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512 Paths to the White House

nytimes.com

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Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#161

Post by Evbn »

Zakharov wrote: post #88
nitrogen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article you quoted: The assumptions include a majoritarian election system in which political views are along a one-dimensional spectrum. Political views are not along a one-dimensional spectrum. As soon as you add another dimension, FPTP elections favor extremism according to the visualizations I linked to elsewhere in the thread ( http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ ).

Adding another dimension doesn't make a difference; adding another candidate does.

What is the median point of a polygon?

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#162

Post by Evbn »

lotu wrote: post #131
robomartin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it wasn't made in jest. Obviously arriving at a systems that could work well would require intelligent discussion of all kinds of proposals point by point. I am more than prepared to accept that some aspects of what I rattled-off in five minutes of typing could be bad ideas. It's not like I spend every waking hour of my life thinking about this. It's almost exactly the opposite. My point is that what we see today…

> I'll self-appoint as an intelligent voter. I think you might be one too. The problem is that not everyone is. That sounds like a dictatorship. > Steven Hawking --or someone like him-- could never become president. FDR and polio. Anyways, the fundamental problem with your proposal is that every candidate is still going to be inclined to act as close as possible to how they currently act while still staying with in t…

FDR went to extreme lengths to hide his polio, including having the support of every newspaper in the nation. He would have no chance today, in the era of "release the medical records!"

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#163

Post by Evbn »

btmorex wrote: post #62
arrrg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don’t know. Calling it a tossup is very wrong, but Romney’s odds don’t seem that bad to me. Nate Silver, for example, gives Romney a twenty percent chance. That’s not bad. I would gladly pay $1,000 for a twenty percent chance to win a million.

Nate Silver gives Romney a ~20% chance of winning because there's a chance that the polls are systematically wrong. Each polling firm comes up with their own likely voter model and participation model. If they're are correct in the aggregate, there's essentially a 0% chance of Romney winning, but they might not be correct (and there were times in the past where they were systematically wrong). Basically, don't confus…

You know what is a huge factor in turnout? Likelihood of victory being close to 50%.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#164

Post by gwright »

raldi wrote: post #124
gwright wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are assuming that votes are randomly distributed, they are not. In fact the majority of votes are fixed (reliable Republican or Democratic votes).

Even so, you really want to consider the 'pain' associated with the unlikely event not the probability of the event itself. The pain associated with the recount within a single state is much less than the pain associated with a recount for the entire country, even if the national recount scenario is less likely (even much less likely).

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#165

Post by yummyfajitas »

jbooth wrote: post #154
yummyfajitas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One effect - economic conservatism may make a comeback. NY, CA and several other liberal states tend to have people who call themselves "conservatives" (folks like me). We tend to be libertarian leaning economic conservatives who don't identify with religious culture war stuff (war on christmas, the gays are gonna get you). We get ignored since our vote doesn't matter. This leads to national candidates who are basica…

That'd be nice, but for the record, spending a lot of money on the military and cutting taxes (Bush, Romney) is not 'basically democrats with a little bit of jesus thrown in'. I think your beef is more with the national security conservatives than the religious ones, religion is orthogonal to economic conservatism and often employed in its favor (megachurches hating on 'socialism', etc)

spending a lot of money on the military and cutting taxes (Bush, Romney) is not 'basically democrats with a little bit of jesus thrown in'

I'm referring to spending lots of money on subsidized medicine (Busy, Romney), assorted redistribution schemes (Bush, Romney), increasing the regulatory state (Bush), more executive power (Bush), opposing freedom of political speech (Romney), opposing free speech on the internet (Bush, Romney) and pushing/subsidizing real estate speculation (Bush, Romney).

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#166

Post by rmc »

protomyth wrote: post #150
caf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Switching to Saturday would get the US in trouble with many religions in the US that would absolutely forbid voting on a Saturday. A weekday is much safer. Having election day be a federal holiday wouldn't hurt.

Why doesn't that happen now? Friday is the Muslim holy day?

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#167

Post by rmc »

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.

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

Wait this doesn't happen now?!?!! WTF?

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#168

Post by malandrew »

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…

FWIW Brazil has mandatory voting and many parties. Two of them are dominant, but there is a much greater level of awareness for other parties than here in the US.

If you don't vote in Brazil a lot of the things you normally do involving the government become complicated until your pay a fine and fix your status. Anything involving government issued IDs to social security and unemployment benefits are cut off until you "regularize" your status by paying the fine for not voting.

My biggest complaint is that the system forces even Brazilians living abroad to vote, which is a big pain in the ass when you are abroad since you aren't aware of elections (it's easy to forget) and you need to find the nearest consulate and figure out how to vote. Every time I've returned to Brazil I've had to go and fix my status by paying the fine for not voting in the elections that occurred while I was out of the country.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#169

Post by MichaelApproved »

ewillbefull wrote: post #142
MichaelApproved wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've done it in the UK. I'm not saying it's exactly how we should do it here but it's something that should be considered. "The consequences, the judges made immediately clear, were serious. “Allegations of an illegal practice in elections,” they wrote in their full judgement, “have what are in effect penal consequences.” As such, the May election Woolas won by 103 votes was declared void, and he was barred from t…

Do you really think the UK is a good example of free speech or effective governance? Free speech is extremely broken in that country. It's so bad there that they have to work to repeal crap like this: http://reformsection5.org.uk/

UK might not have the right solution but they're trying to work at the problem while we're letting the problem get worse.

Slander and content of speech is tough to regulate because it's not black and white. I think we should still kick around ideas that try to control blatant lying but I understand how unrealistic that could be.

Personally, I think limiting campaign spending might work. Again, still extremely tough subject to solve but the current trend isn't good for our democracy.

Re: 512 Paths to the White House

#170

Post by protomyth »

rmc wrote: post #166
protomyth wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching to Saturday would get the US in trouble with many religions in the US that would absolutely forbid voting on a Saturday. A weekday is much safer. Having election day be a federal holiday wouldn't hurt.

Why doesn't that happen now? Friday is the Muslim holy day?

Tuesday tends to me no major religion's holy day, and the country was Judeo-Christian at its founding.
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