Omnibus Politics Thread: Campaign 2016 EditionFollow

It's not my opinion, that's how the electoral college works. it means you don't have to appeal to different geographic areas, just hit enough of the demos.

There's a difference between it being possible for it to fail, and whether it fails more often or in a more potentially spectacular manner. Remember, we're not just looking at the flaws in one methodology, but comparing it to an alternative. I have never said the EC is "perfect". Only that it is "less imperfect" than any alternative I've seen proposed. But feel free to propose an alternative and make a case for it.




Are you saying that under the EC this is the case and that this is wrong? Or are you saying that you believe that the first case is actually better than the second? Because I'm not really understanding your point here. If you get 48% of support in each state in the whole country, you wont win either the EC vote *or* the popular vote. So that's not really even a case to consider.

The relevant scenario is where you win 65% in states representing just 1/3rd of the EC vote (and maybe less than a quarter of the actual states by number), win the popular vote, but lose the electoral vote because you could not win majorities in the rest of the states representing the other 2/3rds of the EC votes. You know, the kind of scenario we're actually looking at right now (ok, I'm tweaking the numbers, but you get the point). IN that case, the guy who won more states, even by a narrower margin, had to spend time and effort in those close stats, where the vote results are not certain, and where he has to actually appeal to as broad a group of people as possible, in a large number of states.


All the other person has to do is double down on a narrative that works very strongly in a small number of high population states. We don't want that. We want broad and narrow victories. That will, everything else being equal, result in a president who will have campaigned at least, on issues that reflect the wishes and desires of the most different demographics in the country. That's a good thing.




Again, you're being vague. Are you saying that you believe there should not be such a requirement, or that there is no requirement under the EC?

Under the EC there is more need to do so than under a popular voting system. Assuming we desire presidents who appeal to the most different demographics possible, then you want to use the EC system, since that's going to be the most likely to award the win to the person with that broadest appeal. There's never a guarantee, of course, but it's more likely. Again, popular vote can be ratcheted up by simply doubling and tripling down on concentrated populations that already support you (like in high density population centers where the issues that win votes are relatively similar everywhere in the country). You can win by just getting a higher percentage of people in just one or two demographics to vote for you. To win a majority of EC votes, you have to win a majority of popular votes, in a large number of states in the US. You can't just focus on a few key demographics and expect to win.

And if you don't think it's important for a president to appeal to a wide assortment of different demographics, then we're just going to have to disagree completely. I think that's critically important.

This. I'm not sure how he can claim that the electoral college discourages the need to appeal to different geographical areas. It literally does the exact opposite, since you must win a majority of voters in a large number of states, and not just a total popular vote tally. You can't win the election under the EC by just winning 100% of voters in a handful of high population metropolitan areas (not even winning the states, btw, just getting tons of urban dwellers to vote for you and ignoring everyone outside of the city limits). You must win a large number of states, both big and small, to win the election under the electoral college system. It's literally the primary effect it has on the election, and is precisely the argument for keeping it in place.



Yeah. I'm not sure what he's trying to say either. He's either completely muddling his words, or he has no clue how the electoral college works. It's like he's arguing that there's no value to having tires on your car, because tires just make it harder to control the car. just... strange.

Can win. Not "the only way you can win". You can certainly win by appealing to a large number of people in a large number of states, and winning both the EC and popular vote by large margins. And that's a good way to win. And that's how Bush won in that election.

The point here is that in the case where someone wins the popular vote but loses the EC vote, it's nearly always going to be because they won very large majorities in a small number of high population density areas, while losing by small margins in a large number of less densely populated areas. And in that scenario (since that's the scenario we're actually talking about here), we should prefer the candidate who won the EC vote to become president because that candidate had to win a broader number of geographical demographics than the one who won the popular vote.

We're looking just at that case, right? And in that case, we'd prefer a president with shallow but broad appeal, to one with deep but narrow appeal. Because the former will have to make good on promises to people living in a wide assortment of different demographic conditions, while the former will only have to make good on a far smaller set. When you've won the vote among farmers, and ranchers, and factory workers, and businessmen, in northern states, and southern states, and both inland and coastal states, you're probably a good representative for the nation as a whole. If all you did was appeal to people in big cities, almost entirely in coastal areas, you're probably not as good a representative, right?

Which is why the EC is a good system to use. It is the most likely system to ensure that the candidate who wins the election will have won majority support in the most geographically and demographically diverse manner. At least, certainly *more* diverse than someone who wins the popular vote, but fails to win the EC vote. I mean, is this even a subject of debate? IMO, this should not be in question. The only real argument for popular vote over EC vote is if you actually think that it would be better to elect a president with a narrow focus on just the most densely populated areas. So I suppose, if you live in a big city, and you love big city life, and you think everyone should love the same things you do for the same reasons you do, and believe that the president should place the most weight and attention on people who live in big cities and the issues that they care about above those of everyone outside those big cities, then you should fight for a pure popular vote.

Note, however, that if you are doing this for purely partisan reasons, that's pretty darn dumb. Because if we did abandon the EC for popular voting, the GOP would spend a ton more time winning over voters in big cities. This would result in the rest of the country getting screwed over, but that's what would happen. This is really not about which party would benefit. But whether we're going to change to a system that would massively weight our presidential attention and campaign promises to just the highest population density areas. If you think that's a great idea, then by all means argue for eliminating the EC in favor of popular voting.

I think it's a terrible idea. And I live in a big city. In California, no less, which is currently more or less ignored in presidential campaigns (hah. So is Illinois though!). So if I were just arguing for my own interest, I should be arguing the other way. This is not about my interest at all. It's about looking at the two systems, analyzing the effects on the citizens of the country as a whole based on which one we might use, and concluding that the EC ensures a better outcome for the broadest set of different "types" of people and regions in the country. And I think that's a very good thing.

Edited, Nov 30th 2016 12:37am by gbaji

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Nevermind

Edited, Nov 29th 2016 10:58pm by stupidmonkey

Basically that slightly more support in half the states is much better than broad support in all the states. This means that parties will naturally not care about the interests of a majority of states (why compete in states above that 51% unless as a hedge against risk). Since no one in Federal politics cares about anything people in CA, TX, MA or TN think, you basically guarantee that the concerns of those geographic areas will be ignored. This list is much longer than that. In fact, only ~34.3 million votes are from states that Federal Gov't candidates would even consider listening to. Does that seem like a recipe for success?

Then you're the only person to have ever existed to not know whether you'd agree with something or not. I'm not saying you're predictable, but you are about as spontaneous as a Family Guy episode, and half as entertaining. You mean like how abortions would be the same as flu shots, kids would be taught nothing but Sharia Law in schools, gays in the military/getting married would bring the wrath of God and end America, and guns would all be taken away? Amazingly, none of those terrible fearful things actually happened either, despite the angry Right's constant drum beating. And sure, what the kids are fearful of now most likely won't happen, but again the difference here that you're conveniently choosing to ignore is that Bush and Obama didn't run their campaigns about doing the things that were made "scary" by their opposing parties. Trump made fear a cornerstone of his. If you ignore the blatent racism, hate crimes, and actual murders. Although it is amusing that both sides are associating Trump with swastikas. Yeah yeah, when it's the Right they're "isolated incidents" but when it's the Left it's "the whole side."

Naw they are just too spread out and the liberal media won't give them the time of day anyway.

Not that anyone cares if 5 people are standing on the street corner protesting in a town of 100 people. The only coverage it gets is in the semi-annual city newsletter which has a picture of them and a caption mentioning that "unnamed protestors" were fined $35 each for disorderly conduct; completely ignoring the fact that the other 95 people in town all know that they're part of the Smith family that lives in the double-wide at the end of 2nd Street by the tracks, and the officer who charged them is their 2nd cousin who really was more irritated that he got pegged with hosting Thanksgiving for the 3rd year in a row than anything else, and just wanted to get out of it somehow.

I disagree (shocker, I know!). If that candidate's platform fails to obtain plurality support in those other states, then we can assume that candidate platform as president would also fail to obtain plurality support in those others states (and may in fact, be in direct opposition to the plurality of voters in many or even all of those states). Which would result in a president with an agenda that most states are in opposition to. I've mentioned a few times the issue of states as legal entities desiring to have federal representation that aligns with their own laws and interests rather than being in opposition to them.

Having even a narrow minority in those states is still a minority. As in "the state chose the other candidates platform over yours". You want a president that has a platform that aligns with the most states, not the least. What your supporting effectively results in a small number of states with strong support for a given platform effectively forcing that platform on a much larger number of states that don't agree. Which is worse than the other way around IMO.



Right. Which is more likely to require appealing to a broader set of positions and ideologies than just pursuing a popular vote. The very fact that she failed to get 270 while still winning the popular vote more or less proves my point.



Right. I think we disagree on whether that's good or bad though.



It's not just about appealing to a wide swath to some degree. You have to appeal to enough voters in enough states to win 270 or more EC votes. You have to win pluralities in those states. It's pretty easy to get a decently sized minority for a major party candidate in pretty much any state. Because not all voters in any one state are cookie cuter copies of eachother. The issue is winning a plurality of votes in those states. Because that means that your agenda will be more likely to align with the states, which will *also* reflect what a plurality of voters in that state want their rules to be.




Sure. But the areas you will focus on will be the battleground states, which are the ones where the candidate and platforms they represent are nearly 50/50 and can thus be swayed. Which means that the candidates have to find ways to appeal to more people in the middle, rather than just doubling down on people who already support them. Trump, for example, had to figure out how to win over blue collar workers, many of them in union jobs and who traditionally vote for the Democrats. Winning by swaying the other sides voters to your own side is probably a good thing for all of us, no matter which "side" we happen to be on, since it requires concessions to groups that are only narrowly on board to start with and thus more likely to swing the other way if you do something like take their vote and then ignore them for the next 4 years you're in office.

The system helps ensure a greater degree of both moderation in our presidents and compliance with (at least some key centrist) campaign promises. I think that's a good thing.



Again, I'm not claiming the EC is perfect. I'm claiming that it's still better than a straight popular vote. Because the simple fact is that Trump's message is not going to resonate with the urban hipster crowd SF, nor the UFW folks in the central valley, nor the Hollywood white-guilt-ridden liberals, nor the granola eaters in the Northern forest areas. What he would do is double down on the working class blue collar workers, and the folks angry about losing jobs to illegal immigrants, or those worried about crime, or those worried about the economy, and more or less push for his own base among the voters in California. Under the EC system, he gains nothing by doing that, so he didn't, and thus lost by a huge margin in the state. Under a popular vote system, he would do that, and would certainly have changed the resulting numbers somewhat. But not by appealing to a broader spectrum of voters, but by energizing the ones already inclined to support his message.

It's only in those EC generated battleground states that a candidate has to actually moderate his message to appeal across the aisle. Because politics tends to be more polarized the more one "side" has a large majority in the area IMO. When roughly half of your neighbors and co-workers are liberal and half are conservative, you're more likely to engage in reasoned discourse. and greater odds of voters seeing some validity in the other "sides" position (or being more moderate side-wise themselves). In the heavy majority states? not so much. There are lots of times when I'm out socializing with people where I just pretend I'm a hard core liberal just to fit in and avoid an argument (and I know all the language and positions thanks to you guys! ). I'm sure the same sort of things happen with liberals living in states like Montana, or Oklahoma, or wherever there's a strong conservative presence.

Again though, those aren't the locations where you're likely to win votes by changing people's minds or moderating your own platform in order to appeal to them. You win by mobilizing the folks who are already on your side. And yeah, I'm not sure that's a good thing either.

Edited, Nov 30th 2016 4:23pm by gbaji

There are plenty of republicans, (or econ conservatives at least) in cities who are basically ignored by the current system. Rural democrats are basically ignored by everyone, unless the live in Vermont. These groups would be catered to if the system valued their votes. This is part of what leads to the parties being highly divergent in the campaign season despite the goal to capture majority support, which leads to worse outcomes for everyone, since you can't debate policy, you can only really maneuver how much you weight specific agenda, which often has no bearing on the actual manner in which you will rule. This also leads to worse outcomes, as outright lying is highly incentivized. A better alternative would demand that either the major parties cater to a broader base, or that the parties were fractioned (impossible in FPTP) such that there is more granularity in the signalling that the voter can do towards his elected representatives.

->No EC. If you want to have a multiplier on voters far from other people it's still possible (although that's not my personal preference), but why weight certain city dwellers higher than others due to districting?
-> Ideally remove FPTP voting system.
-> Eliminate gerrymandering; no need for it at federal level, and have each subordinate level vote with proportionate control of their legislative bodies.

It's not that something isn't perfect, it's that it's a far cry from perfect and the reasons for maintaining it over the alternatives aren't especially good ones.

And yet, despite me asking all week for a single alternative proposal, I have yet to hear one. Describe exactly what voting methodology you would prefer that we use and then we can talk. Until someone does this, it's just wishing for an outcome.

Holy fuck, I'm not playing THAT game again.