Sunday, May 20, 2007

Was my vote wasted?

It is an interesting question - did it pay to vote - if your vote was for the losing candidate?

In the US presidential election, the number of electoral votes acquired by the winning candidates in each state are forwarded to Washington D.C. - where they are compiled and the total number of electoral votes won by each candidate is determined.

Losing candidates in these 49 states are not entitled to any electoral votes.

Since all of the states electoral votes are forwarded to Washington D.C. as having been won by the winning candidate, the losing candidate’s votes have in effect been transformed into votes for the winning candidate.

Should a voter favor pulling troops out of Iraq and voted for a likeminded presidential candidate who lost to a candidate favoring keeping troops in Iraq, the voter’s vote in effect would be transmitted as a vote for keeping troops in Iraq. Should a voter oppose gun control and voted for a presidential candidate who also opposed gun control but lost to a presidential candidate favoring gun control, his vote would be transmitted as a vote favoring gun control.

In most popular elections - your vote might count at least in determing how close the election was. Because of the electoral voting system in use for Presidential elections, your vote for the losing candidate effectively became a vote for the winning candidate.

About 50% of eligible voters do not vote. This does not reduce the amount of electoral votes transmitted to Washington D.C. In effect this means that non votes are transferred to Washington D.C. as votes for the winning candidate.

The total number of electoral votes transmitted to Washington (538) remains the same regardless of the number of votes cast by U.S. voters.

So - if there is a third party candidate - can he/she win? We will discuss this in our next post.

A voters choice, or a game of chance?

November 2008 is coming up fast and with it a new presidential election.

In honor of this occasion we have decided to start a blog to discuss
and analyze one of the most unique aspects of our presidential voting
system, the Winner Take All section.

The results of this analysis will surprise 95% of the voting public.

Today - we will start with the "Winner Take All" aspect of the electoral voting system.

The U.S. presidential election actually consists of 51 separate elections, one in each state plus one in the District of Columbia. (for the sake of simplicity we will refer to the District of Columbia as a state). Forty nine of these states follow the "Winner Take All" system, two do not.

Any presidential candidate acquiring a plurality of the popular votes within each of these 49 states, wins ALL of that state’s electoral votes.

The number of electoral votes acquired by the winning candidates in each state are forwarded To Washington D.C. where they are compiled and the total number of electoral votes won by each candidate is determined.

Losing candidates in these 49 states are not entitled to any electoral votes.

On our next blog post, we will discuss what happens to those votes cast for the losing candidate.
Were they wasted? Did it pay to vote?