Voter Equality

[morningstar2651]

Ignoring the emotionally charged crap from this year's election, I want to take a look at our current winner take all electoral system and how it affects our voting power. This analysis is based off of the results of a paper published in 1968 titled One Man, 3.312 Votes: A Mathematical Analysis of the Electoral College. I'm going to try and distill it to its essence and update the math for 2016, but feel free to read the original paper if you're interested. For the most part, I'm going to stick to the facts and allow you to draw your own opinions from them.

The paper was titled that because they discovered that a voter in New York state has 3.312 times the voting power of a citizen in another part of the country. The popular argument in favor of the current electoral college system is that the inequality favors residents of less populous states, which this analysis will show is false. The electoral college actually weakens the voting power of residents of less populous states and strengthens the power of those in more populous states.

We can measure voting power quantitatively. The purpose of any voting system is to allow each voting member some chance, however small, to affect the decisions which must be made. Voting power is simply the ability to affect decisions through the process of voting. It can be measured by comparing the opportunities each voter has to affect the outcome. If all voters have an equal chance to affect the outcome in a given voting situation, we say that they have equal voting power. However, if some voters have a greater chance than others, we say that the voting powers are unequal.

• In our current system, voting powers are unequal. Citizens of large states have excessive voting power. Citizens of small and middle-sized states are discriminated against.
• In a direct election, all citizens would have equal voting power and an equal chance to affect the outcome of the election.
• In a proportional plan where electoral votes are divided in proportion to candidates' state-wide votes, voting powers are unequal. Citizens of small states have excessive voting power. Citizens of large and middle-sized states are discriminated against.
• In a district plan (presently used in Nebraska and Maine) voting powers are unequal and the presidential election becomes vulnerable to manipulation through Gerrymandering.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Ignoring the emotionally charged crap from this year's election, I want to take a look at our current winner take all electoral system and how it affects our voting power. This analysis is based off of the results of a paper published in 1968 titled One Man, 3.312 Votes: A Mathematical Analysis of the Electoral College. I'm going to try and distill it to its essence and update the math for 2016, but feel free to read the original paper if you're interested. For the most part, I'm going to stick to the facts and allow you to draw your own opinions from them.

The paper was titled that because they discovered that a voter in New York state has 3.312 times the voting power of a citizen in another part of the country. The popular argument in favor of the current electoral college system is that the inequality favors residents of less populous states, which this analysis will show is false. The electoral college actually weakens the voting power of residents of less populous states and strengthens the power of those in more populous states.

We can measure voting power quantitatively. The purpose of any voting system is to allow each voting member some chance, however small, to affect the decisions which must be made. Voting power is simply the ability to affect decisions through the process of voting. It can be measured by comparing the opportunities each voter has to affect the outcome. If all voters have an equal chance to affect the outcome in a given voting situation, we say that they have equal voting power. However, if some voters have a greater chance than others, we say that the voting powers are unequal.

• In our current system, voting powers are unequal. Citizens of large states have excessive voting power. Citizens of small and middle-sized states are discriminated against.
• In a direct election, all citizens would have equal voting power and an equal chance to affect the outcome of the election.
• In a proportional plan where electoral votes are divided in proportion to candidates' state-wide votes, voting powers are unequal. Citizens of small states have excessive voting power. Citizens of large and middle-sized states are discriminated against.
• In a district plan (presently used in Nebraska and Maine) voting powers are unequal and the presidential election becomes vulnerable to manipulation through Gerrymandering.

The problem with a direct system is it is kind of hard to o that when you have MILLIONS of registered voters.

 

[super animator]

ATM it having server issues.

 

[SkyWriting]

Ignoring the emotionally charged crap from this year's election, I want to take a look at our current winner take all electoral system and how it affects our voting power. This analysis is based off of the results of a paper published in 1968 titled One Man, 3.312 Votes: A Mathematical Analysis of the Electoral College. I'm going to try and distill it to its essence and update the math for 2016, but feel free to read the original paper if you're interested. For the most part, I'm going to stick to the facts and allow you to draw your own opinions from them.

The paper was titled that because they discovered that a voter in New York state has 3.312 times the voting power of a citizen in another part of the country. The popular argument in favor of the current electoral college system is that the inequality favors residents of less populous states, which this analysis will show is false. The electoral college actually weakens the voting power of residents of less populous states and strengthens the power of those in more populous states.

We can measure voting power quantitatively. The purpose of any voting system is to allow each voting member some chance, however small, to affect the decisions which must be made. Voting power is simply the ability to affect decisions through the process of voting. It can be measured by comparing the opportunities each voter has to affect the outcome. If all voters have an equal chance to affect the outcome in a given voting situation, we say that they have equal voting power. However, if some voters have a greater chance than others, we say that the voting powers are unequal.

• In our current system, voting powers are unequal. Citizens of large states have excessive voting power. Citizens of small and middle-sized states are discriminated against.
• In a direct election, all citizens would have equal voting power and an equal chance to affect the outcome of the election.
• In a proportional plan where electoral votes are divided in proportion to candidates' state-wide votes, voting powers are unequal. Citizens of small states have excessive voting power. Citizens of large and middle-sized states are discriminated against.
• In a district plan (presently used in Nebraska and Maine) voting powers are unequal and the presidential election becomes vulnerable to manipulation through Gerrymandering.

Put we'd have to wait for every mailed-in ballot.
And most of Oregon's are mailed in.
And if you could not verify your vote
you'd have the right to call for a re-count.

 

[morningstar2651]

The problem with a direct system is it is kind of hard to o that when you have MILLIONS of registered voters.

There's a new invention you may have heard of. It's called a computer. It's very good at computing and automating repetitive tasks like counting.

Put we'd have to wait for every mailed-in ballot.
And most of Oregon's are mailed in.
And if you could not verify your vote
you'd have the right to call for a re-count.

It's not that long of a wait for the results, even in Oregon.

http://gov.oregonlive.com/election/

 

[SkyWriting]

There's a new invention you may have heard of. It's called a computer. It's very good at computing and automating repetitive tasks like counting.



It's not that long of a wait for the results, even in Oregon.

http://gov.oregonlive.com/election/

You should experience the postal service sometime or a re-count election.
While purchasing a vehicle, I've had overnight-ed keys lost twice in two weeks.

 

[dogs4thewin]

There's a new invention you may have heard of. It's called a computer. It's very good at computing and automating repetitive tasks like counting.



It's not that long of a wait for the results, even in Oregon.

http://gov.oregonlive.com/election/

I wa thinking as in gathering in a huge group in one place type of deal.

 

[Noxot]

if the voting system was equal and fair then we would not have a president seeing as how 46%~ of people did not vote for one.

p.s. a super computer could count all the votes in a second or two I think. you would think that with the trillions of $$ that the USA government throws at things that they would be able to rent a supercomputer for a few hours and come up with voting apps on phones. hehhe supercomputers are overkill though.

 

[super animator]

Get rid of first past first vote system before you get rid of electoral college.

 

[morningstar2651]

if the voting system was equal and fair then we would not have a president seeing as how 46%~ of people did not vote for one.

p.s. a super computer could count all the votes in a second or two I think. you would think that with the trillions of $$ that the USA government throws at things that they would be able to rent a supercomputer for a few hours and come up with voting apps on phones. hehhe supercomputers are overkill though.

Mandatory voting would be another topic entirely.

A supercomputer is definitely overkill. My laptop isn't impressive as far as computers go and it can easily perform predictive analytics on hundreds of thousands of rows of data in a couple hours. I've done it before. Technology has advanced to the point where it's feasible to determine the outcome of an election via popular vote. It's not that we are incapable of doing it - it's that we have chosen not to do it that way.

 

[nChrist]

If we elected a President with a popular vote, candidates would spend all their time in heavily populated areas and forget the rest of the country. We need to keep the Electoral College.

 

[Arcangl86]

If we elected a President with a popular vote, candidates would spend all their time in heavily populated areas and forget the rest of the country. We need to keep the Electoral College.

Instead they just spend all their time in a handful of swing states and ignore the rest of the country. There needs to be a better way, and while i have some ideas I'm not optimistic about them ever passing.

 

[morningstar2651]

If we elected a President with a popular vote, candidates would spend all their time in heavily populated areas and forget the rest of the country. We need to keep the Electoral College.

Re-read the OP. The electoral college strengthens the voting power of citizens in heavily populated states and dilutes the power of citizens in sparsely populated states. It actually accomplishes the opposite of what you want it to accomplish.

 

[morningstar2651]

I haven't crunched the numbers for 2016 yet, but here are the numbers from the paper that was published in 1968. States where the citizens have more voting power are at the top of the list, and states where citizens have less voting power are at the bottom of the list. That last column is the most important - voters in states with numbers above 0 have above average influence on the election and voters in states with lower numbers have below average influence.

Voting Power in 1968

 

[morningstar2651]

I haven't crunched the numbers for 2016 yet, but here are the numbers from the paper that was published in 1968. States where the citizens have more voting power are at the top of the list, and states where citizens have less voting power are at the bottom of the list. That last column is the most important - voters in states with numbers above 0 have above average influence on the election and voters in states with lower numbers have below average influence.

Voting Power in 1968
View attachment 185689

Now look back at our elections since 1968 at the home state of each of our presidents and their home state's deviation from the average voting power. Note: This is only looking at the numbers from 1968 - not the numbers from the year of each election. These numbers aren't 100% accurate after 1968.

1968: Nixon (New York) +96.8%
1972: Nixon (New York) +96.8%
1976: Carter (Georgia) +6.3%
1980: Reagan (California) +87.9%
1984: Reagan (California) +87.9%
1988: Bush (Texas) +45.7%
1992: Clinton (Arkansas) -21.9%
1996: Clinton (Arkansas) -21.9%
2000: Bush (Texas) +45.7%
2004: Bush (Texas) +45.7%
2008: Obama (Illinois) +48%
2012: Obama (Illinois) +48%
2016: Trump (New York) +96.8%

 

[tulc]

is this why Mrs. Clinton got 1,000,000+ more votes then President-elect Trump did and still lost? Because seriously? I'm not sure why Republican votes are worth more then Democrat votes.
tulc(unless...states with less citizens are more important then the ones with lots of citizens?)

 

[DaisyDay]

Put we'd have to wait for every mailed-in ballot.

Only if the election was closer than the number of uncounted mailed-in ballots. If Candidate A was ahead by 50 million votes and there were only 30 million mailed in, then none of them would have to be counted to determine the winner; if there were 75 million uncounted votes then they only have to count enough so that the remainder wouldn't affect the outcome (the moment Candiate A's count hits 6,250,001).

 

[SkyWriting]

Only if the election was closer than the number of uncounted mailed-in ballots. If Candidate A was ahead by 50 million votes and there were only 30 million mailed in, then none of them would have to be counted to determine the winner; if there were 75 million uncounted votes then they only have to count enough so that the remainder wouldn't affect the outcome (the moment Candiate A's count hits 6,250,001).

Well no. We must wait for every claimed mailed ballot to show up in the mail.
Plus any lost ballots must be found. Every vote counts equally.
That would be per the population, not per voter.
So everyone would need to vote.
The whole "idea" of making a change
is one vote per person, and counted.

 

[morningstar2651]

Well no. We must wait for every claimed mailed ballot to show up in the mail.
Plus any lost ballots must be found. Every vote counts equally.
That would be per the population, not per voter.
So everyone would need to vote.
The whole "idea" of making a change
is one vote per person, and counted.

This is a different but related topic to consider that super animator brought up earlier. Our current system is first past the post, which means a winner can automatically be declared once a candidate achieves more than 50% of the total votes. Another issue that was teased at earlier was compulsory voting.

That having been said, lost ballots should be found (they shouldn't have been lost in the first place) and mail in ballots should be counted. There are some structural and logistic issues we should probably solve with our elections as well. For example, Maricopa county Arizona cut the number of polling locations for the primaries despite population growth and the primary ended up a disaster. There were 5 hour wait times and people weren't done voting until after midnight. The winner was declared before voting concluded.

 

[morningstar2651]

I haven't had the time to crunch the numbers on 2016 yet, but here are Nate Silver's numbers. Take these with a grain of salt - Nate's simulation models incorporate unreliable poll numbers which are part of why his predictions were so far off this year. His "Tipping point chance" is a much closer approximation of voting power than his voting power index is.

"tipping-point chance is derived from our simulations, in cases where the popular vote is close enough that the Electoral College matters. In each simulation, the model sorts the states by Trump’s projected margin of victory or defeat there, from most favorable for Trump to most favorable for Clinton. It keeps adding up electoral votes for Trump until he gets to 270. The state that puts Trump over the top is the tipping-point state for that simulation. Two states share the tipping-point designation in the event of a 269-269 tie."​

Nate Silver's 2016 Tipping Point Chance