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

Mon Nov 19 19:02:35 PST 2018

So there’s an incentive to not mount a challenge in a district you can’t win and thus impact on the statewide total? Bazaar. I would think the disenfranchised voters would have standing and probably success in suing to have their votes counted.

Larry

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of Jeff Hauser
Sent: Monday, 19 November 2018 6:43 PM
To: David Segal <davidadamsegal at gmail.com>
Cc: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Toobin and House Results -- Re: ELB News and Commentary 11/18/18

One of many bizarre Florida laws means that zero votes are counted in 4 deep blue districts where the GOP couldn't muster a candidate. This odd rule is not only a proximate cause of the FL-24 undervote for Senate (and thus Scott's victory, most likely), but probably renders 800,000 or some FL Dem voters invisible in these stats. (And maybe ~300,000 Republicans)

On Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 11:56 AM David Segal <davidadamsegal at gmail.com <mailto:davidadamsegal at gmail.com>  wrote:

Dems as of now are up by 3.3 million in CA and 8.5 million over all across the country.

Hard to assess, but looks like few hundred thousand of the 3.3 million vote gap could be attributed to top-two races w/o Rs. 

There were 4 D v D generals, 4 D v I/G generals, and 1 R v R generals. But most of these are races where an "opposite-party" challenger would have been getting low double digit percentages. 

D5

155k(D) - 42k(I)

D6 

129k(D) - 30k(D)

D8

93k(R) - 61k(R)

D13

246k(D) - 32k(G)

D20 

156k(D) - 37k(I)

D27

144k(D) - 37k(D)

D34

94k(D) - 35k(G)

D40

78k(D) - 22k(D)

D44

84k(D) - 37k(D)

On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 8:31 AM John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com <mailto:john.k.tanner at gmail.com> > wrote:

Getting back to the House vote, does California skew those results?  Certainly in the Senate, there were two Democrats who split the entire vote.  I don’t know whether there were similar House contests

On Nov 19, 2018, at 12:03 AM, <larrylevine at earthlink.net <mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net> > <larrylevine at earthlink.net <mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net> > wrote:

I was attempting to point to the irrelevance of citing a national vote total in races in which that number has no relevance. Apparently, I missed. However, I believe one of the purposes for the Electoral College was just this circumstance – to protect smaller states from the dominance of larger states. Another purpose was to shield against the election of a certain kind of candidate to be President, which doesn’t seem t have worked to well this time around. 

 <https://www.historycentral.com/elections/Electoralcollgewhy.html> https://www.historycentral.com/elections/Electoralcollgewhy.html

Larry

From: Fredric Woocher <fwoocher at strumwooch.com <mailto:fwoocher at strumwooch.com> > 
Sent: Sunday, 18 November 2018 8:40 PM
To: larrylevine at earthlink.net <mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net> ; jboppjr at aol.com <mailto:jboppjr at aol.com> ; 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 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

 <mailto:fwoocher at strumwooch.com> fwoocher at strumwooch.com

(310) 576-1233

From: Law-election [ <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of  <mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net> larrylevine at earthlink.net
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2018 7:18 PM
To:  <mailto:jboppjr at aol.com> jboppjr at aol.com;  <mailto:davidadamsegal at gmail.com> davidadamsegal at gmail.com;  <mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
Cc:  <mailto:law-election at uci.edu> 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 < <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of  <mailto:jboppjr at aol.com> jboppjr at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, 18 November 2018 6:46 PM
To:  <mailto:davidadamsegal at gmail.com> davidadamsegal at gmail.com;  <mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
Cc:  <mailto:law-election at uci.edu> 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 < <mailto:davidadamsegal at gmail.com> 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 < <mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> 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 < <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu> rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

...

 <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371> Jeffrey Toobin Expresses Some Optimism About Voting Rights

Posted on  <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371> November 18, 2018 3:17 pm by  <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3> Rick Hasen

Not so sure I agree with  <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/how-voting-rights-fared-in-the-midterms> this one.

 <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Voting%20Rights> 

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