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Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

nytimes.com

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Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#121

Post by kr7 »

Eutow wrote: post #94
kr7 wrote: post #58

Trump got the most votes of any Republican candidate in history. It probably would have been lower than 9% if Trump hadn't run.

Is it pertinent to point out that he also garnered the most votes against him than any Republican candidate in history?

How many people really voted against him, though?

The media thought that everyone not voting for him was voting against him. They assumed that once the field narrowed voters would rally around another candidate and defeat Trump. That never happened. If the voters' goal was to beat Trump, they would have done it.

By that logic, Obama had a record number of votes "against" him too, with 19,585,539 (53%) "against" him in a 3 man race, compared to Trump with 17,151,110 (55%) "against" him in a 5 man race.

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#122

Post by auganov »

mtgx wrote: post #34
icc97 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree. The article appears to be painting a very dark picture that 91% don't want the candidates. Where as this is just stating the obvious of what happens in every country that first puts forward a leader of a party that is contending to win the overall election.

It's a problem in the current context of how U.S. elections work, where those 91% of the people feel "forced" into voting one of these two parties or candidates, even though 50% of them are registered Independent. If the U.S. electoral system easily allowed for other parties to exist and thrive (such as with a proportional representation voting system for Congress, which drastically increases how well people are repr…

> Because those 91% of the people could easily ignore the Democratic and Republican candidates if they were terrible (which seems to be the case this year), and just vote for another party's candidate in the general election.

Israel had proportional voting with a 1% electoral threshold (given there are 120 seats in the Knesset it's almost the natural threshold). They eventually raised the threshold more and more (3.25% now I think) because of the hyper-fragmentation which meant niche parties holding the coalition hostage.

The degree to which a given electoral system represents voter preferences is highly election-specific. People are also usually not polled on their detailed preferences so it's hard to empirically determine which one is most likely to maximize the representation of voter preferences in a given country.

Also the complexity of optimal voting strategies across electoral systems is different. An argument can be made that the simplest is the best. Say last year in Poland the mainstream consensus was that there's going to be a big coalition of all the parties against the biggest one. But some of the minority parties under-performed while the big one overperfomed giving the big one majority rule with just 37.58% of votes. If you'd redo the elections even the same week you'd probably end up with a much different result.

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#123

Post by metaphorm »

icc97 wrote: post #27
thomasfoster96 wrote: post #18

What astounds me the most is that party membership in the United States is actually very high compared to most other countries (except for India). Fewer than 200,000 Australians would currently be members of any political party - representing less than 1.5% of the total voters (around 14 million) - and that's being very generous with estimates of party membership figures. Most AFL football clubs would have more membe…

I definitely agree. The article appears to be painting a very dark picture that 91% don't want the candidates. Where as this is just stating the obvious of what happens in every country that first puts forward a leader of a party that is contending to win the overall election.

91% are not engaged supporters of the two candidates that were nominated. Each nominee can claim no more than 9% of the population as having demonstrated engagement with their campaign.

In addition to that it should be pointed out that the number of engaged voters who voted for a different candidate for nomination is almost as large as the number of engaged voters who voted for the winning nominee.

There is a fundamental problem with the nominating process. Neither nominee has solid ground to claim that they represent the preferences of anything besides a small fraction of the electorate.

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#124

Post by mikeash »

lettergram wrote: post #117
matwood wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite an interesting time. My liberal friends are all irked because Bernie got hosed by the DNC. My conservative friends are irked because the RNC did not do more to stop Trump. Talk about a role reversal with the party of the people and the party of the establishment. Personally, I see so many problems with both candidates that it makes me sick that I have to vote for the least worst one.

You don't actually have to vote for the least worst one... I recommend looking to third party candidates. The libertarian party has two pretty solid lineup and polls third at the moment (like 11% or something this election cycle). That being said, you can also protest vote by putting in "Edward Snowden" or something. Honestly, I find it horrifying people feel the need to vote for the "least worst option". You're esse…

Voting for a third party is pointless. You might as well just stay home if you're going to do that. You might feel better about voting libertarian or writing in Snowden, but it doesn't actually do anything. You're voting as if the system worked differently than it does. It's about as useful and productive as removing all the free() calls from your C code because you think that C really should have garbage collection.

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#125

Post by Someone1234 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #107
Someone1234 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in theory. No recent PM hasn't also been an MP (last one was 1830–1903, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil). I cannot imagine in this day and age that someone would be selected as PM without also being an MP. Now, I can imagine them losing their MP seat during their term as PM and staying on. The Tories and Labour know that the way the PM is selected isn't exactly Democratic, and they know that if they were to select someone…

Unless this is an argument for literally direct democracy why do we need to vote separately for the prime minister? Do you want to vote for every minister individually? There are more than a hundred so it may take a while. Instead, we elect a representative, who groups together with like-minded representatives to form a government and run the country. Keep it simple. I think in UK politics talking about apathy and ig…

> Unless this is an argument for literally direct democracy why do we need to vote separately for the prime minister? Do you want to vote for every minister individually? There are more than a hundred so it may take a while.

This is a textbook example of a "False Dilemma"-type fallacy. Either don't vote for the PM or vote for "more than a hundred" ministers. Those aren't the only two options and you know that.

A vote for a PM could, implicitly, be a vote for the ministers that the PM would select. You select the PM, the PM selects their ministers and cabinet, that gives the public more Democratic power.

> I think in UK politics talking about apathy and ignorance is often a nice way to talk about other people's ignorance of your better opinions, and their apathy for your better ideas.

Three quarters of people 'cannot name their local MP'[0].

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-22555659

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#126

Post by astazangasta »

Spoom wrote: post #93
xlxlxlx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel you have to vote for one of the two?

I just had a small debate about this with some friends of mine. Let's imagine you live in a battleground state, and for the sake of argument, let's also assume that you're in one of the 48 states that are "winner take all" in that they assign all of their electoral college votes to the overall popular vote winner in that state. Say that state is Ohio. In 2012, the popular vote in Ohio was as follows (Source: Politico…

The problem with strategic voting arguments are several:

1) There is a clear value to voting Green in terms of building the party. The more people vote Green, the more visible the success of the party, the better they do in future elections. Not all of what happens in an election need be about winning the current contest.

2) The idea of a linear political spectrum with candidates neatly arranged from 'good' to 'worse' to 'bad' is bunkum. In particular Libertarians are an obvious divergence from this model (and often emphasize this), and this strategic voting argument makes zero sense in their case. Greens also are generally quite different from Democrats ideologically (notably on war); the idea that a Democrat is a 'better compromise' is vulgar to many.

3) If a party wants your votes, generally they should take up the positions you favor, not refuse to countenance them on the belief that duty requires you to vote for them.

4) Mitt Romney is looking pretty good right now, even compared to Clinton.

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#127

Post by allendoerfer »

lettergram wrote: post #117
matwood wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite an interesting time. My liberal friends are all irked because Bernie got hosed by the DNC. My conservative friends are irked because the RNC did not do more to stop Trump. Talk about a role reversal with the party of the people and the party of the establishment. Personally, I see so many problems with both candidates that it makes me sick that I have to vote for the least worst one.

You don't actually have to vote for the least worst one... I recommend looking to third party candidates. The libertarian party has two pretty solid lineup and polls third at the moment (like 11% or something this election cycle). That being said, you can also protest vote by putting in "Edward Snowden" or something. Honestly, I find it horrifying people feel the need to vote for the "least worst option". You're esse…

Voting for the least worst option is the essence of democracy. You make a compromise and find a common ground.

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#128

Post by ajmurmann »

waterphone wrote: post #83
xlxlxlx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel you have to vote for one of the two?

Because in the U.S. electoral system, voting outside of the two primary candidates selected by the system is effectively a wasted vote, and if there is one candidate you especially don't want, it is usually more effective to vote against them rather than for a candidate who cannot win under the system in place.

I don't understand why you are being downvoted. You are pointing out the biggest issue with the current political system in the US. It's de-facto a two party system. We could fix this by making it either a parliamentary system or changing the voting method to approval voting. With approval voting we wouldn't even need a primary and neither Trump nor Hilary would be anywhere near the Whitehouse, since they both had negative approval ratings during the primary.

Re: Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees

#129

Post by TimJRobinson »

So why does the USA still have first past the post presidential voting? Is someone, anyone, in the government pushing for this to change? It seems painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that switching to a better voting system where you can still vote for 3rd party candidates and not have your vote go to waste would be a huge improvement.
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