Electoral Stuff

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.