I am scared about
this American election. One of the candidates, Clinton, is pretty
boring, but can do the job, and the other is Trump. There is no way
he can be trusted with control of a superpower, especially one with
thousands of nuclear weapons.
There are two things
about this that spark my terror. The first is that Americans often
often too apathetic to vote, especially if they think their vote
isn't needed. Clinton has been ahead in the polls through much of the
campaign, and is currently sitting at around a 3% ahead. This goes up
and down, and I'm scared that if it seems too one-sided by election
day, the Clinton voters won't bother to vote.
The way it works is
that the win goes to the candidate who can get the most electoral
votes. In most states it doesn't matter by how much they win, as all
of that state's votes go to the winner. Some states are more
sensible, but not the majority. Win a state by one vote, and it is as
if their entire population voted for the winner. Winning by more than
that doesn't change a thing.
National opinion
polls don't take this into consideration.
What matters are the
winner-take-all states where things are neck-and-neck.
Trump voters, behind
in the polls, know that their votes are critical, and will turn out
in better numbers. It won't matter in the Clinton states, or in the
Trump states, but might control the swing states.
The other thing that
scares me are the people who don't want Trump, and don't find Clinton
appealing enough, and won't vote for either.
A significant number
of life-long Republicans fall into this category. They refuse to vote
for Trump, but can't bring themselves to vote for Clinton. The
reality of the American system is that responsible voters only have
two ways to vote.
Let's say some
winner-take-all state has a vote split 44% for Clinton, 45% Trump, 9%
for tiny parties, and 2% Republican that do NOT want Trump. It will
swing on what happens to those disenchanted Republican voters. Let's
say they all decide to either not vote, or to vote for one of the
tiny parties. Sure, they are not supporting Trump, but they are not
stopping him either. In this example, Trump wins the state and all of
its electoral votes. If those Republicans were to understand the
danger of their actions and instead vote Clinton, the win and the
electoral votes would go to her.
There is also a body
of disenchanted Democrats who wanted Bernie Sanders for president,
and who are refusing to pick the better of Trump and Clinton, and
will throw their votes away.
It will all depend
on how the vote lands on election day. Surely you remember the vote
of 2000, when George W Bush took the presidency with a smaller
overall vote than the loser, Al Gore. It came down to one incredibly
close vote in the state of Florida. They recounted there over and
over. When the dust cleared, Bush got the nod. He had received
50,456,002 votes to Gore's 50,999,897 in the country as a whole. Bush
won with 271 electoral votes to 266. If even the tiniest state had
flipped the other way, so would have gone the election.
Out of all the
things that Americans could do to strengthen their democracy, getting
rid of the electoral college system should be front and centre. There
should be one ballot for president cast by every voter, and they
should be all counted together in one huge pile.
Almost as bad is
what will likely happen with the other voting that day as well. All
of the seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, along
with 1/3 of the Senate. For any president to be fully effective, it
is critical that they get a House and Senate they can work with.
A potential mess.
No comments:
Post a Comment