2016 US ELECTION: Official Results Thread

[Simon_Jester]

If he's the only one who does it? Nothing. If some dozens of others out of the 300 or so electors whose states went to Trump do the same thing? Election gets kicked to the House of Representatives, then they get to pick whoever the hell they want as far as I can tell.

If a couple dozen of them cast their electoral ballots for Sec. Clinton, she wins, no need for the House to get involved.

Three dozen or more; Trump is slated to get 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232. Subtract 36, add them to Clinton, and he still has 270. Trump wins.

Subtract 37 electoral votes, and now nobody has a majority, it goes to the House.

Subtract 38 or more, and if and only if at least 38 of them go to Clinton, Clinton wins. Otherwise, it goes to the House.

And while I can remotely imagine 38 of the 306 electors (ten or fifteen percent) refusing to vote for Trump, I cannot imagine all of them deciding to vote for Clinton. Abstentions would be very likely.

Admittedly, I'm not sure what that is here. While Trump is already proving to be an utter catastrophe before even being sworn in or officially made President elect by the EC, and in this case a fairly strong case could be made for the EC going against Trump in favour of Clinton, all the concerns about setting a precedent of faithless electors deciding the election result still stand, and could easily bite us in the ass in the future.

Honestly, it would probably just result in the dissolution of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is, oh, half a dozen signatures away from being permanently neutered as an organization, due to the number of states that have already signed the "just give our votes to whoever wins a majority of the popular vote" pact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... te_Compact

If about 105 more electoral votes' worth of states sign this arrangement, it comes into force rather decisively.

Well, it does seem a bit difficult for me. Because if the black box produces a result you need or would like to happen, this kind of reinforces the value of the black box in the eyes of other people who want the same result.

The catch is that as a black box for American presidential elections, the Electoral College is unpredictable. It selected Bush in favor of Gore in 2000, but it could just as easily have gone the other way; the margins were extremely narrow in both the popular vote and the electoral college.

Here, we have a situation where it selects Trump in favor of Clinton, despite Clinton having a very significant lead in the nationwide popular vote, because Trump won narrow majorities in critical states while Clinton won huge majorities in states that were never really contested. That is enough to cause Democrats to dislike it.

But, hypothetically, we are now discussing a situation where the Electoral College, disgusted at this outcome, sees 15% or so of its membership refuse to endorse the Republican presidential candidate, on the grounds that he is a loathsome pile of filth... which would cause Republicans to dislike it.

The Electoral College is not a reliable system for doing the bidding of one party or the other. Small changes in political circumstances can easily result in it favoring one side, then the other, or even cheating BOTH sides in the same election.

Accepting the black box working as okay when it elects the right outcome is undermining the goal of getting rid of it. At some level it also undermines the criticism of the box, since people notice that the person is only unhappy about the outcome of the black box when it is against his desires.

And no one here is doing that, including the person you snapped at for doing that.

Remember that, in my hypothetical of the EC making Clintion president, she would have veto powers. So any change would either have to be something she agrees with, or somehow bypasses the veto.

Again, the simplest and most direct way to neutralize the Electoral College completely bypasses the federal government, as it is a state-level compact. In principle it would still be vulnerable to "faithless electors" or the like, but this would be far, far less of an issue than the overall chaos the Electoral College creates at present.

Does it actually matter which states candiates 'pay attention to'? The whole ludicrously long and convoluted campaign process is counterproductive anyway. There is little correlation between a candidate making more campaign stops in a state and whether their post-election behaviour actually favours that state; the location of their donor's business interests is far more relevant. The unequal distribution of campaign stops is frankly a minor issue and a distraction from the more serious problems with the US electoral system.

If all votes count equally, then at least people living in states like California, New York, and Texas have recourse for making displeasure with presidential policy known. At the moment, they have no meaningful recourse because there is no realistic way that any Democrat can lose California or New York, or that any Republican can lose Texas.

In effect, every election is being decided by semirandomly sampling about 10-15 of our fifty states. The process ignores the other 35-40 of them, because their electoral votes are predictable and cancel each other out.

This is, in and of itself, a huge flaw in the democratic process, and fixing it really can't hurt.

[Tribble]

The problem with doing it on a state level is that they all have to do it at once or one side gets an immediate advantage. Like if California did it and was the only big state to do so at the time, the Democrats won't win the election due to only getting part of the electoral votes, while the Republican gets all of Texas'.

Right, it's not like even that level of reform is going to be easy. One could argue that smaller states benefit from "winner take all" the most because their influence is greater than if their electors were proportional. It's an uphill battle for sure.

Honestly, it would probably just result in the dissolution of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is, oh, half a dozen signatures away from being permanently neutered as an organization, due to the number of states that have already signed the "just give our votes to whoever wins a majority of the popular vote" pact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... te_Compact

If about 105 more electoral votes' worth of states sign this arrangement, it comes into force rather decisively.

So far the majority of the states that entered into this arrangement are solidly Democrat, I don't see much of a change happening unless a bunch of Republican states join as well.

[The Romulan Republic]

Last I heard, every state that's signed on is blue. Their are two states (Pennsylvania and Michigan, both typically Democratic states facing recounts after narrowly going to Trump) where its pending the approval of the legislature, I believe.

Its almost like Red States know the EC favours them...

[Flagg]

The problem with doing it on a state level is that they all have to do it at once or one side gets an immediate advantage. Like if California did it and was the only big state to do so at the time, the Democrats won't win the election due to only getting part of the electoral votes, while the Republican gets all of Texas'.

Right, it's not like even that level of reform is going to be easy. One could argue that smaller states benefit from "winner take all" the most because their influence is greater than if their electors were proportional. It's an uphill battle for sure.

Honestly, it would probably just result in the dissolution of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is, oh, half a dozen signatures away from being permanently neutered as an organization, due to the number of states that have already signed the "just give our votes to whoever wins a majority of the popular vote" pact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... te_Compact

If about 105 more electoral votes' worth of states sign this arrangement, it comes into force rather decisively.

So far the majority of the states that entered into this arrangement are solidly Democrat, I don't see much of a change happening unless a bunch of Republican states join as well.

Yeah. And some of the Republican proposals will only do it if instead of doing the proportionality by giving the rough percentage of electors by overall statewide vote, they would do it on a House district by district basis, then giving the 2 electors they get from the Senate to the winner. So it would be like a mini national vote where winning the state popular vote wouldn't guarantee a majority of electors and gerrymandering wouldn't just effect their House representation, but how they elect Presidents.

And I know nothing will change nationwide. Even if an Amendment got through the legislature, there are no where close to 3/4 of state legislatures who would approve it.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

Remember that we discussed this in the purely hypothetical and probably rather unlikely context of the Electoral College refusing to elect Trump (regardless of whether they shifted to back Clinton).

In that context, if that happened, it is likely that some red states as well as blue states will be looking for ways to neutralize the Electoral College. Certainly it's a move with wide popular support; most Americans favor it.

But I can easily imagine the 'red state' and 'blue state' attempts to neutralize the Electoral College being incompatible and (in effect) cancelling each other out.

[Tribble]

Hmmmm...

You know, the electoral college system could be an interesting topic for the Coliseum, we haven't had one of those in ages!

Anyone interested in giving that a go?

[Simon_Jester]

What would we be debating, pro or contra its merits?

Who would we find to argue the 'pro' side on the Electoral College?

[Tribble]

What would we be debating, pro or contra its merits?

Who would we find to argue the 'pro' side on the Electoral College?

That's a good question!

I can see a few possible debates here:

A general one on whether or not the Electoral College should be abolished. IMO this would be broadest debate as both sides could also argue whether or not the Electoral College should be reformed, potential replacements, and whether or not any potential replacements would fix the perceived problems of the current system etc.

A more narrow debate specifically on the status quo vs a nationwide popular vote. The Pro side could only defend the status quo and not suggest reforms, while the abolish side could only focus on having a nationwide popular vote as opposed to other methods (eg. suggesting that the president be the head of the party with the most seats in the House of Representatives).

A debate focusing on the status quo vs reforming the Electoral College (as opposed to abolishing it outright)

I'm welcome to other suggestions as well.

I suppose if no one is keen on representing the "pro" side I would be happy to oblidge, though I admit I am not a very good debater lol

[Iroscato]

Just seen that the Coliseum hasn't been used since before I joined up. God dayum. I'd be curious to see the old girl dusted off again.

[Tribble]

Hmmm, one potential obstacle is that the Electoral College itself has evolved significantly since its inception.

While the Coliseum is explicitly 1vs1 it might be better to have this as a multi battle in a regular thread (unless the Moderators are willing to tolerate a 4-way battle in the Coliseum):

One person argues for the electoral college as originally intended (i.e. public chooses the electors while the electors choose the president independently)

One person argues the "winner take all" approach (i.e. the present system in most states, where all the electors in a state go to the candidate with 50% + 1 vote)

One person argues for making the Electoral College proportionate statewide

One person argues for making the Electoral College proportionate nationwide, and/or switching to a nationwide popular vote


IMO there are arguments for/against each, and they are different enough from each other that it would be better that each method be fully represented rather than a general debate on the electoral college vs its abolishment, as it could get rather messy. Note that I did not include whether or not the presidency should be a combined legislature / executive (like in Canada for instance*) as that is a separate debate in and of itself. This debate would simply focus on the election methods for the president as is.

Thoughts? Do you think a 4-way debate could work? Is anyone interested in that? How could it be organised?

Or would it be better to stick to a general "keep or abolish the electoral college" debate?

*technically speaking the Queen via the Governor General is the Executive in Canada, but for practical purposes its the Prime minister and Cabinet

[Flagg]

I'm not interested. Not even in reading it.

I have enough stress without getting into or reading what could easily become a pissing match.

[Tribble]

I'm not interested. Not even in reading it.

I have enough stress without getting into or reading what could easily become a pissing match.

Then... don't read it?

Since my proposal is going way off topic I'll move it into a dedicated thread. Carry on good sirs.

[Flagg]

I'm not interested. Not even in reading it.

I have enough stress without getting into or reading what could easily become a pissing match.

Then... don't read it?

Since my proposal is going way off topic I'll move it into a dedicated thread. Carry on good sirs.

I was just saying "count me out, have fun".

[Tribble]

I'm not interested. Not even in reading it.

I have enough stress without getting into or reading what could easily become a pissing match.

Then... don't read it?

Since my proposal is going way off topic I'll move it into a dedicated thread. Carry on good sirs.

I was just saying "count me out, have fun".

Fair enough

[Highlord Laan]

The repukes will never under any circumstances go along with anything that neuters or in any way restricts or undermines the electoral college. The ratfucking wannabe fascists know it's the only way they can get into power, and now that legions of fucking retards, short-sighted jackasses, alt-right scum, and mindless boomers looking to bring back the 60's have handed the sickening piles of filth all three branches of the government, they'll make every move they can force through to make sure they keep it.

[Gandalf]

The repukes will never under any circumstances go along with anything that neuters or in any way restricts or undermines the electoral college. The ratfucking wannabe fascists know it's the only way they can get into power, and now that legions of fucking retards, short-sighted jackasses, alt-right scum, and mindless boomers looking to bring back the 60's have handed the sickening piles of filth all three branches of the government, they'll make every move they can force through to make sure they keep it.

The Democrats won't get rid of it either, because they need it for different reasons. California and New York together get them a bit under a third of their overall EV goal, and require fuck all campaign work by the DNC. Also, it lets them have their bastion of safe states, meaning that they only need to campaign in a handful of swing states to get over the line.

[FTeik]

In other news Rex Tillerson, Manager of Exxon Mobile (the company that ruined Alaska's coasts in 1989) has been appointed by Trump as his Foreign Secretary to be.

For somebody, who has promised to drain the swamp Mr. Trump is assembling a lot of frogs for his cabinett.

[Raw Shark]

I don't really have anything meaningful to add here, except to point and laugh at the name Rex Tillerson. Hahahahahahahaha...

Who the fuck does that? I mean, besides his parents, obviously.

[LaCroix]

I'm not sure what to make of this...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/peopl ... 74416.html

Elon Musk joins Donald Trump’s advisory council despite criticising President-elect

Elon Musk has joined Donald Trump’s advisory council despite having dismissed Mr Trump as “not the right man for the job” during the election.

The President-elect’s transition team announced the appointment of the Tesla executive alongside Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, on Wednesday.

Musk’s appointment comes weeks after he warned the election is not “the finest moment in our democracy in general”.

[The Romulan Republic]

Musk joins the ranks of the collaborators.

People need to move past this delusion that Trump is a rational person they can work with and influence- he is a pathological narcissist who has surrounded himself with extreme theocrats, corporatists, white supremacists, and Iran hawks, and they will have far more influence than any other token voices he attaches to himself. All his opponents do by playing lap dog is discredit themselves and give Trump political cover, help him obfuscate his true agenda.

[Simon_Jester]

The repukes will never under any circumstances go along with anything that neuters or in any way restricts or undermines the electoral college. The ratfucking wannabe fascists know it's the only way they can get into power, and now that legions of fucking retards, short-sighted jackasses, alt-right scum, and mindless boomers looking to bring back the 60's have handed the sickening piles of filth all three branches of the government, they'll make every move they can force through to make sure they keep it.

The Democrats won't get rid of it either, because they need it for different reasons. California and New York together get them a bit under a third of their overall EV goal, and require fuck all campaign work by the DNC. Also, it lets them have their bastion of safe states, meaning that they only need to campaign in a handful of swing states to get over the line.

The catch is that the Democrats have an equally safe bastion under a national majority vote: the set of all voters who would simply never consider voting Republican. The difference is that those voters are distributed nationwide, rather than in a few key states.

I mean, the only Democratic candidate for president since the Depression who managed to net less than forty percent of the vote was George McGovern.

Whereas the Electoral College's votes went in a 60% or higher supermajority for Republican candidates for Bush the elder (once), Reagan (twice), Nixon (in '72) and Eisenhower (twice). It hasn't happened recently, mostly due to the collapse of Republican ability to appeal to Americans whose political stance is centrist rather than 'somewhere to the right of center.' But it's happened many times.

So I don't think the Democrats have a secure bastion anywhere near as large and stable in the Electoral College as they do in the popular vote.

I would argue that there is a reason that a bunch of Democratic states have pushed the "270 for the national majority winner" initiative, while no or almost no Republican states have done so. When your enemy wins the presidency twice while losing the popular vote because a few swing states flipped, in less than two decades, it tends to tip you off that a system is unlikely to work in your favor.

At the same time, I've seen polls indicating that a majority of both parties' actual membership seems to favor getting rid of the electoral college, which is darkly amusing when it comes to Republicans.

[Flagg]

Simon, so you're saying that because there are more democratic votes, there needs to be some method of giving republicans an equal say despite the will of the majority (aka Democracy)? I'd say that wish is fulfilled by the senate. Why should it also be true of the executive?

[Zaune]

Musk joins the ranks of the collaborators.

People need to move past this delusion that Trump is a rational person they can work with and influence- he is a pathological narcissist who has surrounded himself with extreme theocrats, corporatists, white supremacists, and Iran hawks, and they will have far more influence than any other token voices he attaches to himself. All his opponents do by playing lap dog is discredit themselves and give Trump political cover, help him obfuscate his true agenda.

Take that to its ultimate logical conclusion and you're basically advocating revolt, because what else do you do with a ruler who won't listen to anything he doesn't want to hear without arm-twisting from a third party, and will furthermore ignore anything he doesn't want to hear without outright coercion by someone with the power to make trouble for him? Which in Trump's case is either the Electoral College or a large-scale armed forces mutiny.

Now it may yet come to that; I expect the real test to be if and when he issues an Executive Order to do something stupid like set up actual internment camps. But until then, isn't it at least worth trying to do some damage control? And if anyone can nudge him in the direction of not doing something stupid it's a guy like Elon Musk, because he's exactly the sort of person Trump likes to think he is: The ordinary guy who worked his way to fame and fortune by Hard Work and Ambition and all that feel-good bollocks (and probably by stabbing a few rivals in the back, because no self-made man gets to be that rich with clean hands). And anyone with his gift for public relations should be able to manipulate far, far smarter people than Donnie T and the Yes Men.

[Ralin]

Simon, so you're saying that because there are more democratic votes, there needs to be some method of giving republicans an equal say despite the will of the majority (aka Democracy)? I'd say that wish is fulfilled by the senate. Why should it also be true of the executive?

I think it's pretty obvious that he's arguing the exact opposite and explaining why it's actually not in the Democrats' best interests to keep the Electoral College?

[The Romulan Republic]

Musk joins the ranks of the collaborators.

People need to move past this delusion that Trump is a rational person they can work with and influence- he is a pathological narcissist who has surrounded himself with extreme theocrats, corporatists, white supremacists, and Iran hawks, and they will have far more influence than any other token voices he attaches to himself. All his opponents do by playing lap dog is discredit themselves and give Trump political cover, help him obfuscate his true agenda.

Take that to its ultimate logical conclusion and you're basically advocating revolt, because what else do you do with a ruler who won't listen to anything he doesn't want to hear without arm-twisting from a third party, and will furthermore ignore anything he doesn't want to hear without outright coercion by someone with the power to make trouble for him? Which in Trump's case is either the Electoral College or a large-scale armed forces mutiny.

Or impeachment, or nationwide protests/strikes/civil disobedience that the armed forces are not prepared to crush by force, or the Supreme Court between now and whenever Trump manages to successfully pack it with his judges.

You seem awfully quick to jump to (implicitly armed) revolt. That may be your wish list, but it isn't mine. I do not care to have positions that are not mine ascribed to me, especially when it is an issue I feel so strongly about, and have made my views on clear time and time again.

Now it may yet come to that; I expect the real test to be if and when he issues an Executive Order to do something stupid like set up actual internment camps. But until then, isn't it at least worth trying to do some damage control? And if anyone can nudge him in the direction of not doing something stupid it's a guy like Elon Musk, because he's exactly the sort of person Trump likes to think he is: The ordinary guy who worked his way to fame and fortune by Hard Work and Ambition and all that feel-good bollocks (and probably by stabbing a few rivals in the back, because no self-made man gets to be that rich with clean hands). And anyone with his gift for public relations should be able to manipulate far, far smarter people than Donnie T and the Yes Men.

Granted, Musk has a better chance of swaying him than most, perhaps.

But at the end of the day, Trump's only consistent position is his own self-interest, and Musk will be one relatively sane voice among many.