A Shortcut Guide to the Strange USA Voting System

[buster]

Well at least itââ,¬â,,¢s strange to many Canadians. We vote in our local ridings and send our member to Parliament. Whichever party wins the most ridings (or seats) gets to choose who will be Prime Minister. We do have an appointed Senate but its power is minimal.

South of the border there are 3 votes that matter, and Iââ,¬â,,¢m leaving out all the other things that get voted on during their election.

1. House of Representatives, which is similar to our Parliament. Each area of sort of equal population gets to vote for one representative. The winners will gather in the House of Representatives. And the party with the most seats has a dominant position.

2. The Senate. The strange design of the Senate has survived because it was intended to protect the power and rights of the individual states. As time has gone by, the usual democracy's cry of ââ,¬Ëœone person, one voteââ,¬â,,¢ is ignored more and more. The problem is that each state has exactly 2 senators. So if in the future one state grows until it has one third of the USA population, it will have only 2 senators to represent all those people. If another states shrinks til only a few citizens remain, they will have 2 senators.

3. The President. US citizens do not vote directly for the president ââ,¬â€œ they vote for electoral representatives who will go the Washington and vote for them. And this pretty complex system can be explained with these observations:

a) each state has its own vote for president, and the candidate either wins the state or loses it.
b) In 48 of the 50 states, whoever wins the popular vote in that state gets ALL the electoral votes for that state. The number of points assigned to a state depends on the population.
c) You can readily see that if one candidate wins some states at 90%, and loses some by 0.01%, that candidate can easily lose, even though most of the country voted for him or her.

As you watch the lead up to the election, you will hear about the popular vote, which is not that important, and you will hear about the ââ,¬Ëœswing statesââ,¬â,,¢, which might go Democrat or Republican. This is where the real battle is, and in 2016 Trumpââ,¬â,,¢s handlers were excellent in their fighting of this critical part of the battle.

So concentrate on Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. This is where that battle will be won or lost.

Note: Iââ,¬â,,¢m hoping Fox can join here and correct my errors or my emphasis. Been many years since I studied this stuff.

[buster]

I just found this amazing little game hosted by CBC where each swing state is explained and you make your choice as to who is going to win the state. I did it a few times, trying always to remember that Republicans always get out and vote, and young Democrats tend to stay at home. Mail in ballots may change this. Nice simple graphics.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/us/2020/battlegrounds/

[Jason]

I took an OAC in American History, probably only you, Buster and some of us young'uns are going to remember what an OAC is. Anyway, one part of it was in American government which, of course, I was the most interested in.

I think some components make sense like the whole checks and balances approach. In theory, it's great, in practice, it barely functions. Too much checking, too little balance.

The other problem is inertia. The Senate wasn't just designed to be the state voices, it was also created so that the system couldn't swing too widely and governing experience could be built up since they're elected every 6 years while the House members are elected every 2 years. But there are still Senate elections every two years, but only for 1/3 of the Senate seats. So the Senate only changes incrementally. While the House could change every 2 years, over 90% of its members are re-elected most of the time. But party control (of the House) can frequently change.

So the US-style of government - I like it and I hate it. But it does make for interesting elections, at least sometimes.

Thanks for the link. There is another one, that I'll have to search for, that looks at all the states, for deciding electoral college votes with state polls for support and then lets you figure out what happens when so much % swings from one side to the other. Popular vote matters, because it's barometer of what is happening at the state level, not just the national. Lots of states move with it. But the final win depends on the battleground states as you've mentioned. I saw a CNN segment that was putting it down to only 4 states based on the most recent polling: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona and Florida, because those are the only states that could swing at this point and have the votes necessary to take them over. Biden is ahead in three of them (Pennsylvania, far ahead), with Ohio, a statistical tight. They were saying that Biden could lose either of the states that he's closest in (Ohio and I think Florida) but that Trump has to win both to eke him over.

The sad part of these swing states mattering so much is that president's usually spend time campaigning almost entirely in them. So states like California (which has the most electoral votes) are virtually ignored by both parties because the Democrats usually have them sewn up. I think the last time the presidential vote got California was when Reagan first got in.

I do think that Biden will win because Trump has to have all the planets aligned in his his favour to win this time. So there's a chance but only a small one that he could be re-elected. I'm not an irrational person but I feel like saying this aloud is going to jinx it so I hesitate to voice it to many. If they don't get this lying sociopath dictator-wannabe out, the US is going to shit.