[EL] Tight Results
Rob Richie
rr at fairvote.org
Wed Jan 4 05:39:02 PST 2012
Following up on Thomas Care's response, let me add briefly that Dan gets
this exactly wrong.
The first point is a brief one: the reason there's no reason to recount
Iowa's votes is not because it's a small number of votes. It's because
winning doesn't matter in the least except for media hype. This was
essentially a straw poll, with Iowa's national convention delegates being
chosen much later in the year. There may be no particular connection
between the results last night and how many delegates each candidate has in
Tampa.
The second one addresses the bizarre suggestion that this result is a case
against the national popular plan. In fact, the opposite is true.
Iowa happens to be a swing state -- one of that favored few. With the
winner-take-all rule in place, tilting a few votes in a swing state can
decide the presidency. That can be the case in elections where the national
result isn't particularly close, such as the 2000 presidential election.
The odds of a swing state being close enough for a recount that might
change the national outcome are markedly higher than the odds of a national
recount changing the national popular vote outcome. It's illusory to
believe that reaching an agreed-upon resolution of a close state in such a
situation would be done by the time of the meeting of the electors. So
essentially, as with so many things electoral, our nation's leaders are
putting their heads in the sand and just hoping that we won't have another
Florida-type result in one decisive swing state or won't have a
non-majority winner in the electoral vote.
Our report from last year on a decade of statewide elections and statewide
recounts is relevant here - link here, and summary points pasted in below,
after my signoff:
http://www.fairvote.org/recounts<http://www.fairvote.org/recounts#.TwRVsdRrPw0>
Also, University of Pennsylvania professor Jack Nagel wrote on the relative
likelihood of recounts under the current rules and under the Electoral
College system. Reflecting analysis he's been doing on this, he gave us
this quote in 2006:
"Defenders of the Electoral College often attempt to turn the Florida
2000 fiasco into a reason for rejecting the direct vote alternative.
Granted, they say, Florida was a national nightmare, but the agony would be
far greater if such a dispute extended over the entire nation. They ignore
the obvious answer: The national vote in 2000 was not close enough to
dispute, nor has the popular vote been that close in any recent election.
Using any reasonable assumption about how close an election must be for
recount demands to arise, the likelihood of disputes is greater under the
Electoral College than it would be in a national direct election. This can
be demonstrated both mathematically and historically. Over the full period
when most states permitted citizens to vote for president (1828-2004),
disputable elections have been two to five more frequent under the
Electoral College than they would have been for direct popular elections,
depending on the thresholds assumed for disputability in electorates of
varying sizes."
- Rob Richie
#########
http://www.fairvote.org/recounts<http://www.fairvote.org/recounts#.TwRWGtRrPw1>
from Statewide Election Recounts, 2000-2009
- *Statewide recounts are rare*: Out of the 2,884 statewide general
elections in the 2000 to 2009 decade, there were 18 statewide recounts, 11
of which were deemed "consequential"(with an original victory margin no
more than 0.15 percent). In other words, there was one recount for every
160 statewide elections and one consequential recount for every 262
statewide elections. This pattern was true of most subcategories of
statewide elections as well, including only two consequential recounts out
of the 422 elections in this period for the offices of governor, lieutenant
governor, secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer.
- *Outcome reversals are even rarer*: Over the 2000-2009 decade,
recounts resulted in three reversals out of 11 consequential recounts, or
one out of every 961 statewide elections. These reversals took place in the
races for U.S. Senate in 2008 in Minnesota, auditor in 2006 in Vermont and
governor in 2004 in Washington.
- *Margin shifts in recounts are small*: Statewide recounts resulted in
an average margin swing of 296 votes between the frontrunners, representing
0.027% of the statewide vote in those elections. The median average shift
was 229 votes, with 15 of the 18 recounts changing the victory margin by
fewer than 500 votes.
- *Margin shifts are smaller and recounts rarer in larger electorates*:
Recounts in elections with more voters altered the vote margin by lower
percentages than recounts in elections with fewer voters. In the five cases
in which the total votes cast were above two million, the margin shift was
on average 0.016% of the vote (less than one for every 6,400 votes cast).
In the eight cases in which the total votes cast were fewer than one
million, the margin shift was on average 0.039% (less than one for every
2,500 votes cast). No recount took place in our three largest states.
- *Most states should revise their laws governing statewide recounts*:
Model state laws should establish clear post-election audit procedures and
define a reasonable victory margin percentage for automatic,
taxpayer-financed recounts.
On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 2:10 AM, Lowenstein, Daniel
<lowenstein at law.ucla.edu>wrote:
> At least we don't have to worry about Florida x 50, as would be
> possible if there were a national popular vote system in effect.
>
> Best,
>
> Daniel H. Lowenstein
> Director, Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions
> (CLAFI)
> UCLA Law School
> 405 Hilgard
> Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
> 310-825-5148
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen [
> rhasen at law.uci.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 9:45 PM
> To: law-election at uci.edu
> Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 1/4/12
>
> The Lesson from Tonight’s Iowa Results for Election Law<
> http://electionlawblog.org/?p=27367>
> Posted on January 3, 2012 9:40 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=27367> by
> Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> Elections can sometimes be close. Very very close (as in 5 votes close as
> I write this post). So close that the margin of error in counting the
> votes can exceed the margin of victory. Fortunately tonight’s results
> won’t lead to a recount (for how the non-binding caucuses work, see here<
> http://theweek.com/article/index/222942/the-idiosyncratic-iowa-caucus-rules-a-guide>);
> whether Romney or Santorum wins is more about bragging rights than anything
> else.
>
> But this could happen in a presidential election again, in a state that
> matters. And we haven’t done nearly enough to fix the problems in our
> elections that became apparent in the 2000 Florida fiasco. As I will argue<
> http://electionlawblog.org/?p=22990> in great detail soon, we are not
> prepared for the next election meltdown.
>
> [cid:part1.01070400.08000704 at law.uci.edu]<
> http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D27367&title=The%20Lesson%20from%20Tonight%E2%80%99s%20Iowa%20Results%20for%20Election%20Law&description=
> >
> Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18> |
> Comments Off
>
>
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--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
Rob Richie
Executive Director
FairVote
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www.fairvote.org <http://www.fairvote.org> rr at fairvote.org
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