Delegate Math and the GOP

[southsider2k5]

To me the most interesting part of it all is that I don't see the right to vote as having ever been intended to be a right in the first place. It was definitely supposed to be a privilege, which is why it was initially so limited. Of course no one really talks about that today.

 

Then again, it is also fascinating that the easier it has become to vote today, the less people seem to give a s*** about voting. We have all day voting at polling places, absentee voting, and extended early voting in most places, and the percentages of people who vote now are worse than ever out of the people who can vote.

 

150 years ago, voting was limited to those over 21 (which when you consider what the lifespan was 150 years ago is more like 40 today), and not if you were black, female, and probably not if you didn't own land. You also had to figure out how to spend a day traveling to get to one of the polling places without modern transportation, and yet people didn't miss the opportunity.

 

Maybe people need to feel lucky to vote again? Who knows.

[Reddy]

To me the most interesting part of it all is that I don't see the right to vote as having ever been intended to be a right in the first place. It was definitely supposed to be a privilege, which is why it was initially so limited. Of course no one really talks about that today.

 

Then again, it is also fascinating that the easier it has become to vote today, the less people seem to give a s*** about voting. We have all day voting at polling places, absentee voting, and extended early voting in most places, and the percentages of people who vote now are worse than ever out of the people who can vote.

 

150 years ago, voting was limited to those over 21 (which when you consider what the lifespan was 150 years ago is more like 40 today), and not if you were black, female, and probably not if you didn't own land. You also had to figure out how to spend a day traveling to get to one of the polling places without modern transportation, and yet people didn't miss the opportunity.

 

Maybe people need to feel lucky to vote again? Who knows.

 

I don't know if it's about luck, but they SHOULD need to put a little effort in for god's sake.

 

I know people like to b**** about entitled millennials, but haven't we ALL become a little f***ing entitled? How hard is it to do some damn research to find out your registration cut-off date? We have all the information ever recorded in human history available at our fingertips.

 

#getoffmylawn

 

[StrangeSox]

But in a purely popular vote, the candidates would literally just hit big cities, which skew heavily Dem anyway, so it makes things 30x harder for the GOP candidate who has to visit far more places in order to galvanize votes than does the Dem candidate, since that person can hit major cities, just GOTV and win.

 

Candidates already focus on more populated areas within the "battleground" states, though. If you're campaigning nationally or just campaigning in Pennsylvania, you still need to capture the majority of the votes and those votes are going to be concentrated in and around cities. The Electoral College also amplifies the urban disadvantage that's deliberately baked into the Senate and also in the House since the number of Representatives was capped.

 

Ohio and its 18EV's gets a lot of focus in recent elections, and it will again this year. It takes the 12 smallest states to add up to the population of Ohio, yet those states collectively have 40 EV's. How does that sort of system make any sense?

[Reddy]

Candidates already focus on more populated areas within the "battleground" states, though. If you're campaigning nationally or just campaigning in Pennsylvania, you still need to capture the majority of the votes and those votes are going to be concentrated in and around cities. The Electoral College also amplifies the urban disadvantage that's deliberately baked into the Senate and also in the House since the number of Representatives was capped.

 

Ohio and its 18EV's gets a lot of focus in recent elections, and it will again this year. It takes the 12 smallest states to add up to the population of Ohio, yet those states collectively have 40 EV's. How does that sort of system make any sense?

 

Come on. Des Moines, Iowa or Pittsburgh, PA or Columbus, OH don't even COMPARE to Chicago or NYC or LA in terms of demographics. Plenty of farmers live in the city limits of Des Moines. How many live in Chicago?

 

And like you've already said, those twelve smallest states' support is already pretty heavily ingrained, and would remain so in a popular vote system, so why would the candidates travel there?

Edited April 11, 2016 by Reddy

[StrangeSox]

Agreed on your first point. Public funding for the win.

 

Of course there's fluidity and change, but essentially whichever party "controls" the urban populations is going to be the party that has a much, much easier time of winning, and doesn't that completely disenfranchise the rest of the country?

Let me rephrase your statement:

 

"whichever party 'controls' the largest populations is going to be the party that has a much, much easier time of winning."

 

Acreage and low-density population shouldn't be given disproportionate voting power. Cities will still vote strongly Democratic, but there are many Republicans in places like Chicago, NYC or LA that essentially get no say in the Presidency. Rural and suburban Republicans in those states face the same fate. A pure popular vote would fix that, making their vote equal to everyone else's. State-by-state EV's favor big cities just as much, anyway. If you want to win Pennsylvania, you're going to need at least some help from Pitt/Philly and the surrounding burbs.

[StrangeSox]

Come on. Des Moines, Iowa or Pittsburgh, PA or Columbus, OH don't even COMPARE to Chicago or NYC or LA in terms of demographics. Plenty of farmers live in the city limits of Des Moines. How many live in Chicago?

 

A candidate who focused solely on Chicago, NYC or LA would be crushed in the election. Hell, even in those states, you can't win just by focusing on those cities. Republicans win the governorship in California without carrying LA and they do the same in Illinois/Chicago.

 

And like you've already said, those twelve smallest states' support is already pretty heavily ingrained, and would remain so in a popular vote system, so why would the candidates travel there?

 

They wouldn't, but at least now every voter in that state would be on equal footing with everyone else. Why should they continue to have such disproportionate voting power?

[Reddy]

Let me rephrase your statement:

 

"whichever party 'controls' the largest populations is going to be the party that has a much, much easier time of winning."

 

Acreage and low-density population shouldn't be given disproportionate voting power. Cities will still vote strongly Democratic, but there are many Republicans in places like Chicago, NYC or LA that essentially get no say in the Presidency. Rural and suburban Republicans in those states face the same fate. A pure popular vote would fix that, making their vote equal to everyone else's. State-by-state EV's favor big cities just as much, anyway. If you want to win Pennsylvania, you're going to need at least some help from Pitt/Philly and the surrounding burbs.

 

I get it, but whomever controls those populations will have to do much less WORK to get their votes than the other party. The GOP would have to galvanize GOTV campaigns ALL ACROSS the country, while the Dems could focus on GOTV in just urban areas, making it much simpler, especially if elections ever become publicly funded and both sides have the same amount of cash to work with.

 

Wouldn't that also be a problem?

[Reddy]

They wouldn't, but at least now every voter in that state would be on equal footing with everyone else. Why should they continue to have such disproportionate voting power?

 

How do they have equal footing if their individual needs as voters aren't being catered to by the candidates while others get face to face attention on the daily? That won't change.

[StrangeSox]

150 years ago, voting was limited to those over 21 (which when you consider what the lifespan was 150 years ago is more like 40 today),

 

I just need to nit-pick this: life expectancy at birth and life expectancy once you're past childhood are two very different things. LE-B was low for most of human history because infant and childhood mortality rates were so high, but if you made it to 20 years old or so, you could realistically expect to live another 40+ years.

 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html

[StrangeSox]

How do they have equal footing if their individual needs as voters aren't being catered to by the candidates while others get face to face attention on the daily? That won't change.

I didn't say it would. Their disproportionate power would change. There's no reason for a vote in Wyoming or Vermont to count for substantially more than a vote in California or Texas.

[Reddy]

I didn't say it would. Their disproportionate power would change. There's no reason for a vote in Wyoming or Vermont to count for substantially more than a vote in California or Texas.

 

Right... but they will still matter substantially LESS than their counterparts in California in a popular vote system, since the candidates will still not travel there, nor put money into those states.

[StrangeSox]

Right... but they will still matter substantially LESS than their counterparts in California in a popular vote system, since the candidates will still not travel there, nor put money into those states.

Their vote would matter just as much, and that's what actually would count, not time spent campaigning in a certain area. If you're concerned about that, the ec doesn't fix it.

 

It's easy to imagine scenarios where the ec goes wrong. What if virtually every state was "safe" for one party or another? What if we had our population concentrated in a handful of states and a tiny number of voters in numerous small states controlled the election? What if a candidate won enough ev's in low turnout states but lost the National vote by a huge margin?

[StrangeSox]

Nebraska came up one vote short of switching their state to "winner-take-all" in the EC. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that aren't WTA.

 

https://twitter.com/fredmknapp/status/719984549975818240

[cabiness42]

Nebraska came up one vote short of switching their state to "winner-take-all" in the EC. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that aren't WTA.

 

https://twitter.com/fredmknapp/status/719984549975818240

 

Just to clarify, if anybody else gets confused like I temporarily was, this story is about electoral votes in the Fall election, while the rest of the thread is about delegates to the Republican nominating convention.

[bmags]

Just to clarify, if anybody else gets confused like I temporarily was, this story is about electoral votes in the Fall election, while the rest of the thread is about delegates to the Republican nominating convention.

 

The past 2 pages have been about changing national election to a popular vote.

[StrangeSox]

We need a general election megathread eventually

[bmags]

Somewhere Chisoxfns eye just twitched

[StrangeSox]

Thread title suggestion :

 

2016 general election: Our long national nightmare is finally over continues.

[Brian]

We need a general election megathread eventually

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=98526

[StrangeSox]

Okay, but see how important a catchy title is? Nobody even remembers that thread!

 

Now this is how you title a thread.

[Texsox]

Okay, but see how important a catchy title is? Nobody even remembers that thread!

 

Now this is how you title a thread.

 

That was a HoF title.

[StrangeSox]

Trump now needs 53.4% of the remaining available delegates.

[cabiness42]

There are 3 ways this can play out:

 

1) Trump gets the nomination and gets destroyed in November

2) Someone else can get the nomination without Trump's support and get destroyed in November

3) Someone else can get the nomination with Trump's support and have a chance in November

[StrangeSox]

I can't imagine any way in which 3 could happen.

[Buehrle>Wood]

Trump now needs 53.4% of the remaining available delegates.

He needs 392 more. Next Tuesday he should win all 5 states(up 20 in Connecticut, up 20 in Pennsylvania, up 17 in Maryland, up 18 in Rhode Island Feb poll, no Delaware polling). I'll call it for him getting 120 out of 172 total delegates. Cannot see him losing New Jersey or California. That has him looking for, I'll say, 70 delegates out of the 279 left in the states yet to go that I didn't mention yet. Shouldn't be too tough. He's winning in a lot of those states anyways. Indiana in 2 weeks should all but clinch it if he can get a decent majority (remains to be seen).