[EL] Toobin and House Results -- Re: ELB News and Commentary 11/18/18

[Fredric Woocher]

I don’t get your point here, Larry.  So what if Clinton’s entire margin was from California?  If one objects to the electoral college because it does not count everyone’s vote equally, why is 2016 not a legitimate example of the objection that the vote of 3 million Californians was overcome by the votes of 250,000 people in Montana and Wyoming (or whatever the vote margins were there)?

Fredric D. Woocher
Strumwasser & Woocher LLP
10940 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 2000
Los Angeles, CA 90024
fwoocher at strumwooch.com<mailto:fwoocher at strumwooch.com>
(310) 576-1233

From: Law-election [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of larrylevine at earthlink.net
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2018 7:18 PM
To: jboppjr at aol.com; davidadamsegal at gmail.com; mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Toobin and House Results -- Re: ELB News and Commentary 11/18/18

Agree, Jim, but still find it curiously interesting. What distorts the whole picture is California. It’s kind of like every time I hear someone say Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 by 3 million votes I recall that was her margin in California, so they just about broke even in the rest of the country. It comes up often when I do presentations and someone challenges the electoral college and uses the 2016 popular vote as justification for changing. I tell them they have a right to not like the electoral college, but 2016 is not a place to rest the argument.
Larry

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>> On Behalf Of jboppjr at aol.com<mailto:jboppjr at aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, 18 November 2018 6:46 PM
To: davidadamsegal at gmail.com<mailto:davidadamsegal at gmail.com>; mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu<mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>
Cc: law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Toobin and House Results -- Re: ELB News and Commentary 11/18/18


I find the comparison between seats won and the total nation vote per party to be meaningless. We dont award seats based on the national vote per party , but by district, so campaigns are conducted by district, not to generate a maximum national vote.

In addition, candidates matter more in District elections while they would be substantial less significant if the national vote count determined who won. If fact, Tip O'Neill's maxim that all politics is local would be repealed.

So judging district-based elections by national proportional results is incoherent and invalid.

Jim Bopp

________________________________
On Sunday, November 18, 2018 David Segal <davidadamsegal at gmail.com<mailto:davidadamsegal at gmail.com>> wrote:
It'd be what you'd want taken in isolation (and I support systems that are more likely to yield proportionality than the current one) but Toobin should have contextualized the stat in the asymmetry relative to what happens under the current districts for Republicans.

Repubs won 50.4% of the two parties' popular vote in 2016 but took 55.4% of seats.

52.9% vs 56.8% in 2014

49.3% vs 53.7% in 2012

And also could have been spoken to in the context of the longer historical norm that Nicholas mentions. (Which isn't necessarily a positive feature of our system, and could be corrected for through PR.)

On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 8:22 PM Mark Scarberry <mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu<mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>> wrote:
Jeffrey Toobin, in the New Yorker article, writes:

"Even the good news from the election comes with a caveat, however. According to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, Democrats won the over-all popular vote in the four hundred and thirty-five races for the House of Representatives by about nine per cent, but they managed to capture only a relatively narrow majority of seats. This is because the district lines are so egregiously gerrymandered, especially in states fully controlled by Republicans."

Assuming my math is correct:

A 9% margin would put the percentages at 54.5 to 45.5 (leaving aside third parties). Out of 435 seats, 54.5% would be 237, and 45.5% would be 198. It appears that, with a few races still to be decided, Democrats will have at least 232 seats and Republicans will have at least 198. If the five other raises split evenly, the division will be 234 or 235 Democrats, and 200 or 201 Republicans. Is this particularly disproportionate?

Mark

Prof. Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law

On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:

...



Jeffrey Toobin Expresses Some Optimism About Voting Rights<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371>
Posted on November 18, 2018 3:17 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Not so sure I agree with this one<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/how-voting-rights-fared-in-the-midterms>.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Voting%20Rights>
Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

...
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