Politics The Hangar Politics Thread

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i guess, on the side of 'voter fraud', i'm not seeing the equivalent of the rush by states like NC to introduce voter id laws, shut down early voting in black communities, etc, as soon as the voting rights act was done for: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/opinion/voter-suppression-in-north-carolina.html

the wider issue, of course, isn't R v D but rather that either side can even do stuff like that (and i forgot all about felonies not being able to vote!)
 

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Phone said:
I'd add, though, that turnout really only matters in 3 states: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania
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Two more: Ohio and Florida.

It is, as far as I can tell, the secret to their bellwether status.

And seeing as four of those five are rust belt states, and Trump's strategy revolved around winning the rust belt states...

Phone said:
the wider issue, of course, isn't R v D but rather that either side can even do stuff like that (and i forgot all about felonies not being able to vote!)
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When I first found out about the rather disorganised way they conduct their elections, I was mildly surprised, to say the least.

The AEC is a wonderful thing.
 
The Speaker said:
Two more: Ohio and Florida.

It is, as far as I can tell, the secret to their bellwether status.

And seeing as four of those five are rust belt states, and Trump's strategy revolved around winning the rust belt states...
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I meant in terms of turnout analysis (and immediate analysis at that). I think those are the 3 because, you know, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania all flipping won it for Trump, so that's the key to the story, trying to understand what happened there and whether it was a democrat slump, a trump surge, a big number of Obama to Trump voters, etc, so that's where the focus for turnout and voting analysis should be right now. Further down the line, you've got all sorts of stuff to look into (comparing WI, MI, PE vs Nevada and Colorado, what happened in the states that no longer have the voting rights act applied to them, just finding trends in the electorate)
 
Another thing worth noting in general is how there's a general drift towards greater allocation of electoral college votes to states in the South, at the expense of the north-east.

Look at how Texas and Florida's allocations have increased, while New York's, Pennsylvania's and Ohio's have decreased.
 
all hail the catastrophic rout of the liberal media

hopefully now people might interrogate the situation under their own power or those of actual political commentators rather than relying on BAD comedians for a precis
 
The Speaker said:
This is true of every basically state big enough to have an urban area and a rural area. Take Chicago away from Illinois and it turns red too.
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The really interesting thing will be what happens when the black populations of the urban areas realise that other than playing identity politics, and when there is no black president, and probably even when there is a black president, the Democrats fundamentally treat these populations with the same contempt as the pissed of "white trash" deplorables who turned.

The left-right dichotomy is dead and has been for a very long time. It's now the establishment vs everyone else. The establishment has either created, or seized the opportunity to use, the mire of identity and social/environmental politics, where division has been established along supposedly ideological lines which are completely un-maintainable, for its own purpose.

While we have been bickering about issues such as gay marriage, climate change and illegal immigration, which people have been conditioned to believe are contentious issues worthy of debate when, in reality, there is no meaningful ideological basis on which to maintain opposition, banks and large corporations have assumed complete control of economic policy and control of our economies and no one seems to care.
 

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Also, the fact there's no sound ideological basis to oppose things like gay marriage doesn't mean they're still not issues. Populism and the influence of the zealots has kept many countries in the Stone Age, and until it's legalised it's very much an issue.
 
Doss said:
Also, the fact there's no sound ideological basis to oppose things like gay marriage doesn't mean they're still not issues. Populism and the influence of the zealots has kept many countries in the Stone Age, and until it's legalised it's very much an issue.
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The only problem with that in the context of the Australian experience is that the raw data almost never seems to support the opposition either.
 
The lack of knowledge people have about our own electoral system completely staggers me.

Key example this morning on FB someone declaring Hilary would've won with the populist vote in Australia. Pointed out that is false and she's since sent me several messages privately arguing that I'm wrong.

And now put up a status that the system needs an overhaul because most votes should = win.

Christ. Jade was right, people are idiots.
 
Electoral college is a very odd system.

I don't mind the principle of a proportional system based on population distribution, per se. But the whole pretense of a college is, well, peculiar.
 
Doss said:
I know. But the vocal bigot minority are sometimes located in strategically important locations from a seat point of view.
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I'm skeptical. I accept that the claim is that this minority all happens to exist in the swinging states but I do not trust the surveying and polling because one of the primary purpose of polling is to sell an idea.
 
Doss said:
Electoral college is a very odd system.

I don't mind the principle of a proportional system based on population distribution, per se. But the whole pretense of a college is, well, peculiar.
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I am not great with the history of American elections but I don't see how the apportionment of electoral college votes in this election is inappropriate. Far from it, winning states and electoral college votes, assuming that they proportionate to actual population sizes, means that the winner can at least claim to represent a much greater spread of America than simply winning the majority vote. No system is ever going to be perfect.

Take the vote in California, on my brief reviewing it provides the most dramatic example. Clinton destroyed Trump by over 2.5 million votes. Lets be generous and say that 8 million Californians voted. Wikipedia says that the last estimate of California's population is just short of 40 million people. Lets say they have 25million eligible voters and they had an unusually high turn out. It would skew the popular vote enormously but would provide no greater reflection of what America, the federation of States, wants.
 
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