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

Mon Nov 19 20:18:12 PST 2018

I may have misunderstood Jeff's message. I read it as saying no votes were
counted in those districts. I think it was the size of the numbers that
cause the misunderstanding. I supposed it could be argued that the lack of
campaigning in those districts caused a lower turnout. But the visibility of
the two statewide races would argue against that.

Larry

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf
Of Smith, Brad
Sent: Monday, 19 November 2018 7:23 PM
To: Jeff Hauser <jeffhauser at gmail.com>; 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

How does that cause an undervote for Senate? They count the votes for
Senate, just not for the uncontested race.

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 [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf
of Jeff Hauser [jeffhauser at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2018 9:43 PM
To: David Segal
Cc: Election Law Listserv
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://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.historycentral.com%
2felections%2fElectoralcollgewhy.html&c=E,1,BCg_5G7fqaHpHuhWRnVC14ZWdccMSGcj
wAL13cSUppUMK5TLoZwIbwoEh3bhzYsHoM7yyE0tZmt0SSJcSXnzHqd_1suuWL3Tb-yzNnF2dgqk
nx8JxgcT_dyUdGU,&typo=1>
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://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%
3fp%3d102371&c=E,1,_K9uCQmIVCDNV9lYfJrBXWoiB3obz5Uy7QCAFNwK7IRySAYCWNlVzWPdf
-x3Lmvg90sNVWti3gMkMx5urJkfYJH7bKcsE4GCPhwgVHcP5zSOIw,,&typo=1> Jeffrey
Toobin Expresses Some Optimism About Voting Rights

Posted on
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%
3fp%3d102371&c=E,1,TlWZW1Pb3BVxgqoA43K6qkLx3lgC3Lrxoa0LNPQGpSdHTQdS3F12-ML5W
ZnuZ8w_9dkrLQBr-YJg7x8gvx4EVLRNANxbrORU2wvAoQM8MGPE0Ixj5w,,&typo=1> November
18, 2018 3:17 pm by
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%
3fauthor%3d3&c=E,1,HDrbrCYMmUT6grm90oxkL7o79XaBD-XwBfzMDPp-5W9MJB22wnijfLDW0
3vm0zwv1yabP2cWblapfL5s1kwxUQcln3pyWUejb0jh3uVja-u7mDo0t1M,&typo=1> Rick
Hasen

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

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

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

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

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

<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Vot
ing%20Rights> _______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Vot
ing%20Rights> _______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Vot
ing%20Rights> _______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

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

<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Vot
ing%20Rights> _______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20181119/3b502471/attachment.html>