7 ms·

What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

22 points by hodgesmr 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Wouldn't that favor small states, who can mount a turnout campaign with far fewer workers?
- 11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
  I think it would be proportional. Larger states have more workers to draw on. The question is, how are the 'get out the vote' drives funded? By the parties? The state? It has an appeal though. You have to exercise your right to vote in order to be represented. Is that impacting your liberty to not vote if you don't want to?
  - talmand 11y ago
    >> Is that impacting your liberty to not vote if you don't want to? Yes.
  - VLM 11y ago
    With all due respect to all involved I read his comment as geographic population density. I've lived in voting districts where the election was in the basement of my dorm, in the suburban subdivision's elementary school, and in a rural area where voting was a good 10 minute highway drive. Obviously theres a big difference in "get out the vote" when one voter is pound on the dorm door and tell them to press the "B" button in the elevator, than some rural district where each voter represents like a quart of gasoline burned.
quotha 11y ago
Some reasons we have the Electoral College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29#Support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_St...
- Someone1234 11y ago
  Some reasons why you shouldn't anymore (CGP Grey): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k Even in the UK, where the concept originates, a lot of people view it as a bad idea. The issue right now is that nobody can agree what to change it to, since people gravitate towards the voting system that helps them in the next election cycle (and the big two want it to remain a two-party system).
- vtlynch 11y ago
  "Many proponents of the Electoral College see its negative effect on third parties as beneficial."
  - twoodfin 11y ago
    Yeah: It forces parties to be broad-based and adaptable if they're going to compete nationally. It also avoids bizarre situations like France's 2002 election, wherein the Left had to choose between Chirac and Le Pen (something similar is not improbable in 2017, as well!)
    - astazangasta 11y ago
      Does it? I'm an American leftist, probably going to have to choose between Hillary and Trump.
iwwr 11y ago
This can also lead to some less desirable outcomes, such as calls to make voting mandatory.
- ekimekim 11y ago
  Why is making voting mandatory* a less desirable outcome? *Or as I prefer to say, "equal cost voting choice", ie. that it takes just as much time and effort to not vote (go to polling place, accept ballot and void it) as it does to vote.
yuliyp 11y ago
Wouldn't this lead to a TON of games? Now if you're a Democrat in Nebraska, or a Republican in California, it's in your best interest NOT to vote. That way the winner-takes-all majority in your state would get less of an impact. On the other hand, all of the Democrats in California and Republicans in Nebraska would definitely want to show up to the polls. Basically if you think your party will win, you want to show up. If your party will lose, you want to skip. There are basically 3 equilibria: 100% of either party votes and 0% of the other one, or exactly 50/50 with the outcome unknown to anyone.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  Which is why the votes ought to be pooled across states, so all the Republican votes in California don't get lost, just because the state majority ended up voting Democratic.
  - yuliyp 11y ago
    If you're pooling votes across the states then you don't exactly have an eloctoral college any more, and you get the turnout-proportional results anyway.
    - mvymvy 11y ago
      The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC. The national popular vote winner would receive all of the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states. Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count. The bill has passed a total of 33 legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions possessing 165 electoral votes—61% of the 270 electoral votes necessary to activate it http://www.NationalPopularVote.com http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
skj 11y ago
Wouldn't this just be a general election with sort of weird rounding rules? edit: no, because of winner-takes-all nonsense. seems like a bad idea.
discardorama 11y ago
Will never happen. The Republican Party has almost made it its official platform to make it very hard for voters to vote. They are opposed to a holiday for elections; they come up with all sorts of excuses to take people off electoral rolls; they raise the bogey of "voter fraud" each and every election, when there's not much evidence of any.
- talmand 11y ago
  Okay, I'm in. The Democrat Party has almost made it its official platform to make it very easy for non-citizens to vote; since they're most likely to vote Democrat. They support a holiday for elections; only because it would make it easier for a part of their base to vote, not because of any benefit to voters in general. They come up with all sorts of excuses to keep people on electoral rolls; whether they should be or not. They raise the bogey (boogeyman?) of Republicans raising the bogey of "voter fraud" each and every election; even though there has been voter fraud throughout the country's history and used to be part of the platform of Progressives of the past. Edit: meaning Progressives of the past were fighting voter fraud, which many Progressives of today claim doesn't exist. Give us some more. It's easy to provide the cynical but plausible reverse when demonizing people according to group identity/accusations thrown out there for polarizing political drama. And before anyone jumps the gun, as often happens in these cases because people can be silly, these comments may or may not reflect my personal political views. EDIT: you forgot the Social Security scare the Democrats accuse the Republicans from time-to-time to get old people to vote Democrat. Or is that one played out?
  - scarmig 11y ago
    There's the teensiest difference between cynically encouraging people to vote, because nonvoters tend to be more Democratic than voters, and cynically trying to prevent black people from voting, because black voters tend to be more Democratic than nonblacks.
    - talmand 11y ago
      Sure there is. But are we really going to say that it is the official stance of the entire Republican party to actively prevent black people from voting? Despite the fact that one of the leading Republican candidates right now is a black man? That is absolutely ridiculous and can only be the product of a childish and overactive imagination of a conspiracy theorist partisan nutjob that produces nothing of value whatsoever in a modern society. Maybe, just maybe, the problem you describe exists mostly on the local level and it's completely unfair to paint half the country as racists or bigots because of political differences? Are there people who actively scheme to prevent people from voting and/or get their candidate to win in nefarious ways? Sure. Are some of them Republicans? Yep. But some of them are Democrats too, they just target different people in different ways. All in all, this is the voter fraud of the modern age; using laws to give your candidate the advantage.
wtbob 11y ago
Meh, why is turnout something one should encourage? Put another way, why should the voices of those who could barely be bothered to show up be amplified over those of those who really care? I don't want 100% turnout; I do want the people who don't care to stay home. I'd also like to only allow people who can pass the citizenship test given to prospective naturalised citizens to be able to vote, but that's an entirely different discussion…
- skj 11y ago
  I think most people do care, but that many of them are disillusioned.
  - jeremysmyth 11y ago
    "Disillusioned" is a catch-all for so many different things though. One might be upset at hearing about corrupt practices or "it's not what you know it's who you know" politics, because that's all we hear about in the news and on TV shows (because that's the salacious part of politics). One might be upset at having no effective voice because of the two-party system and the sheer size of the electorate in each state: If I'm a libertarian or a national socialist or a communist, I have no real representation in government. One might be disillusioned that the above points don't actually reflect how democracy works, and that the real hard work of legislation comes from things the public doesn't get to see: Cultivating relationships; the give and take of favors and votes; saying yes to something that's slightly against your principles so that you can get a reciprocal yes for something important to you later on. Disillusionment is too big a thing to make me stop voting. The best way to change the system is to use it, and that means I need to vote, despite each of the above points. The next best way to change the system is to bring about revolution that replaces it, and that is a singularity that nobody can see beyond, and that recent history has not shown to work.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      First-past-the-post voting is mathematically incapable of anything other than highly polarized politics: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
bradleyjg 11y ago
This a fun little data project. No one is passing a constitutional amendment to change the EC to seats based on turnout. Even the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which does not require a constitutional amendment unfortunately seems to be stalled indefinitely.
phkahler 11y ago
And if we also split those electoral votes as close as possible to the way the people of the state voted we can get even closer to a direct election. And that's what the author seems to want - he's still got butt-hurt that Al Gore lost even with the popular vote. Why not just say what you want instead of proposing something that sounds kinda interesting but will never happen?
- hodgesmr 11y ago
  This was something that I was just kicking around in my head and wondering "what would these results actually look like?" And then I realized that all the necessary data was publicly available, so I grabbed a coffee and went to town. I'm not actually proposing this change and had no idea what the results would be until I started writing.
jackmoore 11y ago
I'm surprised voter turnout isn't lower. Unless you live in a swing state, or Maine or Nebraska, voting for president is a waste of time. If you are in a swing state, it still might not matter unless you are in a swing district. It's a terribly broken voting system.
- dublinben 11y ago
  Voting for president is essentially always be a waste of time.[0] Many people have convinced themselves that this isn't the case, and we still have 'competitive' elections. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting
- danielvf 11y ago
  There's usually more than just the president on the ballot during national elections.
- lukifer 11y ago
  I find the psychology of voting fascinating. Most people are unwilling to vote for a third-party/longshot candidate, as their vote would be "wasted", despite the fact that their single vote is guaranteed not to matter. I think the driving motivation for most is the desire to be on the winning team, or if you're in the wrong county/state, to be able to say you fought the good fight for your side. In other words, despite the secret ballot, people vote more for reasons of in-group signaling than attempting to influence policy. As you say, the 50ish percent we do get is impressive. If we really care about turnout (and disincentivizing some of the shadier techniques campaigns use to manipulate turnout), we should turn Voting Day into a national holiday and a mandatory duty (perhaps with an opt-out "I choose to abstain" for true protest votes, but the point is that you still have to show up or mail your ballot, period.)
- mvymvy 11y ago
  The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC. The national popular vote winner would receive all of the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states. Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count. In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine's 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored). In 2012, the whole state was ignored. 77% of Maine voters support a national popular vote for President In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska's reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant. In 2012, the whole state was ignored. 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote for President National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in presidential elections in each state. Now they don't matter to their candidate. And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659). In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states. In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country. Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire is not a foregone conclusion. So less than a handful of states will continue to dominate and determine the presidential general election With National Popular Vote, presidential campaigns would poll, organize, visit, and appeal to more than 7 states. One would reasonably expect that voter turnout would rise in 80%+ of the country that is currently conceded months in advance by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. The bill has passed a total of 33 legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions possessing 165 electoral votes—61% of the 270 electoral votes necessary to activate it http://www.NationalPopularVote.com http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
ddlatham 11y ago
Green states received a larger proportion of Electoral votes compared to their actual turnout. Red states received less. Wish I could read these maps, but I'm red-green color blind (like 8% of men). Please consider using different colors or some additional indicator to show this information.
- ninjin 11y ago
  While I am not colour blind, I sympathise with those that are. All programming languages should have a library along the lines of Colors.jl [1] that allows you to simulate and, more importantly, provides functionality to give you a good set of colours and colour scales to use for your graphics. [1]: https://github.com/JuliaGraphics/Colors.jl#simulation-of-color-deficiency-color-blindness https://github.com/JuliaGraphics/Colors.jl#simulation-of-col...
- hodgesmr 11y ago
  Wow, sorry for this! I just used default colors that were in the Google Sheets chart tool. For my own education, is there a different spectrum that would do better?
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>Wyoming voters made up 0.193% of the total popular vote in 2012. That would earn them a total of one electoral vote. In reality Wyoming gets 3. and they get the same amount of senators as California or NY. This is why US politics will always lean conservative. There are just too many "fly over states" with tiny conservative populations that have an undue influence on national elections. All too often "money in politics" are blamed for the lack of liberal or progressive changes in the nation. That's a red herring for the most part, or at least, problem #2. With a system like this its very difficult to put in liberal reforms. Hell, Obamacare, which is pretty much a Reagan-era proposal, barely got passed with a Democratic majority in almost all branches of government. Even after passing, its been endlessly disputed with at least two major losses to the law via SCOTUS. Those courts? Packed with conservative leaning judges by POTUS, who has a major advantage to winning if he's a conservative. This stuff comes full circle and starts with the over-representation of lowly populated conservative areas.
- twoodfin 11y ago
  Vermont and Rhode Island get two senators apiece as well, and they're not exactly the most conservative states.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    I count 13-16 low population states. Pretty much all of them are red states. Vermont and Rhode Island don't remotely make up for it. The reality is that if you live in a highly populated state, your voting influence is greatly diluted compared to the people in these states. Hell, the city I live in has TWICE the population of North and South Dakota combined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population#/media/File:Map_of_each_state%27s_population_as_of_2013.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
    - mvymvy 11y ago
      Count again. Of the 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections. Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012. In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58). In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58). Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office. In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee on April 11. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined. Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions. http://www.NationalPopularVote.com http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Sfi81 11y ago
Wouldn't it be simpler to just go all the way towards direct election than take a halfway step towards direct elections such as this?
- hodgesmr 11y ago
  This was a thought-experiment, and nothing more. Not actually advocating this change.
  - Sfi81 11y ago
    Ah ok!
SolarUpNote 11y ago
It seems crazy that election day isn't on a Saturday.

22 points by hodgesmr 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Wouldn't that favor small states, who can mount a turnout campaign with far fewer workers?

11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
I think it would be proportional. Larger states have more workers to draw on. The question is, how are the 'get out the vote' drives funded? By the parties? The state? It has an appeal though. You have to exercise your right to vote in order to be represented. Is that impacting your liberty to not vote if you don't want to?
- talmand 11y ago
  >> Is that impacting your liberty to not vote if you don't want to? Yes.
- VLM 11y ago
  With all due respect to all involved I read his comment as geographic population density. I've lived in voting districts where the election was in the basement of my dorm, in the suburban subdivision's elementary school, and in a rural area where voting was a good 10 minute highway drive. Obviously theres a big difference in "get out the vote" when one voter is pound on the dorm door and tell them to press the "B" button in the elevator, than some rural district where each voter represents like a quart of gasoline burned.

quotha 11y ago

Some reasons we have the Electoral College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29#Support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_St...

Someone1234 11y ago
Some reasons why you shouldn't anymore (CGP Grey): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k Even in the UK, where the concept originates, a lot of people view it as a bad idea. The issue right now is that nobody can agree what to change it to, since people gravitate towards the voting system that helps them in the next election cycle (and the big two want it to remain a two-party system).
vtlynch 11y ago
"Many proponents of the Electoral College see its negative effect on third parties as beneficial."
- twoodfin 11y ago
  Yeah: It forces parties to be broad-based and adaptable if they're going to compete nationally. It also avoids bizarre situations like France's 2002 election, wherein the Left had to choose between Chirac and Le Pen (something similar is not improbable in 2017, as well!)
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    Does it? I'm an American leftist, probably going to have to choose between Hillary and Trump.

iwwr 11y ago

This can also lead to some less desirable outcomes, such as calls to make voting mandatory.

ekimekim 11y ago
Why is making voting mandatory* a less desirable outcome? *Or as I prefer to say, "equal cost voting choice", ie. that it takes just as much time and effort to not vote (go to polling place, accept ballot and void it) as it does to vote.

yuliyp 11y ago

Wouldn't this lead to a TON of games? Now if you're a Democrat in Nebraska, or a Republican in California, it's in your best interest NOT to vote. That way the winner-takes-all majority in your state would get less of an impact. On the other hand, all of the Democrats in California and Republicans in Nebraska would definitely want to show up to the polls. Basically if you think your party will win, you want to show up. If your party will lose, you want to skip. There are basically 3 equilibria: 100% of either party votes and 0% of the other one, or exactly 50/50 with the outcome unknown to anyone.

wodenokoto 11y ago
Which is why the votes ought to be pooled across states, so all the Republican votes in California don't get lost, just because the state majority ended up voting Democratic.
- yuliyp 11y ago
  If you're pooling votes across the states then you don't exactly have an eloctoral college any more, and you get the turnout-proportional results anyway.
  - mvymvy 11y ago
    The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC. The national popular vote winner would receive all of the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states. Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count. The bill has passed a total of 33 legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions possessing 165 electoral votes—61% of the 270 electoral votes necessary to activate it http://www.NationalPopularVote.com http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

skj 11y ago

Wouldn't this just be a general election with sort of weird rounding rules? edit: no, because of winner-takes-all nonsense. seems like a bad idea.

discardorama 11y ago

Will never happen. The Republican Party has almost made it its official platform to make it very hard for voters to vote. They are opposed to a holiday for elections; they come up with all sorts of excuses to take people off electoral rolls; they raise the bogey of "voter fraud" each and every election, when there's not much evidence of any.

talmand 11y ago
Okay, I'm in. The Democrat Party has almost made it its official platform to make it very easy for non-citizens to vote; since they're most likely to vote Democrat. They support a holiday for elections; only because it would make it easier for a part of their base to vote, not because of any benefit to voters in general. They come up with all sorts of excuses to keep people on electoral rolls; whether they should be or not. They raise the bogey (boogeyman?) of Republicans raising the bogey of "voter fraud" each and every election; even though there has been voter fraud throughout the country's history and used to be part of the platform of Progressives of the past. Edit: meaning Progressives of the past were fighting voter fraud, which many Progressives of today claim doesn't exist. Give us some more. It's easy to provide the cynical but plausible reverse when demonizing people according to group identity/accusations thrown out there for polarizing political drama. And before anyone jumps the gun, as often happens in these cases because people can be silly, these comments may or may not reflect my personal political views. EDIT: you forgot the Social Security scare the Democrats accuse the Republicans from time-to-time to get old people to vote Democrat. Or is that one played out?
- scarmig 11y ago
  There's the teensiest difference between cynically encouraging people to vote, because nonvoters tend to be more Democratic than voters, and cynically trying to prevent black people from voting, because black voters tend to be more Democratic than nonblacks.
  - talmand 11y ago
    Sure there is. But are we really going to say that it is the official stance of the entire Republican party to actively prevent black people from voting? Despite the fact that one of the leading Republican candidates right now is a black man? That is absolutely ridiculous and can only be the product of a childish and overactive imagination of a conspiracy theorist partisan nutjob that produces nothing of value whatsoever in a modern society. Maybe, just maybe, the problem you describe exists mostly on the local level and it's completely unfair to paint half the country as racists or bigots because of political differences? Are there people who actively scheme to prevent people from voting and/or get their candidate to win in nefarious ways? Sure. Are some of them Republicans? Yep. But some of them are Democrats too, they just target different people in different ways. All in all, this is the voter fraud of the modern age; using laws to give your candidate the advantage.

wtbob 11y ago

Meh, why is turnout something one should encourage? Put another way, why should the voices of those who could barely be bothered to show up be amplified over those of those who really care? I don't want 100% turnout; I do want the people who don't care to stay home. I'd also like to only allow people who can pass the citizenship test given to prospective naturalised citizens to be able to vote, but that's an entirely different discussion…

skj 11y ago
I think most people do care, but that many of them are disillusioned.
- jeremysmyth 11y ago
  "Disillusioned" is a catch-all for so many different things though. One might be upset at hearing about corrupt practices or "it's not what you know it's who you know" politics, because that's all we hear about in the news and on TV shows (because that's the salacious part of politics). One might be upset at having no effective voice because of the two-party system and the sheer size of the electorate in each state: If I'm a libertarian or a national socialist or a communist, I have no real representation in government. One might be disillusioned that the above points don't actually reflect how democracy works, and that the real hard work of legislation comes from things the public doesn't get to see: Cultivating relationships; the give and take of favors and votes; saying yes to something that's slightly against your principles so that you can get a reciprocal yes for something important to you later on. Disillusionment is too big a thing to make me stop voting. The best way to change the system is to use it, and that means I need to vote, despite each of the above points. The next best way to change the system is to bring about revolution that replaces it, and that is a singularity that nobody can see beyond, and that recent history has not shown to work.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    First-past-the-post voting is mathematically incapable of anything other than highly polarized politics: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/

bradleyjg 11y ago

This a fun little data project. No one is passing a constitutional amendment to change the EC to seats based on turnout. Even the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which does not require a constitutional amendment unfortunately seems to be stalled indefinitely.

phkahler 11y ago

And if we also split those electoral votes as close as possible to the way the people of the state voted we can get even closer to a direct election. And that's what the author seems to want - he's still got butt-hurt that Al Gore lost even with the popular vote. Why not just say what you want instead of proposing something that sounds kinda interesting but will never happen?

hodgesmr 11y ago
This was something that I was just kicking around in my head and wondering "what would these results actually look like?" And then I realized that all the necessary data was publicly available, so I grabbed a coffee and went to town. I'm not actually proposing this change and had no idea what the results would be until I started writing.

jackmoore 11y ago

I'm surprised voter turnout isn't lower. Unless you live in a swing state, or Maine or Nebraska, voting for president is a waste of time. If you are in a swing state, it still might not matter unless you are in a swing district. It's a terribly broken voting system.

dublinben 11y ago
Voting for president is essentially always be a waste of time.[0] Many people have convinced themselves that this isn't the case, and we still have 'competitive' elections. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting
danielvf 11y ago
There's usually more than just the president on the ballot during national elections.
lukifer 11y ago
I find the psychology of voting fascinating. Most people are unwilling to vote for a third-party/longshot candidate, as their vote would be "wasted", despite the fact that their single vote is guaranteed not to matter. I think the driving motivation for most is the desire to be on the winning team, or if you're in the wrong county/state, to be able to say you fought the good fight for your side. In other words, despite the secret ballot, people vote more for reasons of in-group signaling than attempting to influence policy. As you say, the 50ish percent we do get is impressive. If we really care about turnout (and disincentivizing some of the shadier techniques campaigns use to manipulate turnout), we should turn Voting Day into a national holiday and a mandatory duty (perhaps with an opt-out "I choose to abstain" for true protest votes, but the point is that you still have to show up or mail your ballot, period.)
mvymvy 11y ago
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC. The national popular vote winner would receive all of the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states. Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count. In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine's 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored). In 2012, the whole state was ignored. 77% of Maine voters support a national popular vote for President In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska's reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant. In 2012, the whole state was ignored. 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote for President National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in presidential elections in each state. Now they don't matter to their candidate. And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659). In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states. In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country. Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire is not a foregone conclusion. So less than a handful of states will continue to dominate and determine the presidential general election With National Popular Vote, presidential campaigns would poll, organize, visit, and appeal to more than 7 states. One would reasonably expect that voter turnout would rise in 80%+ of the country that is currently conceded months in advance by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. The bill has passed a total of 33 legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions possessing 165 electoral votes—61% of the 270 electoral votes necessary to activate it http://www.NationalPopularVote.com http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

ddlatham 11y ago

Green states received a larger proportion of Electoral votes compared to their actual turnout. Red states received less. Wish I could read these maps, but I'm red-green color blind (like 8% of men). Please consider using different colors or some additional indicator to show this information.

ninjin 11y ago
While I am not colour blind, I sympathise with those that are. All programming languages should have a library along the lines of Colors.jl [1] that allows you to simulate and, more importantly, provides functionality to give you a good set of colours and colour scales to use for your graphics. [1]: https://github.com/JuliaGraphics/Colors.jl#simulation-of-color-deficiency-color-blindness https://github.com/JuliaGraphics/Colors.jl#simulation-of-col...
hodgesmr 11y ago
Wow, sorry for this! I just used default colors that were in the Google Sheets chart tool. For my own education, is there a different spectrum that would do better?

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>Wyoming voters made up 0.193% of the total popular vote in 2012. That would earn them a total of one electoral vote. In reality Wyoming gets 3. and they get the same amount of senators as California or NY. This is why US politics will always lean conservative. There are just too many "fly over states" with tiny conservative populations that have an undue influence on national elections. All too often "money in politics" are blamed for the lack of liberal or progressive changes in the nation. That's a red herring for the most part, or at least, problem #2. With a system like this its very difficult to put in liberal reforms. Hell, Obamacare, which is pretty much a Reagan-era proposal, barely got passed with a Democratic majority in almost all branches of government. Even after passing, its been endlessly disputed with at least two major losses to the law via SCOTUS. Those courts? Packed with conservative leaning judges by POTUS, who has a major advantage to winning if he's a conservative. This stuff comes full circle and starts with the over-representation of lowly populated conservative areas.

twoodfin 11y ago
Vermont and Rhode Island get two senators apiece as well, and they're not exactly the most conservative states.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  I count 13-16 low population states. Pretty much all of them are red states. Vermont and Rhode Island don't remotely make up for it. The reality is that if you live in a highly populated state, your voting influence is greatly diluted compared to the people in these states. Hell, the city I live in has TWICE the population of North and South Dakota combined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population#/media/File:Map_of_each_state%27s_population_as_of_2013.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
  - mvymvy 11y ago
    Count again. Of the 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections. Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012. In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58). In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58). Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office. In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee on April 11. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined. Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions. http://www.NationalPopularVote.com http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

Sfi81 11y ago

Wouldn't it be simpler to just go all the way towards direct election than take a halfway step towards direct elections such as this?

hodgesmr 11y ago
This was a thought-experiment, and nothing more. Not actually advocating this change.
- Sfi81 11y ago
  Ah ok!

SolarUpNote 11y ago

It seems crazy that election day isn't on a Saturday.