In fact, for most of its history, the State governments voted directly and there was no popular vote for President. In modern times, they allowed people to have a say in who their State government votes for but it is still only people controlling the vote of their State. They have no say in how people in other States choose to vote for President.

When people complain about the Electoral College, what they are really saying is that they want to eliminate the concept of States voting for President. For better or worse, the idea of the President being the Executive of the States is so foundational to the US Constitution that you'd basically have to throw out the US Constitution and start over. The only representative in Federal government people were supposed to have is their Representative; in recent decades people vote for other Federal positions as well but it is only to decide how their State will apportion its votes rather than voting for the Federal position directly.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#124

Post by raldi » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 6:18 PM UTC

gwright wrote: post #120

raldi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the country doesn't live in high-density areas. If you only catered to urban voters, you'd lose in a huge landslide.

I think the problem would be that the focus would not necessarily be on urban voters (they are pretty dependable Democratic votes) but on very specific swing-voter geographies. This is also an issue with the existing Electoral College but is mediated by the fact that the smallest geographical unit (in most cases) is an entire state. The Electoral College also helps to avoid a national recount should the popular vote…

Statistically, the odds of an election being close enough to require a recount is infinitesimally smaller with a single nationwide pool of 300 million voters than it is with 50 smaller pools. In other words, getting rid of the Electoral College would make recounts far less likely.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#125

Post by hristov » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #80

hristov wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are entitled to your dubious opinions but please do not try to change history. All newspapers agreed that Gore won Florida. What they said was that the Gore vs Bush decision would not have made a difference. That is because in his legal case Gore chose the wrong Florida counties where to request a recount. But if all votes were counted, Gore won. And no the electoral college does not exist to avoid deadlock. Do y…

> You are entitled to your dubious opinions but please do not try to change history. All newspapers agreed that Gore won Florida. What they said was that the Gore vs Bush decision would not have made a difference. That is because in his legal case Gore chose the wrong Florida counties where to request a recount. But if all votes were counted, Gore won. Um, not quite; you've misstated the conclusion of the news organi…

From your own link:

"But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. "

So I am right.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#126

Post by refurb » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 6:32 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #59

khawkins wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? What you're proposing is almost fundamentally contradictory to the principles the nation was founded upon. Banning bias? No "trashing" other candidates? No polling? No public endorsements? Incumbent can't run? You propose some of the most egregious restrictions on freedom of speech I've ever heard of. Only can use government money to campaign (and not their own)? Can only visit state capitals once? Ca…

As a citizen, you're allowed full freedoms but if you're running for office, it's reasonable to ask you to adhere to certain restrictions so the process doesn't get corrupted. We ask people who hold certain positions in government and the public sector to give up some freedoms while holding their job (CIA, military and Pentagon personnel, certain contractors, etc.), I think it's fair to ask people to give up some res…

Who gets to decide whether or not candidates adhered to these restrictions?

Can you imagine if an "election oversight board" penalized a candidate for "unfair communications"? Jesus, that would be tied up in courts for years.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#127

Post by drivebyacct2 » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 7:26 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #33

leif wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama's going to win. The only reason you hear pundits talking about it is because they get paid to talk about it. The media controls the messaging these days, not the candidates or the people, and it's in the media's interest to maintain as close a race as possible until the bitter end. That's why even the most partisan pundits, even when everything's in their candidate's favor, keep claiming that "this is such a cl…

NO BUT [insert crude reduction of Nate's science down to the level of tv pundits]. I'd love to know more about Nate's model, but I trust it a hell of a lot more than the raw data of Gallup (seeing as Gallup's nearly the only one left giving him a chance. Dick back-peddaled today, Rasmussen did more or less too.) Nate actually has a book about why this occurs and what it does to the conversation of politics in electio…

Stay classy silent downvoters. Downvotes make you right.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#128

Post by bobwaycott » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 7:27 PM UTC

nhebb wrote: post #81

cletus wrote: post #60

Well I guess it's that time in the cycle again: for people to complain about the electoral college (disclaimer: I'm not American). Over the years in different elections in different countries I've heard this complaint [1] > The electoral college is incredibly unfair to voters who live in states that lean opposite their view. Translation: > It's unfair that I don't get my way even though I'm in the minority. Also, thi…

> The electoral college is incredibly unfair to voters who live in states that lean opposite their view. The Constitution doesn't mandate how electoral votes are allocated. Maine and Nebraska, for example, distribute the electoral college votes by congressional district. So the winner take all policy of most states isn't due to the electoral college itself, but how the states choose to implement it.

True, and they also add in a couple electors based on the statewide popular vote.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#129

Post by dctoedt » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 7:32 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #125

dctoedt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are entitled to your dubious opinions but please do not try to change history. All newspapers agreed that Gore won Florida. What they said was that the Gore vs Bush decision would not have made a difference. That is because in his legal case Gore chose the wrong Florida counties where to request a recount. But if all votes were counted, Gore won. Um, not quite; you've misstated the conclusion of the news organi…

From your own link: "But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. " So I am right.

> So I am right.

Absolutely --- if by "Gore won" you mean that Gore might have pulled ahead, by around 115 votes, and been declared the winner, if all of the following had occurred:

(i) Gore had asked the courts for a full statewide recount, instead of the more-limited recount that he did ask for; * and

(ii) the courts had found sufficient cause to order such an expansive (and expensive) recount, instead of limiting the recount to specific areas where good reason had been affirmatively demonstrated; AND

(iii) in such a statewide recount, the various voting officials in Florida's 67 counties had (x) tagged the same specific 175,010 ballots as problematic as did the news organizations' independent observers, and then (y) reached the same conclusions about those ballots as did the independent observers. *

* As explained in the Times article

We can never know whether (ii) and, especially, (iii) would have occurred.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#130

Post by bobwaycott » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 7:34 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #83

cletus wrote: post #60

Well I guess it's that time in the cycle again: for people to complain about the electoral college (disclaimer: I'm not American). Over the years in different elections in different countries I've heard this complaint [1] > The electoral college is incredibly unfair to voters who live in states that lean opposite their view. Translation: > It's unfair that I don't get my way even though I'm in the minority. Also, thi…

> 1) The argument for (1) is that mandatory voting leads to uninformed people voting. I assure you that uninformed people are already voting. I'd argue that passionate people are more likely to vote. Arguably, they deserve to be heard, since they care so much about politics. On the other hand, they may be brainwashed idiots. It also creates a lot more divisive candidates. Obama is a far-left (by US standards, in Aust…

You seem to let your bias leak through here. Given the sum total of both his rhetoric and his governance to date, Obama does not stand anywhere near far-left, not even in the US. You may want to recalibrate your scales.

Supporting gay marriage and abortion rights are increasingly moderate positions, held by people who swing further left and right on a host of other issues. For example, Obama has been overwhelmingly willing to compromise with business to move other policy agendas (e.g., health care) forward—the far-left is quite unlikely to do this. There are plenty of other counterexamples to an unfounded claim that he is far-left. Drone strikes come to mind, to name but one other.

If he holds views and suggestions for policies that are actually far-left, please enlighten us.