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> This is just the logical extreme version of dividing voters up into blocks called "states", and then dividing up politics so that one state is likely to decid

> This is just the logical extreme version of dividing voters up into blocks called "states", and then dividing up politics so that one state is likely to decide it. Erm. There isn't a logical extreme to dividing voters up into blocks. Both extremes are simply a popular vote. Unless you're talking about infinitely sized blocks, in which case I'm not sure he's the one whose connection to reality is more dubious. > Therefore unless the popular vote in the deciding state is almost exactly balanced, and all other states are balanced, it is very difficult for any vote to truly be deciding. It seems like you disagree with his definition of a voter's voting power. How would you define it instead? > It is certain that an illegal voter purge changed that election result. How is that relevant to the question of an electoral college? I'm not questioning whether or not it happened, but you haven't actually demonstrated a link. I mean, of course voter disenfranchisement is harmful to democracy; isn't that sort of obvious?

btilly 14y ago
His definition of voting power is, What is the probability that one person’s vote will be able to turn a national election? That's the same as my definition. His theorem is that, in the presence of an overall preference for one candidate over another, voting power diminishes rapidly. But the diminishment is significantly lower in a districting system. (Of course this increase in voting power is directly tied to the possibility that a district could send the election to the loser of the popular vote - which most of us regard as a bad thing.) My point is that, even with significant overall preferences, the lottery system that I describe keeps voter power constant. And in the presence of a noticeable national preference, that constant value is much larger than districting provides. If you want voter power (your ballot could wind up meaning something), the lottery system provides it. As to the question of illegal voter purges and the electoral college, whenever a small, identifiable, subset of the population is seen to determine the election, then incentives say that all possible means of swaying the election will be focused on that group. The fact that advertising is focused on swing states is obvious. The fact that dirty tricks are likewise is less obvious, but no less true. And the more you increase the relative importance of those states, the more true this becomes.
- saraid216 14y ago
  Interesting. I'll assume that your math is correct, since I'm admittedly too lazy to actually run the numbers and check it. My question is this: in the question of whether or not we should have the electoral college (or more broadly, in the question of what kind of system we should use for a national election), is voting power an ideal measure? Your OP suggested that it was not. Do you have an alternate suggestion?

btilly 14y ago

His definition of voting power is, What is the probability that one person’s vote will be able to turn a national election? That's the same as my definition. His theorem is that, in the presence of an overall preference for one candidate over another, voting power diminishes rapidly. But the diminishment is significantly lower in a districting system. (Of course this increase in voting power is directly tied to the possibility that a district could send the election to the loser of the popular vote - which most of us regard as a bad thing.) My point is that, even with significant overall preferences, the lottery system that I describe keeps voter power constant. And in the presence of a noticeable national preference, that constant value is much larger than districting provides. If you want voter power (your ballot could wind up meaning something), the lottery system provides it. As to the question of illegal voter purges and the electoral college, whenever a small, identifiable, subset of the population is seen to determine the election, then incentives say that all possible means of swaying the election will be focused on that group. The fact that advertising is focused on swing states is obvious. The fact that dirty tricks are likewise is less obvious, but no less true. And the more you increase the relative importance of those states, the more true this becomes.

saraid216 14y ago
Interesting. I'll assume that your math is correct, since I'm admittedly too lazy to actually run the numbers and check it. My question is this: in the question of whether or not we should have the electoral college (or more broadly, in the question of what kind of system we should use for a national election), is voting power an ideal measure? Your OP suggested that it was not. Do you have an alternate suggestion?