• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Cont: The Biden Presidency Part II

Status
Not open for further replies.
ponderingturtle said:
I don't know if that would help or hurt really. It would lose the democrats a lot of EC votes in big states while picking up fewer from small states and the small state individual voters would be worth a lot more.


Though we wouldn't be able to say the election turned on x votes in this state or what have you.
Click to expand...



It's not so much about "helping" or "hurting" one party over the other, it's about trying to get the Presidential election result that most closely matches what the majority of voters want.

Going through the vote total here, I apportioned all the EC votes based on the state-level vote results, rounding up for the overall state winner, and rounding down for the loser. There's a few of the smaller states where that causes an imbalanced shift, like going from 2.1 EC votes to 3, or going from .8 EC votes to zero, but overall it seems kind of balanced.

By my figuring, Biden gets 276 EC votes. When you look at the popular vote nation-wide, Biden got 51.3% of the vote, and out of 538 total EC votes, that comes to 275.994, which is stupidly close to the 276 I figured. Sure, he "loses" some EC votes, but it makes it far harder to flip this win with just a few percentage points of change in the smaller states.

Looking at the closest four states, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, a total of 137,492 votes switching would have flipped 53 EC votes, losing Biden the election. That's 0.088% of the overall popular vote, changing everything.

Yeah, I think I'd prefer my suggested system, even if it means the Democrats "lose" EC votes.
 
Horatius said:
It's not so much about "helping" or "hurting" one party over the other, it's about trying to get the Presidential election result that most closely matches what the majority of voters want.

Going through the vote total here, I apportioned all the EC votes based on the state-level vote results, rounding up for the overall state winner, and rounding down for the loser. There's a few of the smaller states where that causes an imbalanced shift, like going from 2.1 EC votes to 3, or going from .8 EC votes to zero, but overall it seems kind of balanced.

By my figuring, Biden gets 276 EC votes. When you look at the popular vote nation-wide, Biden got 51.3% of the vote, and out of 538 total EC votes, that comes to 275.994, which is stupidly close to the 276 I figured. Sure, he "loses" some EC votes, but it makes it far harder to flip this win with just a few percentage points of change in the smaller states.

Looking at the closest four states, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, a total of 137,492 votes switching would have flipped 53 EC votes, losing Biden the election. That's 0.088% of the overall popular vote, changing everything.

Yeah, I think I'd prefer my suggested system, even if it means the Democrats "lose" EC votes.
Click to expand...

Though you still almost get that with your system the shift of those voters would cause Biden to lose 4 votes putting him with 272 votes and 51.2% of the vote. It certainly would in no way prevent republicans losing the popular vote(which they really can never win anymore anyway) and still winning.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Though you still almost get that with your system the shift of those voters would cause Biden to lose 4 votes putting him with 272 votes and 51.2% of the vote. It certainly would in no way prevent republicans losing the popular vote(which they really can never win anymore anyway) and still winning.
Click to expand...


But even at 272, Biden is still President.

Given the fixed minimum of 3 EC votes per state, no matter how small the population, no EC system will ever perfectly reflect the national level popular vote, but this system of apportionment would likely get it closer far more often. It also precludes the 2016 election scenario of Trump claiming a "landslide victory" after losing the popular vote, just because the inadequacies of the EC vote made it look like he got a lot more votes.

Another aspect of this is, it works against the notion of "wasting votes", or giving up on certain states. Current wisdom is that Republicans shouldn't even bother trying to appeal to Californians, or Democrats to Texans, as the odds of them winning those states are so small. But if we apportion the EC votes based on state-level popular votes, suddenly, campaigning in these states becomes far more important. If one party reaches out to the "lost" states while the other doesn't, that could give them a huge advantage.

And in the current political climate, that favors the Dems. In the current era of "Party of Trump", can you imagine any Republican supporting policies that would win over California Democrats? Not a chance. But Democrats winning over Texas Republicans might actually be possible.
 
For those worrying about smaller states "losing influence", they'd still have influence disproportionate to their size, just not so much that they could hold the entire country hostage almost every election. To offset the 4 EC votes discussed above, you could have the Dems win over 5% of the vote in Texas and Florida, which would gain them 5 EC votes. But 5% of Florida and Texas is over a million voters, so those voters in those four small states still have nearly a 10-to-1 advantage in influence.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I'm a radical because I think there's probably an imbalance of power at the Federal Level if a state can have exactly as many Senators as it has ******* ESCALTORS.
Click to expand...

The Escalator College is a critical part of the founding fathers intent!
 
bruto said:
Absent an actual popular vote count there will always be some issues, but the closer the system comes to the popular vote the better, I think.
Click to expand...

We've had the "Electoral College" debate on this thread a dozen times and every time that's always the excuse we get from the people who want Wyoming's 8 people and 3 buffalo to have as much power as California, we're not allowed to fix this system unless we jump straight to a perfect solution with no flaws at all.

It's anti-vaxxer logic.
 
JoeMorgue said:
We've had the "Electoral College" debate on this thread a dozen times and every time that's always the excuse we get from the people who want Wyoming's 8 people and 3 buffalo to have as much power as California, we're not allowed to fix this system unless we jump straight to a perfect solution with no flaws at all.

It's anti-vaxxer logic.
Click to expand...

And they still have that much power in the senate. People who live in rural states are simply more american than those who live else were. After all our founders never believed in this foolishness of all men being created equal.
 
Biden to nominate Rahm Emmanuel as ambassador to Japan.

Could be a controversial choice as the disgraced former Mayor of Chicago was instrumental in the attempted coverup of the police murder of Laquan McDonald.

Seems like an especially tone deaf nomination considering the current political climate and conversation around out of control police and the corrupt systems that protect them.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/11/biden-rahm-emanuel-us-ambassador-japan
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Biden to nominate Rahm Emmanuel as ambassador to Japan.

Could be a controversial choice as the disgraced former Mayor of Chicago was instrumental in the attempted coverup of the police murder of Laquan McDonald.

Seems like an especially tone deaf nomination considering the current political climate and conversation around out of control police and the corrupt systems that protect them.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/11/biden-rahm-emanuel-us-ambassador-japan
Click to expand...

Better than putting him in a cabinet position, certainly, though.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Biden to nominate Rahm Emmanuel as ambassador to Japan.

Could be a controversial choice as the disgraced former Mayor of Chicago was instrumental in the attempted coverup of the police murder of Laquan McDonald.
Click to expand...
Ah, the Biden administration... when the selection of someone with a questionable background is seen as something negative, as opposed to being a highlight on the resume.

Certainly a dumb pick. But, the Biden administration does seem to be willing to make changes under public pressure, so maybe they will come to their senses.
 
Maybe it's that tactic where you ask for something horrible or outrageous, knowing that it will be rejected, at which point you then ask for what you really want and it slides through because it's a lot more reasonable than the first request.
 
JoeMorgue said:
We've had the "Electoral College" debate on this thread a dozen times and every time that's always the excuse we get from the people who want Wyoming's 8 people and 3 buffalo to have as much power as California, we're not allowed to fix this system unless we jump straight to a perfect solution with no flaws at all.

It's anti-vaxxer logic.
Click to expand...
I am quite certain you have those numbers reversed.
 
Governor Kristi Noem tweeted

@govkristinoem
Gas prices are skyrocketing. Gas shortages are hitting parts of America.

We knew this would happen when President Biden cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline and reversed our America-first energy policies.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Governor Kristi Noem tweeted

@govkristinoem
Gas prices are skyrocketing. Gas shortages are hitting parts of America.

We knew this would happen when President Biden cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline and reversed our America-first energy policies.
Click to expand...

Is she really that stupid or just thinks the American people are? The second one is probably true at least for republicans.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Governor Kristi Noem tweeted

@govkristinoem
Gas prices are skyrocketing. Gas shortages are hitting parts of America.

We knew this would happen when President Biden cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline and reversed our America-first energy policies.
Click to expand...

I would be in favor of the Keystone pipeline if it was pumping gas.

Since it would have pumped sand, I am aghast that anyone would think that was a good idea.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Is she really that stupid or just thinks the American people are? The second one is probably true at least for republicans.
Click to expand...


I was just reading a thread over on reddit asking how life was in the US under Biden.

Take a guess how many of the posts included complaints about gas prices. Just guess.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom