What astounds me the most is that party membership in the United States is actually very high compared to most other countries (except for India).
Fewer than 200,000 Australians would currently be members of any political party - representing less than 1.5% of the total voters (around 14 million) - and that's being very generous with estimates of party membership figures. Most AFL football clubs would have more members than the major political parties.
Perhaps Australia is too different to compare the United States - compulsory voting (90% turnout this year), shorter campaigns (this year's 8 week campaign was twice as long as usual), elections being held on a weekend, preferential voting (third party votes are still valuable) and the parliamentary system (you never actually vote directly for the leader of the country) obviously result in a very different attitude toward elections and politics.
I definitely agree. The article appears to be painting a very dark picture that 91% don't want the candidates.
Where as this is just stating the obvious of what happens in every country that first puts forward a leader of a party that is contending to win the overall election.
In Australia or the UK, you can run without being a billionaire, and legislators who aren't members of major parties still have influence (sometimes disproportionate) on who is chosen as head of state.
I most of the reason is that in a lot of countries, you don't get as much choice in who leads the country. The prime ministerial candidate isn't chosen by a primary, and the PM can be deposed by parliament without much trouble (as we've seen with Australia).
In New Zealand, you're considered a bit of a loon if you're a card holding party member. I think that a lot more of the population is flexible in who they vote for as well. An MP told me once that 1/3 of voters are independent.
Both solutions are less effective than mail in ballots, online voting, or extending the vote duration (e.g. 7 days).
People just bring up a "voting holiday" because they want an extra holiday. The reality is that many people would use the holiday to relax, go out of town, or get stuff done and voting percentage wouldn't improve.
Ditto with weekends. People go out of town on the weekends, do you think they're going to stop because of a pesky vote? Even if they did for one year word would quickly spread that that is a "quiet" weekend and everyone would go for that reason.
If you really want to improve voting: Drive through voting, like McDonald's, that takes the same amount of time as McDonald's to do, and that you have a seven day week within which to do. Literally make it a 5 minute job where you don't even need to exit your vehicle.
People might scoff at that, call it lazy, but people ARE lazy. They want minimum hassle, minimum time, and maximum value. That's why drive-through places even exist.
I think what's absurd is that we have a highly polarized political landscape that combined wit the voting system leads to a two party system. That could be easily changed by switching to approval voting. Neither Hilary nor Trump would be close to being viable candidates, since they both had bad approval ratings. As it is now everyone is just voting against the candidate they are most scared of.
What's even more absurd is that the actual votes are being counted on a per-state basis. If someone where to design the system from scratch nowadays nobody would even come up with a system that dumb. Just count all the votes. What's the point of involving states at all in a federal election? It shouldn't matter in a federal election if I live in California or Georgia. It's absurd that it does!
If I recall, employers are required to allow some time-off during the day for people to vote. Practically, however, this doesn't happen because a: some districts don't have nearly enough polling places and staff, resulting in hours-long wait times (around where I live, I've never had this problem, but it's a real issue in other (often more poverty-stricken) areas), and b: not many low-wage workers are willing to 'rock the boat' with their employer and would rather just not vote than face any hassle or retaliation.
At the very least, we need smoother process where people can go to their city hall and vote over a period of a week or so, or vote by mail/online
It depends on the state. Some allow early voting and some encourage voting by mail which is pretty convenient. It will have to be up to the states because the federal government is pretty strictly disallowed from interfering with how the elections are run.
Personally, being more familiar with European parliamentary systems, I find it quite astounding that the canidate selection is such an open an public process.
In many countries, the parties select candidates internally and then present them to the public. Letting non-party members vote or register just before voting would be unthinkable there.
Then again, this is probably a necessary result of the US political system: majority voting rules, therefore (basically) only two parties, and of course, the US is huge and diverse.
The whole process is ridiculously long and expensive. But it's also a way to get people familiar with the candidates early on.
There's a fascinating story in which Terry McAuliffe of Virginia tried to use an executive order to allow the 200,000 felons in Virginia to vote this fall (seen by some as a partisan move for the Democrats, others as restoring voter rights). The courts blocked him, so he instead is granting up to 200,000 individual clemency grants to allow each voter an individual exception.
Theoretically this isn't an issue as this is just two political parties choosing the candidate that want to support for the general election. Political parties may choose their candidate however they like; they could pick a name from a hat if they wanted to. The issue is these two parties are so entrenched in the government as to essentially be legitimized as the only viable parties.
As I understand it, everyone could choose nominees (assuming you can hold your nose and join one of the two major US parties), so this isn't really interesting news? The only sad bit from my point of view is the number of disenfranchised felons.
Most state primaries are closed, so you have to register for a particular political party within an appropriate timeframe to be eligible to vote for a potential nominee. Both Ivanka and Eric Trump were too late to register as republicans and vote for their father in the New York primary.
In states that have caucuses it can be fairly tough for people working full-time jobs to attend them. I don't think that represents a large share of the popular vote, but it is a barrier to participation that requires more than holding one's nose to overcome.
Friendly reminder: Not voting can be a vote in and of itself. A vote of "no confidence".
True, voting for an alternative candidate will take a percentage of the votes away from Clinton or Trump, and having them win by a lower percentage would be a satisfying way to sock it to the system and send a message. (Although, knowing the media, if the stats started to look bad they would probably start reporting Clinton and Trump vote percentages only as percentages of the Clinton+Trump votes, rather than as percentages of all votes...)
But wouldn't it be wonderful if one of them "wins" the job by receiving support from only a small fraction of eligible voters? I think having a President elected by only 15-17% of eligible voters would send a pretty good message.
I don't see a problem. They are the Republican and Democratic party candidates. The members of those parties can nominate whomever they want. There's nothing in the constitution that says anything about how political parties chose their candidates. Primaries didn't always exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pri...
I call this "agonizingly slow runoff voting", the opposite of instant runoff voting. The French presidential election is similar, although the first round all the candidates are considered as a single pool rather than two party-orientated pools.
IRV and proportional systems produce 'external' coalitions at the government level. FPTP produces 'internal' coalitions, which is why the Republican party looks so strange from the outside.
Not very funny for them, because their polling stats are extremely skewed politically, resulting in amnesty turning into a political football. If illegals voted perfectly 50:50 D:R they would have gotten amnesty decades ago and everything would have been reformed and sensible for generations, but its seen as an automatic source of "D" votes therefore as long as we have "D" and "R" they'll fight over it rather than fix it. A one line summary of why our immigration system is all screwed up, is most people who want to come here want to vote "D" and that riles up both the "D" and "R" parties therefore nothing can ever be fixed.
Rephrased another way, relatively few voters actually (1) register and (2) vote in the party primaries. These registered voters apparently represent the "most politically involved" 10% of the overall population. (It's also somewhat misleading to include minors or non-citizen residents in the denominator when they aren't able to vote - it makes the result artificially small.)
The primary system, while still susceptible to party insiders, is a lot more democratic than a system where political parties pick their candidates and say to the electorate "these are your choices, take it or leave it". (I won't address whether "more democratic" is a good thing, as that's a whole different can of worms.)
I don't understand the problem. This is exactly what statistics addresses. Is that 9% a good enough random sample of the entire population, or not? If not, then what is the error 5%, 10%? Actually 9% is a really good sample.
If you were using the primaries as a way of predicting the overall winner, the critical word would be "random".
The statistical idea that a small sample can accurately represent the whole is based on the assumption that the small number are largely indistinguishable from that whole. It's like taking a sample of
In this case, the people voting in primaries are a self-selecting group - people who are both relatively actively engaged with politics and members of one of the two main parties.
It's not unreasonable to think that the wider population (even the wider population of people who normally vote at an election) could behave vastly differently.
For instance, if you had a candidate who was so divisive that they were either loved or hated, then it wouldn't be overly surprising if the vast majority of their supporters had signed up to vote in the primaries, with little support outside of that core. Compare this to a more middle of the road candidate - they might struggle to get as many people out to vote in a primary, but might do far better in the wider population.
That theory is very relevant in the UK at the moment, with the leader of the Labour Party (Jeremy Corbyn) being very popular amongst grassroots party members, but with his enemies saying he could never win a general election as this level of support would never be reflected outside of party supporters.
Low particaptation in the democratic election process can cause people to not benefit from their government.
This is exactly what statistics addresses.
Is that 9% a good enough random sample of
the entire population, or not?
You are implying it is indeed random. Voting isn't random sampling as people are not randomly selected to take part in the democratic process, people choice too, while everyone has the right too.
For a proper bayesian result like you are suggesting participation would have to be randomly decided, and representative proportioinally of demographics (economic background, ethnic, educational, age, etc.), which it isn't.
Voters are more often then not. Old, affluent (I.E.: Can afford to take time off of work to vote, or has a job that permits them to take time off to vote, or have time to research+register for absentee voting), black, educated. Under-educated, immigrant, and younger backgrounds are heavily under represented in the voting process currently, and for most modern records keeping. Furthermore some local governments have laws that discourage particaptation for some ethnic-minorities.
Except I'd venture it would not be a good sample as it's not necessarily very statistically representative of the whole population (ie. random)?
Of whether the people choosing the candidates have to be or even should be statistically representative of the whole population can be argued. The choice of candidates or order on ballots in many countries is decided by various less-than-representative groups.
I really doubt that 9% in the primaries looks anything like the general election, which itself probably diverges from a pure population demographic sample (voter ID laws, disenfranchisement, etc)
[+] [-] thomasfoster96|9 years ago|reply
Fewer than 200,000 Australians would currently be members of any political party - representing less than 1.5% of the total voters (around 14 million) - and that's being very generous with estimates of party membership figures. Most AFL football clubs would have more members than the major political parties.
Perhaps Australia is too different to compare the United States - compulsory voting (90% turnout this year), shorter campaigns (this year's 8 week campaign was twice as long as usual), elections being held on a weekend, preferential voting (third party votes are still valuable) and the parliamentary system (you never actually vote directly for the leader of the country) obviously result in a very different attitude toward elections and politics.
[+] [-] icc97|9 years ago|reply
Where as this is just stating the obvious of what happens in every country that first puts forward a leader of a party that is contending to win the overall election.
[+] [-] pessimizer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomanybeersies|9 years ago|reply
In New Zealand, you're considered a bit of a loon if you're a card holding party member. I think that a lot more of the population is flexible in who they vote for as well. An MP told me once that 1/3 of voters are independent.
[+] [-] awesomerobot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone1234|9 years ago|reply
People just bring up a "voting holiday" because they want an extra holiday. The reality is that many people would use the holiday to relax, go out of town, or get stuff done and voting percentage wouldn't improve.
Ditto with weekends. People go out of town on the weekends, do you think they're going to stop because of a pesky vote? Even if they did for one year word would quickly spread that that is a "quiet" weekend and everyone would go for that reason.
If you really want to improve voting: Drive through voting, like McDonald's, that takes the same amount of time as McDonald's to do, and that you have a seven day week within which to do. Literally make it a 5 minute job where you don't even need to exit your vehicle.
People might scoff at that, call it lazy, but people ARE lazy. They want minimum hassle, minimum time, and maximum value. That's why drive-through places even exist.
[+] [-] ajmurmann|9 years ago|reply
What's even more absurd is that the actual votes are being counted on a per-state basis. If someone where to design the system from scratch nowadays nobody would even come up with a system that dumb. Just count all the votes. What's the point of involving states at all in a federal election? It shouldn't matter in a federal election if I live in California or Georgia. It's absurd that it does!
[+] [-] bickfordb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anthony_romeo|9 years ago|reply
If I recall, employers are required to allow some time-off during the day for people to vote. Practically, however, this doesn't happen because a: some districts don't have nearly enough polling places and staff, resulting in hours-long wait times (around where I live, I've never had this problem, but it's a real issue in other (often more poverty-stricken) areas), and b: not many low-wage workers are willing to 'rock the boat' with their employer and would rather just not vote than face any hassle or retaliation.
At the very least, we need smoother process where people can go to their city hall and vote over a period of a week or so, or vote by mail/online
[+] [-] sp332|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluejekyll|9 years ago|reply
Do this on some weekend. Before the election date, why wait for the actual Election Day at all?
[+] [-] rbcgerard|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bickfordb|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] the_duke|9 years ago|reply
In many countries, the parties select candidates internally and then present them to the public. Letting non-party members vote or register just before voting would be unthinkable there.
Then again, this is probably a necessary result of the US political system: majority voting rules, therefore (basically) only two parties, and of course, the US is huge and diverse.
The whole process is ridiculously long and expensive. But it's also a way to get people familiar with the candidates early on.
[+] [-] msravi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_duke|9 years ago|reply
According to this statistic [1], 2.5 % of the electorate is disenfranchised.
2.5% is a HUGE amount for a 2 party system with elections often being very tight.
This is somewhat less severe due to fellons probably belonging to demographics less inclined to vote, but it's still a large number.
[1] http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...
[+] [-] jacquesm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tanderson92|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkrisc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_duke|9 years ago|reply
It's rare that that much (programming) effort is put into a simple newspaper article.
Anyone agree?
[+] [-] jaflo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paradite|9 years ago|reply
Their election tracker and real-time update of votes in the primaries were very well done.
Even the summary after the vote looks neat:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary...
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california
After some digging, found out they have open-sourced this library:
https://github.com/sjwilliams/scrollstory
MIT license, so we can use it for ourselves!
[+] [-] zaphar|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rwmj|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rm_-rf_slash|9 years ago|reply
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04...
[+] [-] 0xcde4c3db|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousgal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gotherewhere|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GarrisonPrime|9 years ago|reply
True, voting for an alternative candidate will take a percentage of the votes away from Clinton or Trump, and having them win by a lower percentage would be a satisfying way to sock it to the system and send a message. (Although, knowing the media, if the stats started to look bad they would probably start reporting Clinton and Trump vote percentages only as percentages of the Clinton+Trump votes, rather than as percentages of all votes...)
But wouldn't it be wonderful if one of them "wins" the job by receiving support from only a small fraction of eligible voters? I think having a President elected by only 15-17% of eligible voters would send a pretty good message.
[+] [-] UnoriginalGuy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jccalhoun|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|9 years ago|reply
IRV and proportional systems produce 'external' coalitions at the government level. FPTP produces 'internal' coalitions, which is why the Republican party looks so strange from the outside.
[+] [-] bad_user|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trolly|9 years ago|reply
If anything, these 9% are representing a fundamental flaw in our first past the post system.
[+] [-] thomasfoster96|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bla2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jorgeleo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kr7|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theorique|9 years ago|reply
The primary system, while still susceptible to party insiders, is a lot more democratic than a system where political parties pick their candidates and say to the electorate "these are your choices, take it or leave it". (I won't address whether "more democratic" is a good thing, as that's a whole different can of worms.)
[+] [-] lintiness|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laichzeit0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prof_hobart|9 years ago|reply
The statistical idea that a small sample can accurately represent the whole is based on the assumption that the small number are largely indistinguishable from that whole. It's like taking a sample of
In this case, the people voting in primaries are a self-selecting group - people who are both relatively actively engaged with politics and members of one of the two main parties.
It's not unreasonable to think that the wider population (even the wider population of people who normally vote at an election) could behave vastly differently.
For instance, if you had a candidate who was so divisive that they were either loved or hated, then it wouldn't be overly surprising if the vast majority of their supporters had signed up to vote in the primaries, with little support outside of that core. Compare this to a more middle of the road candidate - they might struggle to get as many people out to vote in a primary, but might do far better in the wider population.
That theory is very relevant in the UK at the moment, with the leader of the Labour Party (Jeremy Corbyn) being very popular amongst grassroots party members, but with his enemies saying he could never win a general election as this level of support would never be reflected outside of party supporters.
[+] [-] valarauca1|9 years ago|reply
For a proper bayesian result like you are suggesting participation would have to be randomly decided, and representative proportioinally of demographics (economic background, ethnic, educational, age, etc.), which it isn't.
Voters are more often then not. Old, affluent (I.E.: Can afford to take time off of work to vote, or has a job that permits them to take time off to vote, or have time to research+register for absentee voting), black, educated. Under-educated, immigrant, and younger backgrounds are heavily under represented in the voting process currently, and for most modern records keeping. Furthermore some local governments have laws that discourage particaptation for some ethnic-minorities.
[+] [-] linuskendall|9 years ago|reply
Of whether the people choosing the candidates have to be or even should be statistically representative of the whole population can be argued. The choice of candidates or order on ballots in many countries is decided by various less-than-representative groups.
[+] [-] colanderman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasfoster96|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evilduck|9 years ago|reply