olderuope
Old Europe, I support eliminating the winner-take-all state laws for a simple reason.
I would like my vote to be respected and counted and awarded to the candidate for whom I voted.
BBB
Re: Okie
Old Europe wrote:
Here, for your consideration:
Quote:One little-known (and undesirable) quality of the Electoral College system is the fact that in close elections, the exact number of seats in the House of Representatives becomes a crucial factor in deciding the outcome. The current House size of 435 seats was fixed by an Act of Congress in 1910, not by the constitution, and Congress could change it at will. Since the number of Senators is fixed by the constitution to exactly twice the number of States, enlarging the House would lessen the advantage of smaller states in Presidential elections, while downsizing it would strengthen their advantage. If we take the popular votes cast at the Election of 2000 and the population figures of the 1990 United States Census with the consequential apportionment of House seats to the states as a given, George W. Bush would have won the election for all House sizes less than 491, while Al Gore would have won for all house sizes greater than 598 (except at 655, which gives a tie). In between those two numbers, the winner unsystematically oscillates back and forth many times -- of the 105 house sizes between those numbers, there is a 269/269 tie 23 times, Bush wins 53 times and Gore wins 29 times.
Where did the above come from? If accurate, it is interesting from a statistical standpoint.
Re: Okie
okie wrote:Where did the above come from? If accurate, it is interesting from a statistical standpoint.
okie, it's mere mathematics. It's a "flaw" inherent in a system like the Electoral College. I think the first time this was noticed was in the 1880s - see
Alabama Paradox...
A question here. In your statistical analysis, I am assuming the electoral votes are counted on a proportional basis, not by district. To explain, if my congressional district voted Bush, Bush gets its electoral vote, rather than a system whereby all the votes are counted in a state, and if Bush received 55% of the vote, he receives 55% of the electoral votes dedicated to congressional districts. I like the scheme whereby the electoral vote coming from my district gets the vote according to how that district votes. However, if they were to be calculated in that manner, there is no way some computer program could project winners based on various increases in number of congressional seats, as your scenario claims to do.
And back to BBB, call me dumb if you want, maybe I missed it, but in what manner would electoral votes be tabulated from each state if the winner take all system was circumvented by changing state laws, by district or by percentage of total seats in each state? Actually, I am in favor of "winner take all" by district, that is only in the event that the "winner take all" system is circumvented by state.
By the way, Colorado voted to do that last election and it was soundly defeated, so if that is an indicator of what would likely happen in other states, your proposal is not going anywhere anytime soon anyway. But I am still interested from a philosophical and statistical standpoint.
Okie
Okie, you are one intellectually lazy dude.
Read the chapters of the proposal that will answer your question and stop asking other to do your work for you.
If you had read the proposal in the first place, you wouldn't have ended up looking like such a ninny.
BBB
Sorry, but I don't have time to read books here. If you are advocating the plan, tell us what it is instead of asking people to spend all day reading your books and chapters. You should be able to tell me in one sentence. Don't make this rocket science.
Okie
okie wrote:Sorry, but I don't have time to read books here. If you are advocating the plan, tell us what it is instead of asking people to spend all day reading your books and chapters. You should be able to tell me in one sentence. Don't make this rocket science.
The program is not a typical book. The chapters are short enough for even you to read. If you had read even one of the chapters, you wouldn't have wasted your time as well as ours with your non-germane posts.
I will no longer play your game.
BBB
Re: Anon
okie wrote:BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Anon-Voter wrote:BBB,
You could better spend your time jumping off a bridge than trying to explain to Okie. It's like riding on a merry go round ... round and round you go!
Anon
I know. My patience has run out with okie and I don't plan to waste anymore time trying to improve his knowledge.
BBB
So if you can't defend or explain your position in a summary requested by somebody in a debate, you accuse your debate opponent of knowing nothing and quit? So long.
No Okie, that's not it at all!
You're like a mouse on a wheel. You run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you run ...
but you go nowhere, you learn nothing, and you're happy that way.
Anon
Re: Okie
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Okie, you are one intellectually lazy dude.
Read the chapters of the proposal that will answer your question and stop asking other to do your work for you.
If you had read the proposal in the first place, you wouldn't have ended up looking like such a ninny.
BBB
BBB,
I'll bet this is true in Okies life as a whole. This would be good reason why he wants unequal representation, because he's too lazy to excel on his own. Okie probably pines for the good old days when women were chained to the kitchen and people of color had no chance because it made it easier for him to be lazy and still get preferred treatment.
It's probably why he loves the current times, and why he's a Republican. I think the current times are the lazy white boys last gasp at running things, and when it ends, Okie is just probably gonna die!!
Anon
okie wrote:A question here. In your statistical analysis, I am assuming the electoral votes are counted on a proportional basis, not by district. To explain, if my congressional district voted Bush, Bush gets its electoral vote, rather than a system whereby all the votes are counted in a state, and if Bush received 55% of the vote, he receives 55% of the electoral votes dedicated to congressional districts. I like the scheme whereby the electoral vote coming from my district gets the vote according to how that district votes. However, if they were to be calculated in that manner, there is no way some computer program could project winners based on various increases in number of congressional seats, as your scenario claims to do.
Why not? It's a winner-takes-all system. If a candidate would win a state based on a proportional system within the whole state, he would get all the votes. If a candidate wins a state based on the district system, he gets all the votes. That's completely irrelevant.
(Did you even bother to follow the link, okie?)
Re: Okie
Anon-Voter wrote:
BBB,
I'll bet this is true in Okies life as a whole. This would be good reason why he wants unequal representation, because he's too lazy to excel on his own. Okie probably pines for the good old days when women were chained to the kitchen and people of color had no chance because it made it easier for him to be lazy and still get preferred treatment.
It's probably why he loves the current times, and why he's a Republican. I think the current times are the lazy white boys last gasp at running things, and when it ends, Okie is just probably gonna die!!
Anon
I find your attitude offensive and insulting.
old europe wrote:okie wrote:A question here. In your statistical analysis, I am assuming the electoral votes are counted on a proportional basis, not by district. To explain, if my congressional district voted Bush, Bush gets its electoral vote, rather than a system whereby all the votes are counted in a state, and if Bush received 55% of the vote, he receives 55% of the electoral votes dedicated to congressional districts. I like the scheme whereby the electoral vote coming from my district gets the vote according to how that district votes. However, if they were to be calculated in that manner, there is no way some computer program could project winners based on various increases in number of congressional seats, as your scenario claims to do.
Why not? It's a winner-takes-all system. If a candidate would win a state based on a proportional system within the whole state, he would get all the votes. If a candidate wins a state based on the district system, he gets all the votes. That's completely irrelevant.
(Did you even bother to follow the link, okie?)
What???? Please rephrase in an understandable manner.
I'm like so totally depressed, I come down here suporting okie, is suicide the only answer?
dyslexia wrote:I'm like so totally depressed, I come down here suporting okie, is suicide the only answer?
Wonders will never cease!
Simple question to BBB and Old Europe, especially BBB, under the proposed plan to circumvent the "winner take all" by state, would the electors be determined by the vote in each congressional district, or would they be determined by taking the overall percentage of votes in the entire state and allocating the electoral votes acccording to that percentage? Obviously, there would be differing results between the methods. Sorry BBB, but I don't want to read page after page of lawyereze to find this out. If you are an advocate of the plan and know what it says, you should be able to provide the answer in one sentence.
okie wrote:Simple question to BBB and Old Europe, especially BBB, under the proposed plan to circumvent the "winner take all" by state, would the electors be determined by the vote in each congressional district, or would they be determined by taking the overall percentage of votes in the entire state and allocating the electoral votes acccording to that percentage?
It's my understanding that every state agreeing to this plan would give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. The plan doesn't go into effect until states comprising a majority of electoral votes (270) agree to participate. Thus, if every state agreed to this plan, the winning candidate would receive all 538 electoral votes.
Also remember the winner-take-all system isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, it developed over time.
Sheesh, thats worse than I thought. Then the losers vote counts for absolutely nothing. He gets zero electoral votes if thats the case. Sounds like playing a basketball game and if you lose 98-97, the official score become 98-0. What a plan!!
okie wrote:Sheesh, thats worse than I thought. Then the losers vote counts for absolutely nothing. He gets zero electoral votes if thats the case. Sounds like playing a basketball game and if you lose 98-97, the official score become 98-0. What a plan!!
The losers vote does count because it wasn't negated at the state level, it was pooled with all the other states to get a national popular vote. Unlike now, where your vote is meaningless if the candidate you vote for doesn't win your state. All the electoral college would do is reflect the national popular vote.
Using your analogy the current system would mean that the third quarter of a basketball game would count twice as much as the fourth and therefore a team who scored more points overall could still lose the game if they scored fewer points in the third quarter.
All of this gets back to Square One, after 16 pages. I still want the state where I live to mean something, even if I lose and my state loses. At least my state can go cast our measly few electoral votes, even if we are on the losing end, and feel good about it. At least the way it is now, my vote has a higher statistical impact on the vote within my state instead of an extremely miniscule statistical impact on a nationwide vote. This is true for every person living in every state. States should mean something, and if we circumvent the current system, the candidates would virtually ignore many areas of the country, meaning that our vote would mean little or nothing.
Under the proposed plan, what if a candidate won the nationwide popular vote by 1 vote, but only carried 1/5 of the states, simply because that candidate promised a blank check to every man, woman, and child living in cities over a few million? If you think this sounds far fetched, I would submit that similar things are happening already. Politicians are into buying votes big time by promising to give your and my money away to as many people in as many ways as they can think of.
