[EL] Tight Primary Results--Do they Discredit the NationalPopular Vote Plan?
Smith, Brad
BSmith at law.capital.edu
Wed Jan 4 19:18:09 PST 2012
To be honest, I can't even figure out what John is arguing here. For example, when you say there are "five litigated state counts," what races are you refering to? Are you including the one example you gave - Hawaii, 1960 - which wouldn't have changed the Electoral College result? In that case, does it really matter - can you count that against the Electoral College? I tend to think not.
Is there any significance to the 297 vote number? Not without knowing the states, and what percentage of votes those were. After all, I would expect a recount in, say, Delaware, to change far fewer votes than a recount in, say, Illinois. An election decided by 297 votes in Nevada in 1998 would not be as close as one decided by 297 votes in 2008.
The one in 160 statistic for recount frequency doesn't mean much either, especially in isolation. Would the higher stakes of a national election make candidates more likely to seek recounts than in statewide races - especially statewide races (which I think are included in John's count) for State University Board of Trustees, State Treasurer, and State Commissioner of Agriculture, and so on? Or are those not included?
Furthermore, has there been more than one election (2000) under the electoral college in which litigation has made a difference? Even in 1876 it wasn't litigated. We count 1876 if you want, and then you've got 2, but not 5 elections decided by litigation under the College.
Meanwhile, this statement strikes me as flat out wrong:
"The current state-by-state winner-take-all system repeatedly creates
> artificial crises because every presidential election generates 51
> separate opportunities for a razor-thin margin. Far from acting as a
> helpful firewall to isolate fires, it is the repeated cause of
> unnecessary fires.
"Repeatedly creates ...crises:" Repeated? Really? "Is the repeated cause of unnecessary fires:"
Really? Repeated? Boy, I can only think of one "fire" or "crisis" since 1876. And speaking of 1876, wouldn't NPV have allowed Sam Tilden to win the election on the basis of fraud, intimidation, and criminal behavior by his supporters in the southern states? In 1960, Richard Nixon decided not to challenge the results in certain states. But suppose he had gone the other way: are you suggesting a person in that situation who would have done that would not equally have sought a national recount on Kennedy's 0.17 point popular victory?
In any case, doesn't the frequency of a "recount crisis" have to be weighed against the magnitude of such a crisis? So suppose under the existing system, we have one recount "crisis" every 100 years or so. Suppose under NPV it is once every 300 years. How much worse, however, would the latter recount be? Theories of risk aversion suggests that many people might clearly prefer the former scenario, of more frequent (though still rare) recounts that are managable over the risk of even less frequent but much more chaotic and costly (not just in dollars) recounts.
"These
automatic recounts are for cosmetic and public-confidence reasons and have
nothing to do with any realistic possibility of affecting the result."
So are you arguing that this interest goes away under NPV? How? Why? If NPV decides to drop such automatic recounts because they would be so costly, wouldn't the resulting loss in public confidence be a cost of NPV that must be considered? Or do you oppose automatic recount laws of that type across the board?
I'm not sure that the "recount attack" on NPV has been demonstrated (note here that I did discuss it in my 2007 ELJ article on NPV), but I sure don't think John has responded to it in any meaningful way, either.
Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
303 E. Broad St.
Columbus, OH 43215
614.236.6317
http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
________________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of John Koza [john at johnkoza.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 4:43 PM
To: 'Larry Levine'; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Tight Primary Results--Do they Discredit the NationalPopular Vote Plan?
We need to distinguish between what happens in the real world, versus what
happens as a result of the 19 or so state laws that call or so-called
"automatic recount" in elections in the 1/2% neighborhood.
The historically observed 1-in-160 frequency of statewide recounts reflects
what real-world politicians do when they lose an election. It is based on
what real-world candidates actually did over a 10-year period concerning
2,884 statewide elections when they were faced with a close result. These
recounts reflect the decision of an actual candidate who thinks there is a
real possibility of actually changing the result. The historically observed
1-in-160 frequency reflects all the candidates who contemplated a recount on
election night, but who got sobered up by Wednesday morning and realized
that they weren't going to reverse the disappointing outcome (particularly
since the average change in a recount is only 296 votes).
REAL recounts have nothing to do with automatic recounts that may be
triggered by multi-thousand or-tens-of-thousand-vote differences. These
automatic recounts are for cosmetic and public-confidence reasons and have
nothing to do with any realistic possibility of affecting the result.
Turning every presidential election into 51 separate elections (i.e., our
current statewide winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes) is the
reason we have had 5 litigated state counts in a mere 56 presidential
elections. It is the statewide winner-take-all rule that creates these
artificial crises.
Dr. John R. Koza
Box 1441
Los Altos Hills, California 94023 USA
Phone: 650-941-0336
Fax: 650-941-9430
Email: john at johnkoza.com
URL: www.johnkoza.com
URL: www.NationalPopularVote.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Levine [mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 11:58 AM
To: John Koza; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Tight Primary Results--Do they Discredit the
NationalPopular Vote Plan?
The statement: "Given the small number of votes changed in recounts, no
recount would have been warranted in any of the nation's 56 previous
presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide
count" misses the mark.
One cannot rule out future recounts because earlier recounts have or have
not changed any specified number or percentage of votes. Many jurisdictions
of which I am aware have a proscribed percentage under which a re-count is
mandatory. Many also permit any candidate to request or demand a re-count
(and pay for it) regardless of the percentage of difference.
The Kennedy example across 50 states would average a 2,300 vote difference
state - a minut percentage in many states and well within the margin of a
re-count.
There is an additional point to consider. As there would be one national
pool of ballots, one could not re-count an individual state that had a close
election without also recounting all other states.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Koza" <john at johnkoza.com>
To: <law-election at uci.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: [EL] Tight Primary Results--Do they Discredit the
NationalPopular Vote Plan?
> Dan is incorrect in saying that "The odds against a result within ...
> the margin of error in ... a state that is decisive in the electoral
> college ...
> [IS} extremely great."
>
> In fact, there have been 5 litigated state counts in the nation's 56
> presidential elections under the current state-by-state
> winner-take-all system. This rate is dramatically higher than the
> historical 1-in-160 rate for elections in which there is a single
> statewide pool of votes and in which the winner is the candidate who
receives the most popular votes.
> This
> i-in-160 rate comes from a 10-year study of 2,884 elections (and
> corresponds with whatever knows, namely recounts in ordinary elections
> are rare).
>
> The current state-by-state winner-take-all system repeatedly creates
> artificial crises because every presidential election generates 51
> separate opportunities for a razor-thin margin. Far from acting as a
> helpful firewall to isolate fires, it is the repeated cause of
> unnecessary fires.
> The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created
> because of George W. Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in the state of
Florida.
> Gore's
> nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger than the
> disputed 537-vote margin Florida).
>
> Recounts would be far less likely under the National Popular Vote bill
> than under the current system because there would be a single pool of
> votes.
> Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide
> elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four
> years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years under the
> National Popular Vote approach. The actual probability of a close
> national election would be even less than that because recounts are
> less likely with larger pools of votes.
>
> The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide
> recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
> Three-quarters of all recounts do not change the outcome.
>
> Given the small number of votes changed in recounts, no recount would
> have been warranted in any of the nation's 56 previous presidential
> elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
> There was a recount, a court case, and a reversal of the original
> outcome in Hawaii in 1960.
> Kennedy ended up with a 115-vote margin in Hawaii in an election in
> which his nationwide margin was 118,574.
>
> A detailed discussion of recounts is discussed in section 10.15 of the
> book "Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President
> by National Popular Vote." I can be read or downloaded for free at
> www.NationalPopularVote.com or purchased at Amazon.
>
>
> Dr. John R. Koza, Chair
> National Popular Vote
> Box 1441
> Los Altos Hills, California 94023 USA
> URL: www.NationalPopularVote.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lowenstein, Daniel [mailto:lowenstein at law.ucla.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 9:09 AM
> To: Jamin Raskin; rhasen at law.uci.edu; law-election at uci.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] Tight Primary Results--Do they Discredit the
> National Popular Vote Plan?
>
> My post was a response to Rick's comment, not to the Iowa results.
>
> The odds against a result within what Rick calls the margin of
> error in either a state that is decisive in the electoral college or
> in a national popular vote are both extremely great. But the
> consequences of the latter would be far more troublesome than the
> former proved to be.
>
> 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: Jamin Raskin [raskin at wcl.american.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 4:15 AM
> To: Lowenstein, Daniel; rhasen at law.uci.edu; law-election at uci.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] Tight Primary Results--Do they Discredit the
> National Popular Vote Plan?
>
>
> There are at least three problems with this post: 1. The National Popular
> Vote plan does not touch the presidential primary process. 2. The
> Florida
> 2000 problem is an artifact of the current way that states use the
> electoral college system in which corruption and dysfunction in a
> single state can control the outcome of the whole election. Since
> Vice-President Gore had received more than a half-million votes more
> than Bush nationally in 2000, it would have made no difference under
> NPV rules whether it was Bush or Gore who finished a vote or two
> ahead in Florida voting (much less the Supreme Court!). Gore would
> have won. 3. All the political-science studies I know of show that
> ties and close results are far more likely to occur in elections with
> smaller pools of voters, which is why they happen with some frequency
> in school board elections and small-state caucuses but almost never in
> even the closest of national elections. Thus, it seems odd to use
> last night's results as an occasion to attack the NPV plan.
> yours, Jamie
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>
> To: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>; law-election at uci.edu
> <law-election at uci.edu>
> Sent: Wed Jan 04 02:10:25 2012
> Subject: [EL] Tight Results
>
> 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-ca
> ucus-r
> ules-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/shar
> e_save
> #url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D27367&title=The%20Lesso
> n%20fr
> om%20Tonight%E2%80%99s%20Iowa%20Results%20for%20Election%20Law&descrip
> tion=> Posted in election
> administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18> | Comments Off
>
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