Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth

ehBeth wrote:

The CBS cartograph posted by timber has been roundly trounced. It's not any more valid (in the mathematical/statistical senses) than the last time he posted it.

Trounced by whom and in what manner?

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Re: nimh

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

nimh, you assume, incorrectly, that I want to change the system to favor Democrats.

WRONG!

<frowns>

I am not assuming anything about you or your opinion, BBB. I was expressing mine.

I, too, am in favour of electoral reform. But I'm also pragmatical (or sneaky) enough to have second doubts when I find that a proposed solution will virtually guarantee Republican victories as far as the eye can see ...

Thats, as I literally wrote, the practical problem I have with it.

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

My reason is for everyone's vote to count as they intended. Not to have anyone's vote changed by the winner take all laws in favor of someone they didn't support.

What does it mean though if an actual calculation of the numbers show that the reform you propose would apparently skew the EC vote numbers even further from resembling the proportions of the national popular vote?

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Re: Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth

nimh wrote:

Wasn't there a famous case in US electoral history where the candidate with the most votes (both popular + EC) did not get the presidency because the third party electors (quite unexpectedly) threw their weight down behind the second-in-place? I remember such a story, but I cant place it ...

Such a scenario was among the "Omigawdwhutif" postulates flutterin' around the 2000 general election controversy, but I do not believe there ever has been such an occurance in actuality. The Dixiecrats attempted to effect a similar strategy for each of Ike's elections, as did some New Deal/Roosevelt opponents in the '36, '40, and '44 general elections.

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Well, if you dont know it, then it probably never happened ... I must be thinking of something else ... but what? Dammit, I hate it when that happens ... :-?

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When I was researching the EC months ago, I remember reading about a case (years and years ago) where the electors did not cast their votes for the candidate winning the popular vote in their state.

Isolated, of course, but they were pointing out that the ball is in the elector's court, regardless. I don't think they mentioned any case where it actually skewed the outcome of an election and they did point out that it's very rare that electors would go against the popular vote in a given state, but that it's happened once or twice.

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Re: Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth

ehBeth wrote:

The experience in Canada would suggest that a minority government is one that gets more useful things done - the requirement to get co-operation usually results in sensible legislation.

Our system precludes a coalition government though (unfortunately). In our case, if there is no EC majority the House of Representatives elects the President by casting one vote per state.

If this election had gone that route and members of the House voted along party lines in deciding who their state would cast it's vote, Bush would have gotten 29 states, Kerry 16 and 5 would be toss-ups (because they have the same number of reps from both parties or have an "Independent".)

That doesn't seem to be any better than the current EC.

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Someone needs to nuke Illinois.

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And on that note...if we didn't use the electoral college system, how would the result have been different in 2004?

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cjhsa wrote:

And on that note...if we didn't use the electoral college system, how would the result have been different in 2004?

If that was the only difference Bush would have won by 3,000,00 or so votes whenever they finshed recounting 2 or 3 years from now.

Of course if there was no EC going into the election, everyone running would have used different strategies so how things would have actually panned out is impossible to even guess at.

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Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth

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