Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[ag]

Would help if those reporting personal impression would indicate where they voted.

[ag]

Democrats HOLD Guam-At Large.

What is the swing from 2014/2016 though?

It was
DEM 18,345
REP 15,617 back in 2016

So, the swing is in favor of DEMs, though not large. But the Dem candidate defeated a long-time incumbent in the primary this time, so this is impressive for a new candidate.

The governorship is a pick-up for Dems though.

[ag]

Unbelievably, Kendra Horn looks poised to win

Whas this on any radar?

[ag]

NYT has called NM-2 for Dems!

[ag]

Here is a thought, AZ State Senate and AZ state house last night were both two seats short of Dem takeovers. Where does that stand?

Where there any close seats?

No. AZ 6 and AZ 8 are the closest and both were won by double digits.

Those are congressional. And he was asking about the state legislature.

[ag]

American ballots are, frankly, horrible. I understand, many races are run at the same time and having a separate ballot for each race may be somewhat impractical, but these are monstrosities. I mean, have you seen a Mexican ballot?

[ag]

American ballots are, frankly, horrible. I understand, many races are run at the same time and having a separate ballot for each race may be somewhat impractical, but these are monstrosities. I mean, have you seen a Mexican ballot?

It is nice looking. Can you not cross party vote in Mexico though?

You can. There were 6 races that day and we got 6 ballots each: nice and simple. Just mark each ballot separately for whatever party (or independent) you like.

The only complication is that if multiple parties nominate the same candidate, you could vote for that candidate either by marking just one party, or by marking both (or all three): the vote is still valid and it matters for parties' future government financing. But a vote for multiple parties with different candidates would be invalid. Then, again, in my precinct exactly one out of nearly 400 voters made that mistake (I know: I was the president of the precinct this time, so I actually took out each ballot from the box and showed it to all those present).

[ag]

The experience of American democracy is much like that of living in an old, decrepit house in which nothing has been updated or replaced for years, or even decades. Conditions are uncomfortable and ugly, and few things work as intended. But it's rare for anything to be improved, because the tenants are too senile, lazy, impoverished, or stubborn to tolerate change. (And of course the landlord doesn't care as long as the rent check arrives on time each month.)

I know. And, in fact, it is hard to repair: each time you try to replace a particular tube, you risk the whole house collapsing. In this particular case, the only thing that prevents US elections from massive hacking is how disorganised they are: any hacker would have to separately deal with hundreds of completely independent systems. So, trying to make any centralised improvements may only make things worse. But, frankly, ballot design is not such a horribly complicated task - you do not need a Harvard Ph.D. to come up with something more sensible.

[ag]

The experience of American democracy is much like that of living in an old, decrepit house in which nothing has been updated or replaced for years, or even decades. Conditions are uncomfortable and ugly, and few things work as intended. But it's rare for anything to be improved, because the tenants are too senile, lazy, impoverished, or stubborn to tolerate change. (And of course the landlord doesn't care as long as the rent check arrives on time each month.)

I know. And, in fact, it is hard to repair: each time you try to replace a particular tube, you risk the whole house collapsing. In this particular case, the only thing that prevents US elections from massive hacking is how disorganised they are: any hacker would have to separately deal with hundreds of completely independent systems. So, trying to make any centralised improvements may only make things worse. But, frankly, ballot design is not such a horribly complicated task - you do not need a Harvard Ph.D. to come up with something more sensible.

Well, the obvious fix to that is to discontinue all voting machines and move entirely to paper ballots, and have them be manually counted by real human beings from the start. You know, like most countries do.

It might, actually, be both cheaper and faster. There are ways of doing that voting machine thingy well (see India), but US has not mastered it.

[ag]

I read Poliquin will sue, but on what grounds? Ranked choice is not that different from run-offs.

Presumably, the argument would be that it is unconstitutional to change the congressional election process through citizen initiative, because the Constitution gives the power to regulate congressional elections to state legislatures (subject to federal legislation).

This argument was rejected by the Supreme Court in the Arizona Redistricting Commission case in 2015.  But the vote was 5-4, with Kennedy breaking the tie to side with the four liberals.  With Kennedy replaced by Kavanaugh, the outcome could be different if the Court heard the same argument today.

While this may be grounds to sue, I cannot see how it can have any remedy other than ordering a completely new election under the old rules. This election was run based on a certain law. Had the old law and simple plurality rule been in place, both candidates and voters would have behaved differently: in particular, arguably, many of the voters who went for minor candidates on their first choice would have voted for one of the two major candidates (any amount of political scientists would testify to that as well-established fact: it is, in fact, well-established).  Ordering the count to be done based on the old (plurality) rule would not help establish the result that would have obtained had that rule been in place from the beginning. So, the only remedy available is to annul the election and rerun it. If a court orders simply not counting second preferences, it would not be materially different from ordering one of the candidates to be declared elected without any vote whatsoever. Indeed, no plurality vote has been held - so it is not possible to establish its likely outcome without actually organizing it.

[ag]

Actually, how many votes left to count in CA 21? Given the turnout there, even relatively small updates could be decisive. Are we sure Valadao is, actually, elected?

[ag]

I’m sure if Salas turns it down in 2020, Hurtado will enter. There’s no way the DCCC will sh**t the bed on this again with so few other offensive targets left

Again, we first have to see if Valadao is, actually, elected in 2018

[ag]

https://twitter.com/thisdog/status/1062357051756765184

If they somehow get it overturned, retaliate and take the EV away from the hicks.

Given that many voters were voting tactically, as the second round of ballots will, or would be entirely undemocratic to overturn RCV without immediately calling a special election under FPTP. Letting Poliquin just take the seat because he doesn’t like the voting rules would be some Florida-level banana republic stuff.

Exactly. There was no FPTP election run in Maine, period. Giving the seat to Poliquin would be appointing him without an election.

[ag]

https://twitter.com/thisdog/status/1062357051756765184

If they somehow get it overturned, retaliate and take the EV away from the hicks.

Given that many voters were voting tactically, as the second round of ballots will, or would be entirely undemocratic to overturn RCV without immediately calling a special election under FPTP. Letting Poliquin just take the seat because he doesn’t like the voting rules would be some Florida-level banana republic stuff.

Exactly. There was no FPTP election run in Maine, period. Giving the seat to Poliquin would be appointing him without an election.

Agreed, if they are so against RCV, the only other alternative would be to call a new election.

I mean, they would have hard time getting a decent political scientist to testify otherwise. This is not a partisan issue in any sense: this is basic intellectual consistency. Strictly speaking, there should be some sort of a rule that suits like this should be filed before the election: or, at least, some sort of a claim should be made beforehand. The guy agreed to participate in an election conducted by these rules: this should close the book on this.

[ag]

In the first round of voting in LA-SEN 2014, Mary Landrieu got more votes than Bill Cassidy, fair and square. And yet, she's not a Senator anymore. I wonder why Poliquin isn't complaining about that...

You're mixing up apples with oranges here. Cassidy beat Landrieu fair and square in a Runoff. Meanwhile in Maine a Computer decides the Race. How weird! Maine has no Runoff.

No, it's the same thing. If a non FPTP system isn't allowed, then runoffs shouldn't be allowed either. So Cassidy should be kicked out and Landrieu should take her rightful Senate seat.

LOL, imagine you were running in ME-2. Do you really want your Race decided by a Computer? The big Difference is: Runoffs ARE constitutional, Ranked-Choice Voting isn't.

Imagine if you were writing in English: would you want your statements to be understood in English? The thing is: you are writing in the language that looks like English, but is, actually, not Engliish because it is English. And that is so because I say so.

[ag]

In the first round of voting in LA-SEN 2014, Mary Landrieu got more votes than Bill Cassidy, fair and square. And yet, she's not a Senator anymore. I wonder why Poliquin isn't complaining about that...

You're mixing up apples with oranges here. Cassidy beat Landrieu fair and square in a Runoff. Meanwhile in Maine a Computer decides the Race. How weird! Maine has no Runoff.

No, it's the same thing. If a non FPTP system isn't allowed, then runoffs shouldn't be allowed either. So Cassidy should be kicked out and Landrieu should take her rightful Senate seat.

I have this joker on ignore, so maybe you should ask him what the flying fyck he means when he says that a computer will decide the race.

What he has in mind is that he is an idiot and he wants all of us to have no doubt about that.

[ag]

Kim lead in CD-39 whittled down to 711 votes.

This with or without today's LA numbers? Are we still waiting on them, or was OC the last of the night?

OC and LA.

I am confused. This is with both OC and LA? san bernadino is probably even and kim wins then.

Yes, both OC and LA. But I do not believe this is the last update - we still have a few days to go, or don't we?

[ag]

Lo, the final ballots have arrived:

https://twitter.com/KevinMillerPPH/status/1062822404928487425

WHAT

WHY DON'T THEY JUST F**KING COUNT THEM NOW AND BE DONE WITH IT

It is 5 PM. Filling out forms takes time. They do not want to pay overtime.

[ag]

If anything we all should go to a vote by mail system.

Not obvious. US, indeed, has unnecessarily complicated and non-uniform voting procedures. It is possible to achieve high voting turnout without relying on vote-by-mail (a fairly archaic system, given the day and age, anyway). Other countries have managed to figure out how to do run elections cleaner and more efficiently - and few of them, if any, rely on mail.

However, it is udeniable, this way it is more fun. I mean, imagine if we had a couple of weeks to get the results like this not merely from CA and a few others, but from the entire country!