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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On January 26 2013 06:35 mcc wrote:
It is interesting that the voting districts as they are currently in US are similar to Roman ones. And those were also heavily used to make some votes count more and some less. Well US is a republic so the similarity is maybe not so random, but the system is still terribly nonsensical.
I certainly see what you are saying, but the idiosyncratic state-nation dichotomy in the US really makes Roman comparisons rather difficult past a certain point. In fact, I'd say it makes our system even more nonsensical 
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On January 26 2013 06:35 mcc wrote:
It is interesting that the voting districts as they are currently in US are similar to Roman ones. And those were also heavily used to make some votes count more and some less. Well US is a republic so the similarity is maybe not so random, but the system is still terribly nonsensical.
The Roman system was especially silly because the urban tribes had a ton of people, yet there were only 4 urban tribes to 31 rural tribes. Though this effect was somewhat desirable since so many people in the countryside were clients of the landholding patricians, and it also allowed the Censors to do things like throw all the freedmen into urban tribes to make their votes worthless.
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On January 26 2013 06:39 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 06:35 mcc wrote:
It is interesting that the voting districts as they are currently in US are similar to Roman ones. And those were also heavily used to make some votes count more and some less. Well US is a republic so the similarity is maybe not so random, but the system is still terribly nonsensical. I certainly see what you are saying, but the idiosyncratic state-nation dichotomy in the US really makes Roman comparisons rather difficult past a certain point. In fact, I'd say it makes our system even more nonsensical
Of course I was not comparing it on all levels, just that both allow ability for those in power to manipulate elections through manipulation of how voters are grouped. Might be that yours is more nonsensical in theory, but I would say it is thankfully still less dysfunctional than the Roman system in the late republican period 
EDIT: To rephrase is better. Yours might be potentially more nonsensical, but it is kept in somewhat reasonable bounds by everyday practice and precedents and customs and populace that is much better able to demand its rights.
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On January 26 2013 06:56 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 06:39 farvacola wrote:On January 26 2013 06:35 mcc wrote:
It is interesting that the voting districts as they are currently in US are similar to Roman ones. And those were also heavily used to make some votes count more and some less. Well US is a republic so the similarity is maybe not so random, but the system is still terribly nonsensical. I certainly see what you are saying, but the idiosyncratic state-nation dichotomy in the US really makes Roman comparisons rather difficult past a certain point. In fact, I'd say it makes our system even more nonsensical Of course I was not comparing it on all levels, just that both allow ability for those in power to manipulate elections through manipulation of how voters are grouped. Might be that yours is more nonsensical in theory, but I would say it is thankfully still less dysfunctional than the Roman system in the late republican period
Oh I totally agree, and this is a point in regards to US politics that I oftentimes bring up that flabbergasts people, but I sincerely believe that part of the reason the US system (and even most of the somewhat similar systems in Europe and elsewhere) works has to do with how inefficient it's constituent politics are. As far as I'm concerned, a degree of the West's success is owed to the fact that we've deluded ourselves into thinking that arguing about nothing for long periods of time counts as "governance"; the slow and stupid machine is far less threatening than the quick and astute alternative.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the local structures make sense back in the 1800's. not right now.
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On January 26 2013 07:21 oneofthem wrote:
the local structures make sense back in the 1800's. not right now.
Shut up. 1776 was the end of history and they invented all necessary political philosophy for all of time, ever.
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On January 26 2013 05:23 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 05:16 radiatoren wrote:Wikipedia has made their own map of election formats here. USA, Canada and UK are the only western countries using FPTP. Whether district, electoral or popular voting, it is still rather special. As for why district voting would go to Romney in a landslide, well rural areas are traditionally republican by nature. That urban districts often hold 10 times+ (with major uncertainty) the number of people per districts and that they vote democratic traditionally is a bit of a gerrymandering task if you want the votes to hold even remotely the same value in an election. And then you are dealing with single election site districts, determining the size of the rural districts. What a mess! It is an even more worthless feature than popular vote FPTP. Every district is supposed to hold nearly the same amount of people at the state level. At the federal level, each state has the same amount of people per district, but the states may have more or less per district based on (electoral votes/population). Long story short: urban districts do not hold any more people than rural districts. If an urban area holds 10x more people than a rural area, it will have 10 times more districts than the rural area. Every tenth year we hold a nationwide census to determine population shifts and rearrange the districts to ensure we have equal sized districts. While gerrymandering is undoubtedly a problem in some states, it doesn't change the fact that each district has essentially even populations.
I misread. Thanks for educating me. I was only looking at the presidential election map, where the districts are "counties". That is quite another entity!
Districts as in house districts is another size entirely and a better indication even though you have to wonder what is going on with the districts when a clear victory margin for Obama is a win for republicans in districts.
Still my rant on FPTP holds!
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On January 26 2013 06:21 Saryph wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 06:13 BluePanther wrote:On January 26 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On January 26 2013 05:56 BluePanther wrote:On January 26 2013 05:48 Saryph wrote:If you look at the 6 'swing states' that, at the state level, are controlled by republican governors and state legislatures, and have mentioned interest in changing the way they allocate their electoral votes, the results from 2012 would be this according to dailykos ( source): - Florida's 29 Electoral votes for Obama, split 17-12 in favor of Romney - Michigan's 16 votes for Obama, split 9-7 in favor of Romney - Ohio's 18 votes for Obama, split 12-6 in favor of Romney - Pennsylvania's 20 votes for Obama, split 13-7 in favor of Romney - Virginia's 13 votes for Obama, split 8-5 in favor of Romney - Wisconsin's 10 votes for Obama, split 5-5 in favor of Romney The change in these states alone would have changed the result of the presidential election. Imagine if Clinton ran in 2016 and won the popular vote by 4-5 million votes but lost the election. Talk about civil unrest. Well, if they wanted to, they could just pick who they wanted and not have an election. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Appointment_by_state_legislatureThe state is allowed to pick their electors however they want to. The fact that all do it by some form of a popular vote does not mean other methods are not allowed. Save for extreme circumstances, I cannot see state legislature electoral appointments going through without a significant challenge. There is simply no modern precedent. I don't disagree with you. I would object to Wisconsin going the appointment route even though I'm a Wisconsin Republican. It might be to my benefit, but it's just not fair. However, I think the idea of "splitting" the votes in a proportional manner (one for each district and two for the popular vote) are interesting ways to do it. I actually like that more than the "winner takes all" we currently have. Sure, Wisconsin will likely be a 5D-5R or 6D-4R in most years, but it's actually representative of our state rather than the 10/11D we've been the past 28 years. While I don't mind the idea of proportional distribution, I horribly dislike gerrymandering, and would like to keep it out of as many aspects of politics and elections as I can.
I think a state constitutional amendment of proportional delegates combined with an objective system for break up districts would go a long way. Letting legislators redraw their own lines seems like a dumb idea to me.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On January 25 2013 23:33 Sermokala wrote:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/republican-vote-rigging-electoral-college_n_2546010.htmlI was reading this article and it was pretty shocking. If electoral votes were given out on a district by disrict basis instead of a state by state basis Romney would have won the election instead of obama. Isn't an electoral system kinda the system used by other countries like the british and japan were people elect different representatives and then those representatives will vote for a pm for the country?
Japan has both single-member districts and proportional representation blocks (the majority are single-member). But yeah, Japan does have a parliamentary system in which the Prime Minister is selected by the majority party, but everyone knows who the respective Prime Minister candidates are before the election because there's a party leader that the party unites behind prior to the election. Though, if like in Japan the PM resigns, then you just have to cross your fingers for a capable person to step up (hasn't worked for the Japanese so far, however).
I am so glad California passed the citizens' initiative to draw up districts. Letting politicians gerrymander is just the most horrible idea ever.
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On January 26 2013 08:04 radiatoren wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 05:23 BluePanther wrote:On January 26 2013 05:16 radiatoren wrote:Wikipedia has made their own map of election formats here. USA, Canada and UK are the only western countries using FPTP. Whether district, electoral or popular voting, it is still rather special. As for why district voting would go to Romney in a landslide, well rural areas are traditionally republican by nature. That urban districts often hold 10 times+ (with major uncertainty) the number of people per districts and that they vote democratic traditionally is a bit of a gerrymandering task if you want the votes to hold even remotely the same value in an election. And then you are dealing with single election site districts, determining the size of the rural districts. What a mess! It is an even more worthless feature than popular vote FPTP. Every district is supposed to hold nearly the same amount of people at the state level. At the federal level, each state has the same amount of people per district, but the states may have more or less per district based on (electoral votes/population). Long story short: urban districts do not hold any more people than rural districts. If an urban area holds 10x more people than a rural area, it will have 10 times more districts than the rural area. Every tenth year we hold a nationwide census to determine population shifts and rearrange the districts to ensure we have equal sized districts. While gerrymandering is undoubtedly a problem in some states, it doesn't change the fact that each district has essentially even populations. I misread. Thanks for educating me. I was only looking at the presidential election map, where the districts are "counties". That is quite another entity! Districts as in house districts is another size entirely and a better indication even though you have to wonder what is going on with the districts when a clear victory margin for Obama is a win for republicans in districts.Still my rant on FPTP holds!
I think you're misinterpreting them then. Presidential elections are state-wide popular vote. They don't break down into districts except for 2 states. The rest of them do "winner takes all", so whichever candidate gets the most votes in a particular state, that state votes all their votes for that candidate. There's basically no gerrymandering involved in presidential elections.
Obama != Democrats.
You can vote for Obama for president, and then vote for a Republican for the house. They aren't tied to each other in any way during the general election. There are a number of people like me who will vote each race without regard for party. For example, I voted for Romney, but then voted for a Democrat in the House. The fact Obama won the Presidency and Republicans won the house is not super-connected.
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On January 26 2013 08:23 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 08:04 radiatoren wrote:On January 26 2013 05:23 BluePanther wrote:On January 26 2013 05:16 radiatoren wrote:Wikipedia has made their own map of election formats here. USA, Canada and UK are the only western countries using FPTP. Whether district, electoral or popular voting, it is still rather special. As for why district voting would go to Romney in a landslide, well rural areas are traditionally republican by nature. That urban districts often hold 10 times+ (with major uncertainty) the number of people per districts and that they vote democratic traditionally is a bit of a gerrymandering task if you want the votes to hold even remotely the same value in an election. And then you are dealing with single election site districts, determining the size of the rural districts. What a mess! It is an even more worthless feature than popular vote FPTP. Every district is supposed to hold nearly the same amount of people at the state level. At the federal level, each state has the same amount of people per district, but the states may have more or less per district based on (electoral votes/population). Long story short: urban districts do not hold any more people than rural districts. If an urban area holds 10x more people than a rural area, it will have 10 times more districts than the rural area. Every tenth year we hold a nationwide census to determine population shifts and rearrange the districts to ensure we have equal sized districts. While gerrymandering is undoubtedly a problem in some states, it doesn't change the fact that each district has essentially even populations. I misread. Thanks for educating me. I was only looking at the presidential election map, where the districts are "counties". That is quite another entity! Districts as in house districts is another size entirely and a better indication even though you have to wonder what is going on with the districts when a clear victory margin for Obama is a win for republicans in districts.Still my rant on FPTP holds! I think you're misinterpreting them then. Presidential elections are state-wide popular vote. They don't break down into districts except for 2 states. The rest of them do "winner takes all", so whichever candidate gets the most votes in a particular state, that state votes all their votes for that candidate. There's basically no gerrymandering involved in presidential elections. Obama != Democrats. You can vote for Obama for president, and then vote for a Republican for the house. They aren't tied to each other in any way during the general election. There are a number of people like me who will vote each race without regard for party. For example, I voted for Romney, but then voted for a Democrat in the House. The fact Obama won the Presidency and Republicans won the house is not super-connected.
Romney != republican? I might have written it in plural which is not what I mean, but I was commenting on the huffingtonpost article about how specific state legislators would want to go for the Maine and/or Nebraska electoral vote distribution when it comes to presidential elections. I am trying to make the point that there seems to be a republican bias in wanting these changes more and that the changes are largely irrelevant to the bigger problem which is the 2 party/2 real candidates system. The county breakdown is completely irrelevant and as I said, I had it wrong and you did a good job in explaining how it works and therefore what the articles point was.
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Yea, the gerrymandering got really bad, and this election showed it. There are some great arguments that center around Republicans keeping the House with old district lines, but that doesn't excuse the margin by which they won. Overall, though, the part that angers me most about it is how few "competitive" districts are left. Discourse and being exposed to a wider range of viewpoints is good for society, but we're moving in the opposite direction.
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I don't think discussing the "popular vote" makes sense with regards to the House. We aren't electing parties, though parties play a role, we're electing individual representatives. The math that the article is suggesting is that more people in California will need to vote Democrat for Democrats in a different state to beat Republican challengers. It just doesn't work that way.
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On January 26 2013 09:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:I don't think discussing the "popular vote" makes sense with regards to the House. We aren't electing parties, though parties play a role, we're electing individual representatives. The math that the article is suggesting is that more people in California will need to vote Democrat for Democrats in a different state to beat Republican challengers. It just doesn't work that way.
The overall point of the article is that the mood of the country would have to be so anti republican that in order to narrowly take back the house they need an overwhelming popular vote victory due to the gerrymandering which is just out of control (for both sides but mostly republicans because of 2010).
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On January 26 2013 09:24 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 09:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:I don't think discussing the "popular vote" makes sense with regards to the House. We aren't electing parties, though parties play a role, we're electing individual representatives. The math that the article is suggesting is that more people in California will need to vote Democrat for Democrats in a different state to beat Republican challengers. It just doesn't work that way. The overall point of the article is that the mood of the country would have to be so anti republican that in order to narrowly take back the house they need an overwhelming popular vote victory due to the gerrymandering which is just out of control (for both sides but mostly republicans because of 2010).
Well no, the mood of a region, state or district could change. The point being that one part of the country can change the way it votes without regard to how the rest of the country votes.
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On January 26 2013 09:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:I don't think discussing the "popular vote" makes sense with regards to the House. We aren't electing parties, though parties play a role, we're electing individual representatives. The math that the article is suggesting is that more people in California will need to vote Democrat for Democrats in a different state to beat Republican challengers. It just doesn't work that way.
I'm not going to review or defend the math in that article. I will stand by their point that gerrymandering has gotten out of control. A lot of people do vote on party lines, and most representatives, once elected, vote along party lines. In a lot of ways, we are electing parties. If one group wins the popular vote, that group should have or nearly have control unless we are comfortable with our democratic republic not being very democratic.
Looking at the Michigan races, the closest race a Dem won was 61%. Two of them won with well over 80% of the vote. Republicans are sitting comfortably between 55-65% in most of their district. With those margins, dems can win the popular vote and end up with 1/3 or less of the seats for a state. They are going to go to Washington, and for the most part do what the majority or minority leader tells them, that's how our system works. There are some exceptions, like Justin Amash, but they are punished for not following along, he lost a committee seat for not voting the way Beohner told him often enough.
I'm willing to bet most people don't even know the name of their rep, but regardless, I'll break the house popular vote down to the state level at a couple of states too.
"In North Carolina, Republican candidates garnered a total of 2.14 million votes in the 13 districts, winning nine. Democrats gained a total of 2.22 million votes, winning three districts and leading in a fourth.
In Pennsylvania, Republicans won 13 of the 18 districts even as they lost the aggregate vote by 2.7 million to 2.6 million."
Are you going to tell me that discussing those numbers doesn't make sense? The overall popular vote trend holds at a lot of state levels too.
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On January 26 2013 09:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 09:24 Adreme wrote:On January 26 2013 09:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:I don't think discussing the "popular vote" makes sense with regards to the House. We aren't electing parties, though parties play a role, we're electing individual representatives. The math that the article is suggesting is that more people in California will need to vote Democrat for Democrats in a different state to beat Republican challengers. It just doesn't work that way. The overall point of the article is that the mood of the country would have to be so anti republican that in order to narrowly take back the house they need an overwhelming popular vote victory due to the gerrymandering which is just out of control (for both sides but mostly republicans because of 2010). Well no, the mood of a region, state or district could change. The point being that one part of the country can change the way it votes without regard to how the rest of the country votes.
Baring an unusually terrible candidate (which republicans arent exactly opposed to having) you can usually map how a district votes on a semi consistant basis based on the popular vote margins. Its a fairly exact science actually considering what they are doing.
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Especially when you have brand new census data to help!
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EPT
