Your vote for president won't matter. Trump has already conceded Oregon.
Message to Texas Democrats:
Your vote for president won't matter. Democrats pretend Texas is "in play," but they know it isn't. They have conceded it.
America can do better.
This week's email brought yet another iteration of this map and the story that goes with it. Red states. Blue states. A few contested states.
The map shows which states are the tipping point. If Biden carries Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, he wins. If he doesn't, he loses. Whether he wins Oregon by 1% or 15% doesn't matter. Whether Trump wins West Virginia by 1% or 15% doesn't matter. And, realistically, given the partisan balances in various states, if Biden is tied in Pennsylvania then he will surely win Oregon and Trump will win West Virginia.
Every tiny margin of policy and message matters -- but in only three states. About 92% of Americans are essentially spectators. Voters in most of America will go through the motions of a presidential vote, with their state going to its predicted result, so their vote has no realistic effect on the tipping point for the election.
Republicans in southern Oregon complain about their irrelevance. The voters in the Portland metro area decide everything, they say. They move to undemocratic tactics, like leaving the state capitol during a session to prevent a quorum. They support election-denying candidates. They publish proclamations saying Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. They protest government; they don't share in governing. They fly flags that say F*** Biden.
It isn't good for America's democracy. The problem is bigger than the Electoral College, but our election system is one more reason for Americans to conclude that the institutions of government are rigged against them. The election will be decided by distant voters in a few "battleground" states.
Americans might have a better sense of engagement with their government if they had a rational sense of buy-in. Presidential elections are a bit like a Mega-bucks lottery drawing in which people all across the country are urged to buy a ticket, but everyone knows that the winning ticket is going to be sold in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, not in their town.
The current system causes a vote to get swallowed up in the statewide election of electors. In a popular election every vote, every drop in the bucket, adds toward the favored candidate's possible win.
America would be better off with more buy-in to the institutions of our democracy. Knowing your vote counts would be one small step in the right direction.
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15 comments:
Democracy at the presidential level in the gray states is vigorous. So why is that? A related question is why a state such as Texas might become another gray state in the future. What makes Oregon blue? As for the electoral college, Democrats--Hillary Clinton--won the popular vote for President in 2016; if that had determined the outcome of the 2016 election, the voters in New York and Los Angeles would have been to the rest of the U.S. like the Portland voters are now to the eastern Oregon and southern Oregon voters.
Unfortunately Republicans will NEVER agree to do away with the electoral college because it is literally their only chance of winning the presidency.
Red and blue don’t matter; what the parties stand for matters. The GOP has become a personality cult that stands for Trump and whatever he wants. Trump is a convicted criminal who doesn’t believe in election results he doesn’t like and wants revenge against those who would hold him accountable for his crimes. It’s hard to believe so much of the country supports that, but maybe his son Don Jr. was right when he called America “a third-world shithole.”
“They move to undemocratic tactics, like leaving the state capitol during a session to prevent a quorum. They support election-denying candidates. They publish proclamations saying Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. They protest government; they don't share in governing. They fly flags that say F*** Biden.”
What Peter describes is a political party with a bad case of oppositional defiant disorder, a childhood mental health condition that’s now affecting half the adults in the country. Symptoms became severe after we elected our first Black president, and the GOP became known as the party of “NO!”
Pennsylvania is interesting. You have Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburgh in the West, and Alabama in the Middle. It could go either way.
I remember going to vote for Jimmy Carter in Alaska when the radio announced Regan had won the presidency. It was deflating and felt like my vote didn’t matter, but I went in anyway. When I hear some MAGA person talk in Washington, I think, oh well, your vote won’t count anyway. They now wait until all voters have voted before announcing who won, but the idea of our vote not mattering is a problem. Hilary Clinton would have made a good president and won the popular vote.
Going to a popular vote for president would cement the dominance of urban America over rural America. Rural people in the entire country would end up in the same powerless position as rural voters in Oregon are with respect to state issues.
In a country this large and diverse, there has to be some accommodation for the lives and beliefs of different people in different areas. Our current system isn’t close to being perfect; switching to a popular vote for President might make it less perfect.
The problems we currently have are not going to be solved by tweaks to the political system. What we need are big new ideas that can attract widespread support. Or, failling that, big new charismatic leaders who can push through major changes.
If charisma were strongly correlated to wisdom, it would be a much safer world. But we do not live in that world…
The most likely State Senator from my District is the son of the Lunatic barred from running again because of not showing up for work. His Campaign is is proudly based on Voting No on every Bill which comes up for a Vote in Salem. His counterpart as a Representative, who will also likely win in this District cost his Constituents in Cave Junction the funding they had requested to upgrade their failing water system. People get the Government they deserve and elect. Unfortunately, we all tend to dufftthe consequences of putting these ideologues in Office.
Yep.
The republicans have no policies that actually help people.
Maybe Idaho can take over Cave Junction.
Makes as much sense.
Whether it counts or not is a forgone conclusion. I’ve gone out of my way to spread the message to friends overseas, where you’ll hear the most anti Trump rhetoric, to make sure and vote Biden so the message is loud and clear via the popular vote that Trump and his policies of hate aren’t welcome in America 🇺🇸
Our current system obviously isn’t working and it's in the process of being undermined by Republican disregard for elections and the law. Instead of doing the same old thing, we should try something new – ranked choice voting and no electoral college. Republicans oppose both these moves, which strongly suggests they have a lot of merit.
If they take the Robinsons, Father and Son, I'm all for it.
Republican "opposition to any changes in our Voting systems are, in my opinion, prima facie evidence of the urgent need for change. Elimination of the Electoral College is one thing, but perhaps a more accessible option would be Legislation , enforceable, which concretely binds a States Electors to the winner of the Popular Vote in that State.
Any new system like Ranked Choice, or my preference, STAR will require lots of education for the Voters, a significant percentage of whom seem barely literate enough to read and understand Ballot Measures, no matter how clearly they are written.
Any new system like Ranked Choice, or my preference, STAR will require lots of education for the Voters, a significant percentage of whom seem barely literate enough to read and understand Ballot Measures, no matter how clearly they are written.
Which summarizes why complex systems like this might not be a good idea. You have to design a system that matches the abilities of its users. The average IQ is 100. By definition, half of voters are below that IQ.
Portland is about to be a test case this November. I won’t be surprised if it turns into an epic clusterf*ck.
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