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New Rule Proposal for US Presidential Elections
I was looking at this http://www.hubdub.com/m8132/Will_Colo...
question and wondered, will this be determined by popular vote or the electoral college. I thought the rules covered this, but checked and was surprised to find they do not.
I propose a new rule for US Presidential politics questions to the effect that unless otherwise specified questions regarding US Presidential elections will be based on the electoral college.
question and wondered, will this be determined by popular vote or the electoral college. I thought the rules covered this, but checked and was surprised to find they do not.
I propose a new rule for US Presidential politics questions to the effect that unless otherwise specified questions regarding US Presidential elections will be based on the electoral college.
I’m glad I have a little time for GetSatisfaction's HD forum
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Inappropriate?It is my understanding that 48 out of the 50 states award all their electoral votes to the candidate who received the majority of popular votes. If I remember right Maine and Nebraska sort the delegates based on who wins the congressional district by popular vote. So in those two states it would be possible for both candidates to receive votes out of that state. I think for making it easier to settle questions and for the average user of hubdub we should go by vote total for individual states. I think we need a rule quickly so markets don't get started and there be no known formula.
I’m glad I didn't invest in the delegate market
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Inappropriate?Destry, you are correct that most states award all of their electoral college votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state, but the number of electoral college votes is determined by the population of each state.
In addition to (the lunacy) of Maine and Nebraska, Maryland has (idiotically) pledged to cast all of it's electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Nevertheless, the HD rules for primaries, caucuses, etc, default to pledged delegates and I feel that the US Presidential election should be held to a similar standard.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), the popular vote does not determine the winner (or whiner) of a US Presidential election, the electoral college decides ... so why would HD questions default to the popular vote?
I'm not advocating that popular vote questions are banned, just that the default settlement be based on the electoral college.
I’m engaged in discussion, but really need to investigate a bug in my IT project! Sound familiar anyone?
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Inappropriate?I agree we need a clear rule. I was proposing having the results of the questions most likely to be what is seen on television. So average users who have never heard of the electoral college, wouldn't be confused. It is dumbing down in a way. I am comfortable with using the electoral college as the standard. I just feel that we are opening ourselves up for debate, since the electoral college doesn't meet right away, and the electors are not required to vote for the candidate, there could be reasons to suspend a market for a longer period of time.
On election night the News networks will be announcing the results of the election usually they give a breakdown by state and keep a running total on the big board of electoral college. I think we could settle markets faster if we used the popular vote method.
That is not even to start the debate that the electoral college is outdated and completely unnecessary in todays world. The only good thing that usually comes from a complete breakdown in a system is that people are more willing to find a way to fix it. Maybe there will be a fix to the primary system after we seen such craziness in the Democratic market and unpredictable results in the Republican market.
I would love to see a national primary in which the candidates voted on at the same time on the same day. Then if no candidate received 50% of the vote, then a runoff primary would take place between the two highest vote getters. It would be nice to know that the candidate chosen recieved the majority of votes. I mean McCain recieved just 36% of the vote in Florida so that means 64% of the people didn't want him, or wanted someone else.
I obviously strayed off the topic. I will say I am happy with whatever is decided. -
Inappropriate?In regards to Colorado, they award their electoral delegetes based solely on popular vote, right? So for this particular market, isn't this discussion moot?
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Inappropriate?Jenni, you are correct, this really isn't an issue for Colorado. Also, I was somewhat mistaken about Maryland. They did pass a law agreeing to pledge their electors to the winner of the national popular vote, but it doesn't take effect until states representing 270 electoral votes also agree to do so.
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Inappropriate?AAA -- I saw that market, or perhaps another, and had a similar thought. Props to you for pushing this forward.
As the electoral vote is, at the end of the day, what "counts", and what may drive many "battleground state" markets, I agree that the electoral college vote ought be the default by which markets are settled.
I’m aware that many things that really "count" can't be counted.
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Inappropriate?My only point is this, for 48 of the 50 states, if we ask the question "which candidate wins state X", whether we use the popular or electors the results are exactly the same, since one leads to another. But for the two states in which the electors are decided based on the popular vote by congressional district, it would be possible for one candidate to have more popular votes but end up with less electors. So if the question is "which candidate will win Maine (or Nebraska)", we are going to determine winner based on who has more electors for electoral college and not the popular vote... is this correct? The only downside I see for using the electors is that hypothetically those electors are not forced to vote for a particular candidate, and we could be forced to delay settlement until the electoral college meets.
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Inappropriate?AAA: Thanks for bringing this issue to the forum for clarification. I apologize that I did not see your comment on my question earlier. You are right to assume that I wanted the electoral votes counted. I just wanted whatever way was easiest for Hubdub Admin to validate the answer for my question: Will Colorado vote Democratic or Republican for the 2008 Presidential race?
I’m happy to have a helping hand.
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Inappropriate?As Destry and Jenni have pointed out, for 48 of the 50 states in the USA, winning by popular and electoral vote is the same. I was thinking ahead to the overall presidential election where this could be contentious. For example, in 2000 Gore won the national popular vote, but lost the electoral vote.
As far as the states go, at this point it's only possible for their to be a disparity between popular and electoral votes for President in Maine and Nebraska. -
Inappropriate?Okay...maybe my logic is off here, but I don't think that Maine and Nebraska would be a problem either. Here's why:
Maine has 4 electoral votes, Nebraska has five. Two of those votes represent the senators of the state and are considered "at-large" winner-take-all votes. Those votes go to whoever has the popular vote. Maine as two congressional districts. In order for someone to receive the overall popular vote, he would have to win the popular vote in atleast one of those districts. If someone won the popular vote in both districts, they would also win the overall popular vote. That means that, at the worst, it would be a 3-1 split in favor of the candidate with the popular vote. As for Nebraska, again the 2 votes that represent the senators are given to the candidate with the popular vote. There are three congressional districts. Again, a candidate would have to have the popular vote in atleast 1 district in order to have the overall popular vote. that means that the worst case scenario is a 3-2 split in favor of the candidate with the popular vote. Either way the electoral split is going to favor the candidate with the popular vote for 2008. One of these states would have to grow in population enough to have 6 electoral college votes before the 2010 census before this would change for the 2012 election. Or...Maryland's system would have to go into effect...but that isn't going to happen before the 2008 election either.
Like I said, maybe my math/logic is off, but I don't think so. I think it is a moot point for this election cycle. If hubdub is around four years from now, we may have to resurrect the argument.
Source:
http://theelectoralvote.com/
"The states of Maine and Nebraska have a different method of apportioning their electoral votes than the "winner-take-all" system used in rest of the country. Rather than awarding all of their electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote, in Maine and Nebraska, only two of the votes are awarded to the overall winner of the state. The rest of the electoral votes are awarded individually based on the winner of the popular vote in each of the states' congressional districts."
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