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Electoral Maps

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MattusMaximus said:
Read the article Oliver. It is a far better source of information than me, imo.
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It is gobsmacking that somebody who posts so much about the American Political system seems to know so freaking little about the way it runs.
But's it is Oliver we are talking about, and posting crap about topics he is ignorant about is a way of life with him.
 
leftysergeant said:
The down side of the system is that, were Montana populated entirely by morons, they would cancel the votes of hundreds of PhDs in Washington.
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Having a PHD and being a moron are not incompatinble. I have known some PHD's I would not trust to walk my dog around the block.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Mondale? Where were you, district of Columbia?
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Massachusetts.

Btw, I would have voted Humphrey and McGovern, but I was too young. I thought Nixon was a crook. I still have some old McGovern posters in my basement. Ought to sell them on Ebay.
 
leftysergeant said:
The down side of the system is that, were Montana populated entirely by morons, they would cancel the votes of hundreds of PhDs in Washington.
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On the other hand, if Montana were populated entirely by a highly inteligent and advanced race of space aliens they probably wouldn't engage in moronic hypotheticals.
 
Oliver said:
Okay, so the reason why there where 2 [or 3] cases in which the
popular vote didn't lead to the white house are based on the fact
that some unpledged electors messed up by voting against their
states popular vote outcome, right?
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No, the reason is it's calculated on state level, as explained by others before. Let's try one more example. Suppose the US consisted of only two states, California with 36 mn inhabitants and Pennsylvania with 12 mn inhabitants. Based on an average of 600,000 inhabitants per House Rep., they'd get 60 resp. 20 House Reps.

(the numbers are slightly off, but this is generally how it goes; for the sake of simplicity, I'll also assume all inhabitants to be voters)

Now the number of Electors is equal to the number of House Reps. plus the number of Senators - the latter is always 2. So California gets 62 electors and Pennsylvania 22.

Now assume 19 mn Californians vote Democrat, and 17 mn vote GOP. Assume also that 4 mn Pennsylvanians vote Democrat and 8 mn vote GOP (McCain would like to :)). Then the Dems have 62 electors from California and the GOP only 22 from Pennsylvania. But the GOP won the public vote overall.

Now factor in that there are 50 states, ranging in population size from barely 600,000 - such as Vermont and Alaska - which thus get 3 electors, to California with 55 electors, and you see that you can get all kind of skewed results.

BTW, do you understand how the German Bundestag elections work? The way the US president is elected is child's play compared to that...
 
What I don't understand is what happens when multiple parties nominate the same candidate. This seems to have happened in NY to both McCain and Obama.

Does the candidate appear twice on the ballot? If so how are those counted?

For example, if the vote ends up like this:

Obama (Democrat ticket) 1,000,000
McCain (Republican ticket) 900,000
McCain (Conservative ticket) 200,000

Would Obama win the state or would McCain's 1,100,000 total votes count?

gdnp said:
Well, the fact that the guy who lost the popular vote none the less became president almost 10% of the time is disturbing if you believe that the person that won the majority of the popular vote should be president, as I do.
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True, although the popular vote might have been different if the popular vote determined the winner.
 
gtc said:
What I don't understand is what happens when multiple parties nominate the same candidate. This seems to have happened in NY to both McCain and Obama.

Does the candidate appear twice on the ballot? If so how are those counted?

For example, if the vote ends up like this:

Obama (Democrat ticket) 1,000,000
McCain (Republican ticket) 900,000
McCain (Conservative ticket) 200,000
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"Conservative ticket"? Ya lost me. I never heard of the "Conservative ticket".

ETA: Conservative party. Damn, learn something new every day. Damn New Yorkers.
 
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I cross posted with you, but according to wikipedia it seems that votes get pooled in New York, so McCain's 1,100,000 votes would carry the state.
 
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Oliver said:
I still don't get it. Where does the data for the electoral maps
come from? And if the electors will most probably vote based
on the popular vote anyway, why is it important at all to display
those maps?

In other words: If McCain would win the popular vote in a "landslide",
who cares if the electoral map before election day showed 500 electors
favoring Obama? It doesn't matter if the popular votes decides and
the electorate is just a formality.
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dude. i thought you understood how american elections worked.
almost all states are winner takes all. so if 50.1% of the vote in a state goes to whomever...then that guy gets all the electoral votes. all the votes for the loser go to the other sides electors. basically their votes aint worth crap.

i believe the electoral maps simply look at the polls for each state. those states that have polls showing someone clearly ahead and expected to win, gives the electoral votes to that guy.

the scarey thing is, you can win the Presidency with only winning our 11 biggest states. the rest of the states can go to hell. not very democratic if you ask me.
 
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gtc said:
What I don't understand is what happens when multiple parties nominate the same candidate. This seems to have happened in NY to both McCain and Obama.

Does the candidate appear twice on the ballot? If so how are those counted?

For example, if the vote ends up like this:

Obama (Democrat ticket) 1,000,000
McCain (Republican ticket) 900,000
McCain (Conservative ticket) 200,000

Would Obama win the state or would McCain's 1,100,000 total votes count?

.
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In New York, it is total vote. There are lots of other parties on the ballot. It could be 6 for one and 5 for the other. Add em up and that's that. Don't kid yourself, McCain is not going to win NY. McCain will probably take upstate and maybe Long Island, but as the City goes, so goes the entire state, and the City is going for Obama.

Howard Stern interviewed some Obama voters in NYC, Harlem I believe. Here they are;

Obama Voters
 
dudalb said:
It is gobsmacking that somebody who posts so much about the American Political system seems to know so freaking little about the way it runs.
But's it is Oliver we are talking about, and posting crap about topics he is ignorant about is a way of life with him.
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Just seemed worth repeating.
 
Oliver had been obssesing about the US Elections for nearly a year, and his not bothered to read about how the system works until NOW???????:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp
:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi:eye-poppi


Still another reason why Oliver's reputation on this site is so low.
 
gtc said:
Sorry.

The Conservative Party of New York has nominated McCain and Palin.


Edited to Add:

I may have worked it out. I think they get pooled by what is called fusion voting.
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Interesting tidbit. The wiki article says most states have outlawed "fusion voting". I don't see the practical difference, though. Couldn't the Conservative Party (in the above example) just abstain from fielding candidates and say they endorse McCain/Palin? Or does it have to do with the other elections taking place simultaneously and thus being able to vote a "straight Conservative ticket"?

Formally, Nov. 4th there are 50 elections - one in each state. Are the lists on the ballots from federal parties or state parties? The mention of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party suggests the latter; and thus I can't see how states can really prohibit the essence of fusion voting - viz. various parties joining forces for some election.

(And personally I don't see what's wrong with it. In NL, it's also quite usual that smaller parties have a joint list in community elections when they'd be too small individually to win seats).
 
parky76 said:
the scarey thing is, you can win the Presidency with only winning our 11 biggest states. the rest of the states can go to hell. not very democratic if you ask me.
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Those top 11 states account for 56% of the population. You would thus need at least 28% of the vote to win by this strategy.

If instead you were to try for for the 41 smallest states you would only need 22% of the vote. Even less democratic.
 
ddt said:
(And personally I don't see what's wrong with it. In NL, it's also quite usual that smaller parties have a joint list in community elections when they'd be too small individually to win seats).
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A similar thing happens in parts of Australia with the urban based conservative party and the rural based conservative party fielding joint tickets for state wide elections.

I got the impression that the two major parties don't like it because it favours the minor parties.
 
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