Poll: Who will win the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election?

[Montecarlo]

Stop being disingenuous.  This is the fourth fucking time I am repeating myself: No one is claiming there is absolutely zero fraud. No one.  Absolutely no one.

I said non-zero, and at least two posters asked for examples.  Why would you need examples unless you think non-zero is an indefensible position?
And you specifically shot holes in one of my examples (and conveniently ignored the others!)

[Montecarlo]

Stop being disingenuous.  This is the fourth fucking time I am repeating myself: No one is claiming there is absolutely zero fraud. No one.  Absolutely no one.

I was even accused of gambler's fallacy for saying non-zero.  If all I said is non-zero, and you say no one is claiming absolutely zero fraud, then what exactly was so controversial that I needed to provide concrete examples of?

[maizefolk]

@Montecarlo, this is a bit like people getting in arguments about the Drake equation and how many planets in our galaxy support intelligent life. It can be really philosophically interesting but given the evidence we have to date there isn't any way the argument can be resolved with a right answer.

My reading of your posts is that you're upset people disagreed with you when you said the chance of fraud was not absolutely zero (or chance of precinct level fraud was not absolute zero) again from a philosophical perspective. I get that. There are few things in life we can know with 100% confidence. However, you're arguing with people who are having a completely different argument about whether or not it is reasonable for Trump to claim election fraud while he trying to claim he'll still be president in February (he's not). I don't think you're going to get the satisfaction you're looking for here, which I am guessing would be to have the people you are arguing with agreeing that we can never with 100% confidence say that no fraud occurred in any election ... even though there is no evidence to suggest it happened in this election. The closest you're probably going to get to that satisfaction will be posts like frugalnacho's saying no one would claim the chances were absolutely zero in the first place, which, if you look at it from the right perspective is indeed agreement with about the difference between zero vs extremely small but not zero.

I value your contributions around here. I've seen posters burn out from the forum (or blow up) when caught in this sort of trap where they are confident they are logically in the right about the assertion at hand but the people they are arguing with are having a different argument about something else entirely.

[WhiteTrashCash]

Statistically, the chances of fraud impacting the outcome of this election is zero. Trump is just crying a lot because he's never lost at anything before in his entire life.

[Montecarlo]

I've seen posters burn out from the forum (or blow up) when caught in this sort of trap where they are confident they are logically in the right about the assertion at hand but the people they are arguing with are having a different argument about something else entirely.

I appreciate the kind words.  This is what makes it so infuriating.  Other than a casual remark that was ill-phrased, there is literally no disagreement on whether some level of fraud exists, and no disagreement on whether there is a larger impact regarding the 2020 election, so I don't understand why I'm being treated like I'm one of the lawyers filing a frivolous lawsuit.

[Montecarlo]

Statistically, the chances of fraud impacting the outcome of this election is zero. Trump is just crying a lot because he's never lost at anything before in his entire life.

I can't tell if the last part is sarcasm, but didn't he go bankrupt multiple times?

[frugalnacho]

I've seen posters burn out from the forum (or blow up) when caught in this sort of trap where they are confident they are logically in the right about the assertion at hand but the people they are arguing with are having a different argument about something else entirely.

I appreciate the kind words.  This is what makes it so infuriating.  Other than a casual remark that was ill-phrased, there is literally no disagreement on whether some level of fraud exists, and no disagreement on whether there is a larger impact regarding the 2020 election, so I don't understand why I'm being treated like I'm one of the lawyers filing a frivolous lawsuit.

I'm confused.  Literally no one in this thread is claiming that there is absolutely no fraud, so I don't even understand what you're railing against.  It's like if I said there is no lead in my drinking water, and you launched a tirade bringing up isolated examples of lead in some water, and lectured us about trace quantities of lead that is everywhere.

I get it, the statement that there is absolutely no lead in my drinking water is technically false, but for practical purposes, there is no lead in my drinking water.  The same as you can find trace amounts of voter fraud if you go looking for it, but for practical purposes there is no voter fraud. 

[nereo]

I think we need to backup and define what we are even talking about.  As I've posted multiple times, no one is claiming there is literally zero voter fraud.  Me, and everyone else, are talking about widespread and significant fraud.  A few isolated cases, especially when they were caught and no actual fraud ended up taking place, is not sufficient evidence.  And if we are talking all elections right down to local private communities (like the ones you've posted), stretching back some arbitrary time into the past, then we are talking about many billions of votes being cast.  If there was a significant chance of voter fraud occurring I would expect a lot more than a few articles about rinky dink communities.  Based on the evidence you've provided voter fraud is not zero, but appears to be approaching zero.

Worth noting that there has long been a division of criminal voter fraud to investigate these crimes, and we have had literally dozens of recounts at the state level just in the last few decades. The former has only dealt without isolated incidents of fraud, and no recount has ever changed the outcome by more than a few hundred votes out of millions car (I.e. far less than a 0.1% shift)

The kind of fraud being alleged has been both numerically and statistically negligible, so claims that it is now substantial and spans multiple states should be treated with extreme skepticism.

[Montecarlo]

I'm confused.  Literally no one in this thread is claiming that there is absolutely no fraud, so I don't even understand what you're railing against.  It's like if I said there is no lead in my drinking water, and you launched a tirade bringing up isolated examples of lead in some water, and lectured us about trace quantities of lead that is everywhere.

I get it, the statement that there is absolutely no lead in my drinking water is technically false, but for practical purposes, there is no lead in my drinking water.  The same as you can find trace amounts of voter fraud if you go looking for it, but for practical purposes there is no voter fraud.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/poll-who-will-win-the-2020-u-s-presidential-election/msg2732134/#msg2732134
which was a follow up to:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/poll-who-will-win-the-2020-u-s-presidential-election/msg2732134/#msg2732134

To use your analogy, the post I led with said "just because there's probably a Flint, MI or two out there, doesn't mean the whole water supply of the US is contaminated"

To be sure, "probably" (or "chances are" in the original wording) was problematic (and I clarified in a later post).

Then I got requests to provide examples of Flint, MI.  Then I got ridiculed.

Edit: I was literally asked to prove that lead levels are greater than zero, so I don't know why you are suggesting that my evidence of trace levels of lead is unwarranted in the discussion.

You are claiming this number is larger than zero. Okay, PROVE IT.

[sherr]

Edit: I was literally asked to prove that lead levels are greater than zero, so I don't know why you are suggesting that my evidence of trace levels of lead is unwarranted in the discussion.

You are claiming this number is larger than zero. Okay, PROVE IT.

To be clear, this was that the "number of polling stations that are committing fraud to affect thousands of votes" is larger than zero. You have backed away from that position, and so I am too backing away from asking you to prove it. Finding a small handful of cases of individuals attempting to commit voter fraud is not at all the same as some conspiracy that has controlled a whole polling station to undermine thousands of voters that cast their votes in good faith.

[GuitarStv]

I'm confused.  Literally no one in this thread is claiming that there is absolutely no fraud, so I don't even understand what you're railing against.  It's like if I said there is no lead in my drinking water, and you launched a tirade bringing up isolated examples of lead in some water, and lectured us about trace quantities of lead that is everywhere.

I get it, the statement that there is absolutely no lead in my drinking water is technically false, but for practical purposes, there is no lead in my drinking water.  The same as you can find trace amounts of voter fraud if you go looking for it, but for practical purposes there is no voter fraud.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/poll-who-will-win-the-2020-u-s-presidential-election/msg2732134/#msg2732134
which was a follow up to:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/poll-who-will-win-the-2020-u-s-presidential-election/msg2732134/#msg2732134

To use your analogy, the post I led with said "just because there's probably a Flint, MI or two out there, doesn't mean the whole water supply of the US is contaminated"

To be sure, "probably" (or "chances are" in the original wording) was problematic (and I clarified in a later post).

Then I got requests to provide examples of Flint, MI.  Then I got ridiculed.

Edit: I was literally asked to prove that lead levels are greater than zero, so I don't know why you are suggesting that my evidence of trace levels of lead is unwarranted in the discussion.

You are claiming this number is larger than zero. Okay, PROVE IT.

This is an extreme example of out of context quoting.  The post you're quoting in it's entirety:

You have to start with some prior (it's a SWAG, minus the S) that there is a non-zero chance of a polling location doing something fraudulent.  It's not 0.00000000%.  It's not >1%.  is it 0.01%? 0.001%? 

You responded before I edited my comment so I'll copy it here:
Empty content-less "but what if" eyebrow-waggling conspiracy-theorizing is the laziest possible form of conspiracy-theorizing. Do the work to come up with a proper conspiracy-theory that actually contains the "theory" part.

I'm not claiming it's any number, so I'm not going to rise to your dishonest bait of trying to calculate what it is. You are claiming this number is larger than zero. Okay, PROVE IT. That shouldn't be hard given that Republicans have been desperately searching for fraud my entire adult life in order to back up their propaganda. Or at least do the work to come up with a proper conspiracy-theory to explain how these polling stations have managed to get away with it all this time.

Sherr was asking you to prove that a polling location was doing something fraudulent as you had claimed:

Even so, I'm not talking onesies or twosies, a dead person ballot here or there.  I mean, chances are there is at least one polling location that did something fraudulent that affected thousands of votes.  There are probably over 100,000 polling locations in the US (source: quick Google search).

[Montecarlo]

@GuitarStv
As I said before and as @sherr correctly noted, that remark was ill-phrased.  I never expected it to be parsed to death ("chances are" one example, implying that coordinated fraud at polling locations is the only type of fraud that matter), especially when the underlying assertion was so non-controversial (Don't let evidence of lead somewhere, even a lot of lead at one location, lead you to believe that there is lead everywhere!")

I have some more important things to do, I will catch up with you all later when I have more time to kill.

[Montecarlo]

oh, and @Kris I am still looking forward to your retraction.  TIA.

[caracarn]

In a country as big as ours, I would be surprised if there was no voter fraud.

 

Also please keep in mind that those cases in the DB are not in one election, they are over dozens of years and include local elections too, so we are talking BILLIONS of votes cast where these were found.  And let's also not forget.  THEY WERE FOUND!  Meaning they get caught. 

The conspiracy is that a system that clearly if finding needles in a haystack is incapable of finding entire states of hay that are fraudulent.  That is what is so infuriating.  Trying to argue to we're just not seeing the massive voter fraud when we find negligible instances is terrible logic.
Database Swells to 1,285 Proven Cases of Voter Fraud in ...

www.heritage.org › election-integrity › commentary › d...
May 10, 2020 — All-mail elections have received heightened attention in the media these past few weeks. Prominent liberals highly endorse the idea, claiming it ...



I do not think it is possible that every person convicted of voter fraud was actually innocent and wrongfully convicted so I conclude that "There  is/was no voter fraud"   is an untrue assertion.

There exists some level of voter fraud in every election.  Typically, people who are saying 'there is no voter fraud' mean that the amount of voter fraud is so insignificant that it is impossible for it to make a difference to the results.

You've posted that there were roughly 1300 cases of voter fraud.  Let's double that just to be sure that we're not undercounting any.  Then let's figure out what percentage of the vote that turns out to be.  Last projection I read was that 161 million Americans voted.

So, let's see

2600/161 000 000

That means that we have a recorded 0.0016% of fraudulent votes.  Seems pretty insignificant and incapable of swinging the election one way or another . . . and that's doubling the amount of known voter fraud just for safety margin.

[caracarn]

I mean, chances are there is at least one polling location that did something fraudulent that affected thousands of votes.

I eagerly await the evidence you are going to produce to back up this claim.

This is a simple math problem.  When you have over 100,000 opportunities for an edge case, edge cases happen!

You have to start with some prior (it's a SWAG, minus the S) that there is a non-zero chance of a polling location doing something fraudulent.  It's not 0.00000000%.  It's not >1%.  is it 0.01%? 0.001%? 

If I choose 0.001% over 100,000 locations, that's 63.2% chance of at least one major case of fraud.  Simple binomial distribution.

Is 0.001% the right number?  idk.  You tell me the number (and I eagerly await the evidence your number is right!)

Montecarlo I am calling BULLSHIT on this very loudly.

You clearly have zero, nil, idea on the protections in the system in multiple layers at every one of those precincts.  As I have said other places, go train to be a poll worker then be one, and they come back after that.  If you participate in the process you realize this has nothing to do with statistics.  As a poll worker I find this speculation frustrating, baseless and dangerous.  Just stop.

[AerynLee]

Interrupting a pointless argument with a question:

Has anyone seen data on what the electoral votes would have looked like in past elections if all states gave them out like Nebraska and Maine (two state-wide ones to the overall winner of the state and one to the winner of each district)? I'm very curious what that would look like

[caracarn]

So @Montecarlo

The point is that after looking very hard, lots of well trained people did not find any evidence of what you claim is statistically proven.

There is fraud.  It does not impact outcomes.  And it had been caught.  Most importantly to this conversation there is 0 chance the presidential election had enough fraud to matter yet you keep arguing minutiae for three pages.  Your point that one precinct has thousands of fraudulent votes is a virtual certainty to be zero based on the controls in place that I and other have mentioned.  Not to even mention that the number of precincts with over enough eligible voters to have that much fraud be less than 25% of its total, assuming 100% turnout (again a virtual certainty to be 0) is also a fraction of the 100,000 precincts is something you miss in your well thought out math exercise.  So again, just stop.

[sherr]

Interrupting a pointless argument with a question:

Has anyone seen data on what the electoral votes would have looked like in past elections if all states gave them out like Nebraska and Maine (two state-wide ones to the overall winner of the state and one to the winner of each district)? I'm very curious what that would look like

I don't know about all past elections, but here is an article that explores 2016 and 2012. With Congressional District allocation Trump would have still won 2016 and Romney would have won 2012. And of course the Dems won the national popular vote both years.

[caracarn]

Interrupting a pointless argument with a question:

Has anyone seen data on what the electoral votes would have looked like in past elections if all states gave them out like Nebraska and Maine (two state-wide ones to the overall winner of the state and one to the winner of each district)? I'm very curious what that would look like

No, I have not.  In my opinion that exercise would take some effort and you'd have to be really bored with nothing else to do to spend that much energy on something with really no purpose other than a basis for a historical fiction novel.  That is a lot of research to break things down into each congressional district and pull the presidential votes etc. and do that for a bunch of presidential elections.

[Kris]

Stop being disingenuous.  This is the fourth fucking time I am repeating myself: No one is claiming there is absolutely zero fraud. No one.  Absolutely no one.

I was even accused of gambler's fallacy for saying non-zero.  If all I said is non-zero, and you say no one is claiming absolutely zero fraud, then what exactly was so controversial that I needed to provide concrete examples of?

No. I was talking about you extrapolating about the chances of one thing, based on an unrelated thing. As I quoted you very specifically to make that clear.

[caracarn]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

[nereo]

I propose that it's time to start ignoring the Trumper conspiracy theorists. Nothing they can do will change the result of the election, and life is too short to worry about things that will not happen.

The US seems to have a consistent problem with the supporters of the losing candidate refusing to believe their candidate lost. Perhaps the Republicans can spend the next four years saying "Not My President"?

I agree with this. The last President who was truly accepted by the opposition (who controlled Congress) was George HW Bush.

Point of fact, George HW Bush was just three GOP presidents ago. FWIW, I and most of the people I know begrudgingly accepted that W’s second term was fairly elected.

It’s always hard to accept the outcome of an election where the guy with the second most votes wins.

[caracarn]

Interrupting a pointless argument with a question:

Has anyone seen data on what the electoral votes would have looked like in past elections if all states gave them out like Nebraska and Maine (two state-wide ones to the overall winner of the state and one to the winner of each district)? I'm very curious what that would look like

I don't know about all past elections, but here is an article that explores 2016 and 2012. With Congressional District allocation Trump would have still won 2016 and Romney would have won 2012. And of course the Dems won the national popular vote both years.

Isn't this impact created by gerrymandering thereby favoring the Republicans in many districts?

[sherr]

Interrupting a pointless argument with a question:

Has anyone seen data on what the electoral votes would have looked like in past elections if all states gave them out like Nebraska and Maine (two state-wide ones to the overall winner of the state and one to the winner of each district)? I'm very curious what that would look like

I don't know about all past elections, but here is an article that explores 2016 and 2012. With Congressional District allocation Trump would have still won 2016 and Romney would have won 2012. And of course the Dems won the national popular vote both years.

Isn't this impact created by gerrymandering thereby favoring the Republicans in many districts?

That's part of it, sure, but the other part is the non-gerrymandered fact that there are simply more low-population rural Republican states than there are high-population Democratic states, eg the same reason that Republicans have an advantage in the Senate. Remember in this model two Electors are still allocated based on the statewide popular vote, so those Electors would track the Republican Senate advantage.

So the Senate advantage + gerrymandering would give them an uber advantage.

Edit to say: even without gerrymandering the Republicans would still have an advantage in the House (and therefore the EC in this system), because Democratic voters are too clumped up in cities. So if a city district is 80-20 Democratic and there are two corresponding 60-40 Republican rural districts (which if memory serves is fairly accurate), then you'd still wind up with a House/EC that's 2/3ds Republican in the event of a 50-50 vote, even without the gerrymandering.

[AerynLee]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Because you have to babystep Americans away from "But this is how we've always done it!"
Kinda like getting the ACA instead of social healthcare; it's not a great option, but it's better than what we have

Interrupting a pointless argument with a question:

Has anyone seen data on what the electoral votes would have looked like in past elections if all states gave them out like Nebraska and Maine (two state-wide ones to the overall winner of the state and one to the winner of each district)? I'm very curious what that would look like

I don't know about all past elections, but here is an article that explores 2016 and 2012. With Congressional District allocation Trump would have still won 2016 and Romney would have won 2012. And of course the Dems won the national popular vote both years.

Thanks Sherr. I'm not surprised it went that way, but I was curious to see.

[JLee]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Because you have to babystep Americans away from "But this is how we've always done it!"
Kinda like getting the ACA instead of social healthcare; it's not a great option, but it's better than what we have

I don't think the GOP wants anything to change - they've nearly perfected the system to allow them to continue to win despite nearly always having fewer votes.

[AerynLee]

Because you have to babystep Americans away from "But this is how we've always done it!"
Kinda like getting the ACA instead of social healthcare; it's not a great option, but it's better than what we have

Feel the need to clarify, due to gerrymandering the Congressional District - Popular method apparently isn't better than what we have now (looking at some states swings in the different options is very telling). Just meant to say that with reluctance to change you have to move to one slightly less bad option at a time to try and get to something resembling a good one

[caracarn]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Because you have to babystep Americans away from "But this is how we've always done it!"
Kinda like getting the ACA instead of social healthcare; it's not a great option, but it's better than what we have

I don't think the GOP wants anything to change - they've nearly perfected the system to allow them to continue to win despite nearly always having fewer votes.

I believe this is a widely accepted near fact.  This is where I feel that as long as Democrats press to the left and ignore the moderates they struggle locally, as like it or not people, like anything else, fall into a bell curve distribution with all lot more around the middle than at the fringes.  And Republicans understand that better than Dems seem to.   I can say for certain if the Democrats had chosen someone like Warren or Sanders they would have been likely not to get my vote as a defecting Republican.  Because Biden is more moderate I could whole heartedly cast my vote for him.

[GuitarStv]

I believe this is a widely accepted near fact.  This is where I feel that as long as Democrats press to the left and ignore the moderates they struggle locally, as like it or not people, like anything else, fall into a bell curve distribution with all lot more around the middle than at the fringes.  And Republicans understand that better than Dems seem to.   I can say for certain if the Democrats had chosen someone like Warren or Sanders they would have been likely not to get my vote as a defecting Republican.  Because Biden is more moderate I could whole heartedly cast my vote for him.

Don't Trump's election results indicate that you as a reasonable Republican (who doesn't want to support a woefully incompetent person in office simply because he carries your teams flag) are very much in the minority on the right?

[maizefolk]

Caracarn, as someone who identifies with the democratic party more than the republican one but still doesn't like the direction the party appears to be headed sometimes, thank you for being willing to cross over and vote for Biden last week. Sincerely.

Don't Trump's election results indicate that you as a reasonable Republican (who doesn't want to support a woefully incompetent person in office simply because he carries your teams flag) are very much in the minority on the right?

Could you expand on your reasoning here, GuitarStv? Since we don't have data on the counterfactual scenario of what would have happened if the Dems had nominated Sanders or Warren I don't see what the 2020 election can tell us about how many people there are out there like caracarn (willing to vote for Biden but not willing to vote for Sanders/Warren).

[Michael in ABQ]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

[sherr]

I agree with this. The last President who was truly accepted by the opposition (who controlled Congress) was George HW Bush.

Point of fact, George HW Bush was just three GOP presidents ago. FWIW, I and most of the people I know begrudgingly accepted that W’s second term was fairly elected.

It’s always hard to accept the outcome of an election where the guy with the second most votes wins.

? I think you are mis-counting...  depending on how you count GHWB was four or five presidents ago.  GHWB, Clinton, GWB, Obama, Trump. ETA: I agree that most people thought W was fairly elected the second time.  That was also the only time since GHWB that the GOP won the presidency while also winning the popular vote, which is a huge legitimacy problem IMO.

"Just three GOP presidents ago."

[wenchsenior]

I agree with this. The last President who was truly accepted by the opposition (who controlled Congress) was George HW Bush.

Point of fact, George HW Bush was just three GOP presidents ago. FWIW, I and most of the people I know begrudgingly accepted that W’s second term was fairly elected.

It’s always hard to accept the outcome of an election where the guy with the second most votes wins.

? I think you are mis-counting...  depending on how you count GHWB was four or five presidents ago.  GHWB, Clinton, GWB, Obama, Trump. ETA: I agree that most people thought W was fairly elected the second time.  That was also the only time since GHWB that the GOP won the presidency while also winning the popular vote, which is a huge legitimacy problem IMO.

"Just three GOP presidents ago."

Ah, yes. Oops. 

[GuitarStv]

Caracarn, as someone who identifies with the democratic party more than the republican one but still doesn't like the direction the party appears to be headed sometimes, thank you for being willing to cross over and vote for Biden last week. Sincerely.

Don't Trump's election results indicate that you as a reasonable Republican (who doesn't want to support a woefully incompetent person in office simply because he carries your teams flag) are very much in the minority on the right?

Could you expand on your reasoning here, GuitarStv? Since we don't have data on the counterfactual scenario of what would have happened if the Dems had nominated Sanders or Warren I don't see what the 2020 election can tell us about how many people there are out there like caracarn (willing to vote for Biden but not willing to vote for Sanders/Warren).

I was expecting that there would be many reasonable Republicans voting against Trump this year.  That doesn't seem to have been the case.  Biden's pretty centrist.  Republicans seem to have overwhelmingly continued to support Trump though . . . which makes me think that my assumption about there being many reasonable Republicans was wrong.

[sherr]

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

This is often repeated, by you and others, and I think always nonsensical. What would happen if we had a national popular vote is that the people would decide who the president is. Not Californians and New Yorkers, all the people.

Republicans in California would suddenly matter. Democrats in Alabama would suddenly matter. Heck, even Democrats in California and Republicans in Alabama would suddenly matter; right now they don't really because it's a foregone conclusion about which way their state is going to vote.

And there are a lot of people who don't vote because "my vote doesn't really matter". And if they're talking about the presidency and they're not in a swing state, they're absolutely correct. A national popular vote would make everyone's votes matter.

[JLee]

I believe this is a widely accepted near fact.  This is where I feel that as long as Democrats press to the left and ignore the moderates they struggle locally, as like it or not people, like anything else, fall into a bell curve distribution with all lot more around the middle than at the fringes.  And Republicans understand that better than Dems seem to.   I can say for certain if the Democrats had chosen someone like Warren or Sanders they would have been likely not to get my vote as a defecting Republican.  Because Biden is more moderate I could whole heartedly cast my vote for him.

Don't Trump's election results indicate that you as a reasonable Republican (who doesn't want to support a woefully incompetent person in office simply because he carries your teams flag) are very much in the minority on the right?

The GOP approval numbers and voter turnout would indicate that Trump is exactly what Republicans want these days.

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

How does that math work?

State populations:

FL - 21.48 million
PA - 12.8 million
WI - 5.82 million
MI - 9.99 million
OH - 11.69 million
NC - 10.49 million
NV - 3.08 million

Approximately 73% of the population is eligible to vote.  Granting the assumption that it's not wildly skewed across states and we can apply numbers equally, that gives us eligible voter counts of:

FL - 15.68 million
PA - 9.34 million
WI - 4.25 million
MI -  7.29 million
OH - 8.53 million
NC - 7.66 million
NV - 2.25 million

Biden is winning with a nationwide advantage of less than 5 million.

[Norioch]

Donald Trump is attempting a coup. If the coup succeeds then America will no longer be a democracy. https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/09/10-things-you-need-to-know-to-stop-a-coup/

[frugalnacho]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

What? Cali and NY combined popular vote was about 13.9M for Biden and 8.3M for Trump.  Not even close to deciding the entire election.  Also it seems like a very poor argument that we shouldn't go to a popular vote because then the person with the most popular vote would win.  Isn't that how democracy is supposed to work?

[ctuser1]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Because you have to babystep Americans away from "But this is how we've always done it!"
Kinda like getting the ACA instead of social healthcare; it's not a great option, but it's better than what we have

I don't think the GOP wants anything to change - they've nearly perfected the system to allow them to continue to win despite nearly always having fewer votes.

I believe this is a widely accepted near fact.  This is where I feel that as long as Democrats press to the left and ignore the moderates they struggle locally, as like it or not people, like anything else, fall into a bell curve distribution with all lot more around the middle than at the fringes.  And Republicans understand that better than Dems seem to.   I can say for certain if the Democrats had chosen someone like Warren or Sanders they would have been likely not to get my vote as a defecting Republican.  Because Biden is more moderate I could whole heartedly cast my vote for him.

Moderate Democrats have embraced classical conservatism - incrementalism, don't spoil the applecart much irrespective of the faults inherent in the applecart etc. etc. etc.

The liberal wing of the Democrats are not exactly "Classical Liberal", but quite close! Add a dash of social justice activism to classical liberalism, and you have the AOC/squad wing of the democratic party.

A tension between these two sides of the political spectrum would be wonderful politics, in a vacuum. The classical conservatives will make sure change is not so fast that your head spins, and the liberals will make sure that progress never quite stop.

Problem is the presence of the 800-lb Gorilla that is the Reactionary philosophy of the Republican party. Typically, reactionary politics ebbs and flows. In American politics reactionary politics have gained a massive foothold beyond it's actual issue-based support since Nixon's "Southern Strategy".

If you are a conservative, it is natural that you will feel right at home with the moderate Democrats. I can only hope that you, and others like you can still compromise with the "move fast and break things" wing and work together. If I understand correctly, "Compromise" is also a very fundamental pillar of the classically conservative ideology.

If the conservatives that flock to the moderate Democrat umbrella have forgotten to compromise (or the liberal wing has), then unfortunately we (liberals and conservatives) might as well wave the white flag and hand the keys to the kingdom to the Reactionary gang. FWIW - the reactionary gang are far less likely to negotiate or compromise than Barney or Warren (or AOC/Squad) would be.

I sometime think that a full-on reactionary takeover of the entire American society (we are close, just a few supreme court judgements away) would not be *that* bad. If there is ever a chance of reminding the conservatives who their real existential threat is - there is no faster way!
 

[middo]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

I find it interesting that you discount a vote from a large centre compared to one from a smaller centre.  Isn't this exactly why the Senate is formed the way it is?  "Representative of the country" would surely be a popular vote of the whole country.

[ctuser1]

So a question building on AerynLee.

Why do we not just move to popular vote and do away with the electoral college and finding ways to make it fair.  Why do we hold is as a sacred cow?  At this point don't enough people feel it has outlived its purpose and is now a hinderance and therefore would our energy not be better spent abolishing the electoral college? Even the article where someone did the work for 2016 and 2012 started explaining how the proposals still gamed the system, so get rid of the gaming and just count the votes.

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

Nope, it would mean Americans decide the American president - wherever they live!!

<edited to add>
Just wanted to politely clarify that when anyone makes the argument you are making, he/she comes across as someone who tells me that the minority rule of the Republicans - where they have lost the popular vote all but once in 30 years and yet held on to power - is a good thing and then certain Americans matter less than certain others.
</edited to add>


 

[Samuel]

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

This is often repeated, by you and others, and I think always nonsensical. What would happen if we had a national popular vote is that the people would decide who the president is. Not Californians and New Yorkers, all the people.

Republicans in California would suddenly matter. Democrats in Alabama would suddenly matter. Heck, even Democrats in California and Republicans in Alabama would suddenly matter; right now they don't really because it's a foregone conclusion about which way their state is going to vote.

And there are a lot of people who don't vote because "my vote doesn't really matter". And if they're talking about the presidency and they're not in a swing state, they're absolutely correct. A national popular vote would make everyone's votes matter.

Yeah, Biden leads the popular vote by 3.4%. That's not exactly the coastal elite imposing their will. And who knows how the electorate would change if every vote for President actually mattered (which I would argue is the most reasonable standard for a national election) and more voters bothered to show up and vote.

[sherr]

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

This is often repeated, by you and others, and I think always nonsensical. What would happen if we had a national popular vote is that the people would decide who the president is. Not Californians and New Yorkers, all the people.

Republicans in California would suddenly matter. Democrats in Alabama would suddenly matter. Heck, even Democrats in California and Republicans in Alabama would suddenly matter; right now they don't really because it's a foregone conclusion about which way their state is going to vote.

And there are a lot of people who don't vote because "my vote doesn't really matter". And if they're talking about the presidency and they're not in a swing state, they're absolutely correct. A national popular vote would make everyone's votes matter.

Yeah, Biden leads the popular vote by 3.4%. That's not exactly the coastal elite imposing their will. And who knows how the electorate would change if every vote for President actually mattered (which I would argue is the most reasonable standard for a national election) and more voters bothered to show up and vote.

Not only would the electorate change because more people would actually vote, but the presidential candidates and their policies and parties would change too. Not only would they care about campaigning in the "battleground states" and ignore everyone else, but suddenly they'd both be interested in campaigning everywhere. In taking an interest in everyone's local issues. In trying to convince everyone that they have your best interest at heart.

I really find if very hard to understand why anyone would be against a national popular vote in principle. Being against it because you're afraid that your side will lose I at least understand, but yeah as discussed above it's not at all obvious what would happen if we switched.

[maizefolk]

Getting back to AerynLee's question, one thing I didn't realize until a couple of years ago is that drawing districts entirely free from any political agenda, but just try to produce compact districts, tends to produce maps that will elect more republicans than democrats. This is because of the way votes are distributed. Many democratic voters live in cities like Detroit where 90+ percent of voters are democratic. Many republican voters living in suburbs or smaller cities where 55-60% of voters are republican. (There are rural counties that at 90+ percent republican, but many fewer total voters live there).

538 had a great feature two years ago where you could redistrict the country using different criteria, including just aiming for compact districts of equal population in each state. When you do that, you end up with about 180 "safe republican" districts, 155 "safe democratic districts" and 100 potentially swing districts. It's just hardwired into where different types of voters choose to live in our nation today.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/#Compact

[caracarn]

Caracarn, as someone who identifies with the democratic party more than the republican one but still doesn't like the direction the party appears to be headed sometimes, thank you for being willing to cross over and vote for Biden last week. Sincerely.

Don't Trump's election results indicate that you as a reasonable Republican (who doesn't want to support a woefully incompetent person in office simply because he carries your teams flag) are very much in the minority on the right?

Could you expand on your reasoning here, GuitarStv? Since we don't have data on the counterfactual scenario of what would have happened if the Dems had nominated Sanders or Warren I don't see what the 2020 election can tell us about how many people there are out there like caracarn (willing to vote for Biden but not willing to vote for Sanders/Warren).

I was expecting that there would be many reasonable Republicans voting against Trump this year.  That doesn't seem to have been the case.  Biden's pretty centrist.  Republicans seem to have overwhelmingly continued to support Trump though . . . which makes me think that my assumption about there being many reasonable Republicans was wrong.

I feel there are two main drivers.  Christians (a group I also am part of and which I think stuck with Trump for the shallow pro-life reason) and non-college educated whites who I believe just want to blow the whole things up.  Somewhere on this board I saw a post by @WhiteTrashCash  that summed up the thinking of the rural voter in what is their "world". 

I have been asking any Christian I can, including leaders in my church, if the blind allegiance to a pro-life candidate does more harm than good.  In my opinion it does without question.  Biden is also a Christian, and more importantly one who is active, unlike Trump.  More importantly the key "test" many Christians follow is the fruit in someone's life, i.e. does what they do and how they act fall in line with Christian mores.  I pray I do not need to explain to anyone how Trump fails that barometer miserably.  So my point to my fellow Christians is really two fold.  1) Is electing a pro-life president that important that we look the other way on literally everything else in his behavior? and 2) Why do we think removing Roe v. Wade and outlawing abortion as a choice is the right thing to do?  I will say I have gotten some people thinking especially on the last point.  Legislating morality, which is what making abortion illegal would be, is a dead end street in my opinion and one the Prohibition is the poster child for showing.  Christians wanted to ban alcohol for the same reasons that want to ban abortion, because it is "bad" while failing to give thought that it is "bad" to a Christian but not necessarily to someone else.  Therefore why are we trying to force (legislate) a choice onto someone?  My argument is a Christian will not go get an abortion, so having it legal is not more harmful to me as a Christian than the fact that we have bars that serve alcohol is or that I can buy it at the grocery store.  I have had Christians during this election go down the path of "Biden will be aborting babies at birth!  Biden will create more abortions" to which I say, "How?  Is he going to do door to door and drag pregnant women to abortion clinics when they do not want one?"  I try to explain abortion is already legal.  Electing a pro-choice president will not make it MORE legal!  And it also will not result in abortions being performed on those who do not want them, which is amazing to me that I even have to explain this, but sadly I do.  As I said, I have gotten thanks from people for pushing back and challenging their position in a rational way.  Biden is Catholic, but not pro-life from a legislative standpoint, similar to me.  It does not make him any less Christian, it just makes him more rational on the realities of what we are talking about, understanding that banning abortions will likely be much more harmful and leaving things as they stand does nothing to those who are against them.

[caracarn]

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

This is often repeated, by you and others, and I think always nonsensical. What would happen if we had a national popular vote is that the people would decide who the president is. Not Californians and New Yorkers, all the people.

Republicans in California would suddenly matter. Democrats in Alabama would suddenly matter. Heck, even Democrats in California and Republicans in Alabama would suddenly matter; right now they don't really because it's a foregone conclusion about which way their state is going to vote.

And there are a lot of people who don't vote because "my vote doesn't really matter". And if they're talking about the presidency and they're not in a swing state, they're absolutely correct. A national popular vote would make everyone's votes matter.

Sherr I agree, and am surprised given what we are talking about in this election it is not more evident.  The Republicans, besides the Democrats owning the big cities only lost by single digit percentages nationwide in two elections.  How many California or Illinois or New York Republicans did not vote.  How many Ohio, or Tennessee or Georgia Democrats did the same?  We have no idea is this boogeyman of Republicans would never win would happen.  I believe it would also force each party to be more moderate, which works for me as I think both parties are far too fringe right now.

[FIPurpose]

Going to a straight national popular vote means California, New York, and a few other places decide for the whole country. Basically coastal states with large urban populations. This year it came down to Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. A lot more representative of the country than running up the vote totals in large coastal cities.

This is often repeated, by you and others, and I think always nonsensical. What would happen if we had a national popular vote is that the people would decide who the president is. Not Californians and New Yorkers, all the people.

Republicans in California would suddenly matter. Democrats in Alabama would suddenly matter. Heck, even Democrats in California and Republicans in Alabama would suddenly matter; right now they don't really because it's a foregone conclusion about which way their state is going to vote.

And there are a lot of people who don't vote because "my vote doesn't really matter". And if they're talking about the presidency and they're not in a swing state, they're absolutely correct. A national popular vote would make everyone's votes matter.

Sherr I agree, and am surprised given what we are talking about in this election it is not more evident.  The Republicans, besides the Democrats owning the big cities only lost by single digit percentages nationwide in two elections.  How many California or Illinois or New York Republicans did not vote.  How many Ohio, or Tennessee or Georgia Democrats did the same?  We have no idea is this boogeyman of Republicans would never win would happen.  I believe it would also force each party to be more moderate, which works for me as I think both parties are far too fringe right now.

It would force states to boost their voting numbers. Imagine if we moved to a popular vote and then states like CA and NY implemented something like a mandatory voting law in order to boost their numbers for president or some other similar laws that expand voter access. It would force all the other states to enact similar laws if they ever wanted a chance at influencing the election. A national popular vote is a positive pressure on States to increase their voter turnout since a higher voter turnout would increase their influence.

[Montecarlo]

So @Montecarlo

The point is that after looking very hard, lots of well trained people did not find any evidence of what you claim is statistically proven.

There is fraud.  It does not impact outcomes.  And it had been caught.  Most importantly to this conversation there is 0 chance the presidential election had enough fraud to matter yet you keep arguing minutiae for three pages.  Your point that one precinct has thousands of fraudulent votes is a virtual certainty to be zero based on the controls in place that I and other have mentioned.  Not to even mention that the number of precincts with over enough eligible voters to have that much fraud be less than 25% of its total, assuming 100% turnout (again a virtual certainty to be 0) is also a fraction of the 100,000 precincts is something you miss in your well thought out math exercise.  So again, just stop.

There's a lot to dissect here.  And it really makes me think you are knee-jerk reacting instead of actually reading what I wrote.

Yes, that was exactly what I said.  Which makes me think you didn't read what I wrote.
virtual certainty = non-zero, which was the only thing I was defending
That's a great point, but you're talking about changing an input, not disputing the fact it's something that can be mathematically modelled

So you're basically agreeing with me in a very disagreeable way!

[Montecarlo]

No. I was talking about you extrapolating about the chances of one thing, based on an unrelated thing. As I quoted you very specifically to make that clear.

So it's posts like this that make me feel gaslit.

The ONLY time I talked about extrapolation is here:

So even if the Trump investigations and the lawsuits turn up some really bad issue somewhere, imho chances are it's a one-off and it would be dangerous to extrapolate.

So you're accusing me of the exact opposite of what I said!  Did you even read or do you just hate me because I don't smear all Trump voters like other posters?

Your full post, including the "very specific" relevant quote:

chances are there is at least one polling location that did something fraudulent that affected thousands of votes

I am laughing uproariously at the rich irony that the person who posted this absolutely perfect example of Gambler's Fallacy -- which is also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy -- has a user name you couldn't make up.

I've admitted the problem with "chances are", but there is nothing extrapolatory here.  It's a classic problem with a low-probability event with a lot of opportunities to happen.  This is a problem of assumptions, not extrapolations.  You're really, really reaching to find your ironic connection to gambler's fallacy and it's coming off a lot like a personal attack.

[Freedom2016]

Check out this reporting today on one of the lawsuits the Trump administration has brought. Note that the attorney for Trump goes out of his way to say they are *not* alleging fraud!

https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/lawyers-litigating-for-trump-suddenly-remember-their-licenses-are-on-the-line-if-they-lie-to-a-judge/?fbclid=IwAR3qdlHUbMqtqiuXB-k3oRPMdyd5OIrnZ0hVJuN53oZwgr5l_gPxz6IG9FY

THE COURT: In your petition, which is right before me — and I read it several times — you don’t claim that any electors or the Board of the County were guilty of fraud, correct? That’s correct?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: Your Honor, accusing people of fraud is a pretty big step. And it is rare that I call somebody a liar, and I am not calling the Board of the DNC or anybody else involved in this a liar. Everybody is coming to this with good faith. The DNC is coming with good faith. We’re all just trying to get an election done. We think these were a mistake, but we think they are a fatal mistake, and these ballots ought not be counted.

THE COURT: I understand. I am asking you a specific question, and I am looking for a specific answer. Are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these 592 disputed ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.

THE COURT: Are you claiming that there or improper influence upon the elector to these 592 ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present. no.