You can't have one electoral vote. Did you read the explanation? In all the
states, except 2, the party that gets the majority of the popular votes,
gets all of the electoral votes.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank Ventura
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 6:57 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Very Hard Sell
OK, I agree that a landslide is unlikely. However a Trump victory by only
one electoral vote is still a Trump victory.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 6:44 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Very Hard Sell
Here's what I found on swing states, that seemed to be relevant. It seems
like a landslide win changes all the rules. So if you think that Trump could
win the election by a landslide, then the calculation of how to vote might
change. But given what we know about the unpopularity of both candidates and
the close popular vote in recent presidential elections, Trump winning by a
landslide seems unlikely.
In U.S. presidential elections, the Electoral College system allows each
state to decide the method by which it awards electors. Since in most states
the legislature wants to increase the voting power of the majority, all
states except Maine and Nebraska (explained below) use a winner-take-all
system where the candidate who wins the most popular votes in a state wins
all of that state's electoral votes. As a result, presidential candidates
have reduced incentives to spend time or resources in states they are likely
to win or lose by a sizable margin.
Since a national campaign is interested in electoral votes, rather than the
national popular vote, it tends to ignore states that it believes it will
win easily; since it will win these without significant campaigning, any
effort put into them is essentially wasted. A similar logic dictates that
the campaign avoid putting any effort into states that it knows it will
lose.
For example, a Republican candidate can expect to easily win many of the
Southern states like Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina.
Similarly, the same candidate can expect to lose most of the traditionally
liberal New England states, such as Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island. Regional exceptions exist; New Hampshire is a swing state in
New England, and North Carolina and Florida are swing states in the American
South.
In Maine and Nebraska, the apportionment of electoral votes parallels that
for Senators and Congressional Representatives. Two electoral votes go to
the person who wins a plurality in the state, and a candidate gets one
additional electoral vote for each Congressional District in which they
receive a plurality. Both of these states have relatively few electoral
votes (for the 2004 election, Maine had 4 and Nebraska had 5; the minimum is
3) and are usually not considered swing states (Maine is generally
considered a Democratic-leaning state while Nebraska is typically thought to
be a Republican state). Despite their different rules, only once has either
state split its electoral votes: Nebraska in 2008, giving 4 votes to
Republican John McCain and one to Democrat Barack Obama (who swept Maine).
In the 2004 elections, Colorado voted on Amendment 36, an initiative which
would have allocated the state's electoral votes in proportion to the
popular vote in the state. The initiative would have taken effect
immediately, applying to the selection of electors in the same election.
However, the initiative failed and Colorado remains under the
winner-take-all system that is present in 48 states.
In presidential politics of the United States, a swing state (also,
battleground state or purple state, in reference to red states and blue
states) is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming
support in securing that state's electoral college votes. Such states
receive a large share of the attention and campaigning of political parties
in presidential elections, since winning these states is the best
opportunity for a party to gain electoral votes. Non-swing states are
sometimes called safe states, because one candidate has strong enough
support that they can safely assume that they will win the state's votes.
In May 2015, Politico created a list in collaboration with Larry Sabato and
his news organization. A junior columnist, Kyle Kondik, touted Ohio,
Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Florida as the seven
states most likely to be contested in the general election. However, this
article was released before Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican
nominee.[4] Additionally, Trump's candidacy has put some previously safe
Republican states, such as Utah, into play.[5][6]
A broad pundit consensus, although not clearly evaluated, came forth
throughout 2015 regarding the status of battleground states for the 2016
presidential election. Contributors included Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball,
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, and analysts at 270ToWin.[7]
From the results of presidential elections from 2004 through to 2012, a
general conclusion can be reached that the Democratic and Republican parties
start with a default electoral vote count of about 191 each.[8] In this
scenario, the twelve competitive states are Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New
Hampshire, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Nevada,
Colorado, and North Carolina.[9] However, the margins needed to constitute a
swing state are vague. In addition, local factors may come into play - for
example, Utah was the reddest state in 2012, despite being not that
Republican in general.[10] In addition, some reports have even suggested a
Democratic presidential victory there in 2016 if there is a nationwide
blowout.[11] Left-leaning blue states in the American Rust Belt may become
more Republican, due to Trump's appeal to poorer blue-collar workers whose
job opportunities have reduced in recent years, and generally represent a
large portion of the white American populace.
Finally, the nominations of historically unpopular candidates such as
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could conceivably alter, or perhaps skew,
such assumptions.
States where the election has a close result become less meaningful in
landslide elections. Instead, states which vote similarly to the national
vote proportions may be more useful. For example, the closest states in the
1984 presidential election were Minnesota and Massachusetts; however, a
campaign strategy centered on them would be unlikely to be meaningful in the
electoral college, as even if Democratic candidate Walter Mondale had won
Massachusetts, he still would have been crushed.[2] Rather, the
"tipping-point state" which gave President Ronald Reagan his decisive vote
was Michigan; Reagan won Michigan by 19 percentage points, quite similar to
his national margin of 18.2%.[2] Michigan would have been a more relevant
state to the election results had the 1984 election come out closer.
Similarly, Senator Barack Obama's narrow victory in Indiana in the 2008
election might overstate Indiana's importance as a swing state; Obama lost
Indiana in the closer 2012 election, but was still reelected.[2][3]
Trump's supposedly 'eclectic' policy mix appeals to a different kind of
voter than what would be considered a default Republican. In addition,
considering his anti-immigration stances, Trump's ability to capture swing
states with growing Latino populations such as Colorado and Florida is
questionable. However, he could compensate for these losses by winning
greater amounts of votes in the generally white Midwest. Thus, Trump would
seek to make states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and possibly Michigan
the swing states for the 2016 election.[12][13]
Miriam
