Kerry Wins Electoral College, Loses Popular Vote: Effect on EC?
- Thread starter Teshuvah
- Start date
Ja. Razor thin losses in popular vote just don't create the waves of outrage that would be needed to do anything with the Electoral College.
What you'd really need would be someone who won CA, FL, NY (and whatever other states they'd need for a win) by about 51%, while losing by a landslide in all the deep south and MidWest states. (Or vice versa, I suppose)
That way you could have the winner of the EC with only like 40% of the popular vote, while their opponent had ~60%. THAT would generate enough outrage for a change.
What you'd really need would be someone who won CA, FL, NY (and whatever other states they'd need for a win) by about 51%, while losing by a landslide in all the deep south and MidWest states. (Or vice versa, I suppose)
That way you could have the winner of the EC with only like 40% of the popular vote, while their opponent had ~60%. THAT would generate enough outrage for a change.
I don't even know if that's possible. We've had elections where the popular vote is really narrow but the electoral college is not (1968 comes to mind) but rarely any election, especially a two-man race, where the popular vote is a landslide, while the electoral college is not.
The closest example, I guess, would be 1824, when Jackson won 41% of the vote, yet John Q. Adams became president because no candidate secured a majority of the electoral vote - and this despite Adams only winning 30.9% (or 10% less than Jackson) of the popular vote. But that was in a four-man race. In a two-man race? Hard to imagine that type of divisiveness. After all, state support rarely acts in a vacuum. If the Democrat is, say, winning Florida, even narrowly, they're probably winning the popular vote or only losing it narrowly (and same goes for the Republican if they're winning California)
Imagine this scenario sometime in the future:
http://www.270towin.com/maps/qKpBR
In case of totally even turnout across the states, that would already be a 5% difference in the popular vote. Assume turnout in red states is rather low, and that places like NJ, WI, VA and even TX are hard-fought narrow GOP victories, and the difference in the PV could well approach 10%.
This one is slightly more probable, but with a lower difference between PV and EV (probably between 1% and 6%), especially if Florida and a couple of other places that go red are close:
http://www.270towin.com/maps/aD0v3
http://www.270towin.com/maps/qKpBR
In case of totally even turnout across the states, that would already be a 5% difference in the popular vote. Assume turnout in red states is rather low, and that places like NJ, WI, VA and even TX are hard-fought narrow GOP victories, and the difference in the PV could well approach 10%.
This one is slightly more probable, but with a lower difference between PV and EV (probably between 1% and 6%), especially if Florida and a couple of other places that go red are close:
http://www.270towin.com/maps/aD0v3
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
attention focuses on that you got to get electronic voting right including a paper trail (maybe where you see your paper ballot under glass much like a photocopy machine?)
The POD might be a full-blown Diebold scandal.
If you get the electronic voting right, then people might have the confidence to move toward a national system.
The POD might be a full-blown Diebold scandal.
If you get the electronic voting right, then people might have the confidence to move toward a national system.
I've often wondered about reaction to a faithless elector deciding the Presidency in the 269-269 scenario.
We do things so differently now than in the old days, I think the very idea of a faithless elector would blow peoples' minds.
This. The GOP would look like hypocrites contesting it since they bitched and moaned about the democrats contesting 2000. Considering that they were bitter after 2008 and 2012, the GOP will certainly be bitter after the loss. Aside from that, not much changes.
No change. Republicans and Democrats would merely switch their talking points.
A tie 269-269 thrown to the house might be enough to encourage change to the system
A tie 269-269 thrown to the house might be enough to encourage change to the system