Thread: President of the US of A

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

IIRC Al Gore won the popular vote but once Florida was given to Bush 2 (hanging chads) by the supreme court Bush had the electoral votes and the presidency.

Right, so the system in the US is similar to ours? Thanks Jimmy, that makes it easier for me to understand.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

In a voting system as stratified as the US (from what I can tell anyway) a really good poll would have to mimic that voting system in some way to be at all accurate.

It's kind of similar here in Australia. We have "electorates", and a candidate must win in their electorate to be voted into parliament. Then, the party with the most "electorates" in parliament wins government. It is entirely possible because of this process that a party may win greater than 50% of the overall vote across the country but still lose the overall election because those votes were not distributed across the electorates in the "right" way.

A poll that doesn't take this electorate system into account when it collects its data won't tell you too much about who will win the next election I'm afraid.

James.

Nearly the same setup in Canada. Just replace "electorates" with "ridings". The party that wins the most number of ridings forms the government be it a majority or a minority government. Whomever is the leader of the winning party becomes the Prime Minister with the proviso he has won his own riding too. Our voter turnout id low too like most other countries.

Bob

Right, I'd say we are very similar to the Canadian system by the sounds of it. The major difference we appear to have in Australia is that it is compulsory, upon pain of fine, to vote once you are over the age of 18.

James.

The present US system is non-proportional - the electoral votes that are cast for president are split into 51 groups of different size (the number of states plus the federal district) roughly proportional to the number of people living in each.
Each jurisdiction decides how to apportion its electoral votes, but all except two have 'winner take all' system, i.e. the candidate who gets most votes in the jurisdiction gets all the electoral votes of the district.
(Since the electors are real people in principle they can still cast a vote for a different candidate but that's pretty esoteric territory.)

So the math for the US president is slightly different than who gets the most votes but it's not particularly complicated. At present New York ends up democratic, Texas republican etc, and there are a handful of swing states that decide the outcome. That's where the candidates spend all of their time and money campaigning.
On occasion the most votes and the most electoral votes differ but we're talking about 120 Million votes so with such big numbers that happens only when the election is quite close.

All polls take the difference between popular vote and the electoral college into account when doing the math. Some of the wrong predictions seem to be simply manipulations in attempt to influence the outcome (e.g. people like to be on the winning side so they'd vote for the perceived winner).

Of course, on a fundamental level, polling can never predict the outcome because people are allowed to change their mind between the poll and the vote. But it's more than that - it can only predict the probability of the outcomes.

Just like when the weather forecast is 80% chance of rain it means that 80% of these forecasts will result in rain and 20% won't, when the forecast is that candidate A has 80% chance of winning the election it means that on average 8 times out of every 10 it will happen and 2 times it won't.
If you have 100 races with forecast 80% probability and if the favored candidate wins in 90 of them the forecasting sucks because the correct probability is 90% (well, it may not suck because the probability is a distribution but that's a bit more technical).

At one time not that many years ago but prior to the computer age how did the population base their decisions who to vote for? Newspaper articles, the limited TV newscasts, a few debates, a few radio commentators, speeches given by candidates and personal appearances. That's really about it.

With all the information overload these days folks tune most out and seek to listen to those who have a like opinion.

progress eh?

Confirmation bias is as old as humanity, and even if it's one among countless things that is facilitated by technological progress it most definitely is not a result of it.

It actually doesn't bother me much - in that system the folks who actually matter for the outcome are the ones who make the choice of not living in an echo chamber. It's a small number, but you noted that the large numbers on each side are garbage anyways.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Right, I'd say we are very similar to the Canadian system by the sounds of it. The major difference we appear to have in Australia is that it is compulsory, upon pain of fine, to vote once you are over the age of 18.

James.

Yes, I had forgotten about that point. It would be interesting to see what would happen if we had that here too. OTH if you have a "right" should you be forced to exercise by a government? There is something really wrong in a political system where a huge chunk of the electorate feel so disconnected to the system that they don't feel it is worthwhile to vote. That lack of voter turnout seems to be common problem in a lot of countries.

Bob

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

At one time not that many years ago but prior to... (we had) ... speeches given by candidates and personal appearances. That's really about it. ...

Back in your day Spendur, you went to debates because you wanted to hear what the "other" guy had to say. While it was also public entertainment, the intent of both sides was to have a reasoned and reasonable discussion of issues unclouded by unprofessionalism. If one party lost their cool, they lost the debate. Simple rules. The media was supposed to be objective and report the facts. Before electric lights and transistors...I'm not far behind, my TV only had three channels and a round screen. The only good thing to watch was Disney and Haystacks Calhoun...

As Jimbo has encouraged, studying the issues for oneself and critical thinking are incredibly important, and sadly absent in the world of the fifteen second sound bite (and attention span). No wonder it's so difficult for politicians to fund education. It's the last opportunity to learn critical thinking. Thomas Jefferson encouraged an educated electorate as the fundamental basis for a continuing republic.

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

Back in your day Spendur, you went to debates because you wanted to hear what the "other" guy had to say. While it was also public entertainment, the intent of both sides was to have a reasoned and reasonable discussion of issues unclouded by unprofessionalism.

People say that a funny thing happened on the way to the 60s. It goes something like this - Kennedy and Nixon debated and for the first time it was broadcast on TV. The people who listened on the radio thought that Nixon made better arguments, but those who watched it on the TV thought that Kennedy looked much better. And since Kennedy went on to become a president this became an important discovery and the lesson for the future campaigns was to prioritize style over substance.

Nowadays every candidate has their positions on their websites, and there are websites aggregating those for easy comparison, so sorting through that can be extremely efficient. But policy positions are only the beginning - execution is just as important if not more. So, learning about candidates' past experience as well as observing them in a high pressure environment as the election campaign seems like the best way to judge that. In other words the process itself seems quite good to me.

Reading about campaigns from the past they've been just as childish and stupid as now starting with the most revered founding fathers. For example in 1800 Adams was described as "hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman", while a presidency under Jefferson was supposed to result in rapes, pillages, and infanticide, and there is a lot like that.

May be our collective judgement is not very good, but since at the end of the day we reap what we sow fundamentally what we get is a reflection and consequence of our ability to learn.


BTW the practice of winning political support through 'bread and circuses' goes at least two millennia back - or as the good book says 'there is nothing new under the sun'

Lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics. Mark Twain