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I'm arguing that the statistics you have presented are not capable of supporting the premise that Hillary has a dramatically better chance of winning the election versus McCain. That is not a refusal to acknowledge your statistics; it's a refusal to agree with your statistics without critical analysis.

Consider as another example the polls back in June 2004: http://electoral-vote.com/evp2004/jun/jun04.html

Back then polls were predicting a Kerry win by a large margin. In this year's race, there have been times when Obama was stronger against McCain, and times when Hillary was stronger. There has never been a difference dramatic enough to support the notion that the sky is falling now that Obama is the nominee. If you did Kucinich vs McCain, for instance, you would see a much clearer picture, but that is just not the case here.

Up to this point, I've stuck to the case that the polls as they stand are not sufficient statistical evidence to make this claim, but you could go much further than that. Currently we are polling a split Democratic party versus a united Republican one, and I think that creates an inherent bias that favors Republican candidates. As it is unlikely that Hillary will still be campaigning for the nomination in November, these polls are not really representative of the likely political environment on Election Day.

It is misinformation to suggest that the Nov 1st numbers were the final numbers, when there was an election day poll that was reported. You could have also picked numbers from May that showed Kerry was ahead that day, but they would be just as dishonest. It is also misinformation to suggest that they only use the most recent daily polls, when in fact, they work with a weekly poll average. In fact, they had a separate map using the same weekly poll average in 2004: it predicted Bush 278-245, which is pretty damn good.

You asked for statistics showing Clinton did better than Obama against McCain. I gave them to you. Now you say we can't trust any polls or statistics because we're too far away from the election. Then why did you ask for them in the first place? Did you expect someone to post from the future of an alternate reality where Clinton was the nominee with election day results?

By first demanding statistics and then refusing to acknowledge them, you are spouting nonsense, and while your posts may seem smart to the casual reader, they are not.

The election was held on November 2nd, last time I checked and the site predicted only that the race was too close to call, with neither candidate receiving the 270 votes needed. But you keep up with trying to discredit websites through misinformation. Maybe you'll get enough ignorant people to believe you.

Ah, electoral-vote.com, the same site that predicted 298 electoral votes for Kerry on Nov. 1, 2004.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/nov/nov01.html

First of all, unless you cherry-pick polls, there is no statistical evidence that Hillary (or some other candidate) would be more successful against McCain. This is a talking point of the Clinton campaign only.

No statistical evidence? Like an electoral vote map which show Clinton crushing McCain, while Obama merely squeaks in?

First of all, unless you cherry-pick polls, there is no statistical evidence that Hillary (or some other candidate) would be more successful against McCain. This is a talking point of the Clinton campaign only.

No statistical evidence? Like an electoral vote map which show Clinton crushing McCain, while Obama merely squeaks in?

You have a well thought out point of view, and in voting for Obama, I fully realize I'm being optimistic about his chances and how he would do as president... but I'm an optimistic kind of guy. However, as for his chances to win, I disagree, based on the financial markets. Today, I'd venture a rough guess that Obama has a 64.6% chance of winning :-) There's also a great site that projects the winner based on a combination of poll data. Today, Obama is projected to win 287 electoral votes to McCain's 227.

I'll vote for Obama, but I'm also a fan of McCain. If it weren't for McCain's stated objective of appointing more irrational supreme court judges like Scalia and Thomas, I'd likely vote for him.

There was a Time magazine poll less than a month ago that showed that Obama could beat McCain, but with Hillary against McCain it would be a tight race. Apparently independant voters like Obama, but not Hillary -- it seems unlikely to me that Hillary can manage any backroom deals that can conceal this fact: Obama is more electable, so the PLEOs (aka superdelegates) will back Obama.

Note that Rush Limbaugh suggested to his listeners that they should cross-over and vote for Hillary, just to mess up the Democratic party.

These trememdous "wins" and "loses" you keep hearing about are usually just symbolic: the assigned delegates are breaking nearly evenly between the two democratic candidates, with on average a slight preference for Obama. Neither candidate is going to reach the cut-off that puts the election in the bag: it's going to be a brokered primary (all praise the highly democratic Democratic party).

In general, people tend to like their senator or representative (if they can even name them), but want someone else's congressman to be defeated. Common wisdom says that if a particular congressman's approval rating is near 50% they are vulnerable.

Andrew Tannenbaum of Minix fame has a website that tracks such poll numbers.

Karl Rove, was looking at 68 polls a week and he had "THE" math to show that Republicans would hold onto both houses.

Polls work less well when the administration convinces people it isn't safe to publicly be against the administration. How many polled people were afraid to tell the truth?

You're really confused, here. If you were following the polls at all, (e.g. by watching Tannenbaum's site, you would expect pretty much what we got: a close race for the Senate, and a Democratic win in the House. Karl Rove was publically anouncing that this was all wrong, that the Republicans were going to win both, no problem.

This had people like myself who were already feeling paranoid (with good reason, in my opinion) wondering what the hell was going on.

Because power is wielded by the committees, more than by the individual congressmembers, or even the whole chamber. And nothing in that article, or my post, mentioned donating money to Democrat challengers, rather to Democrat incumbents. Who have been favored for the entire election cycle to wield that committee power as part of the majority.

"Not supposed" to win? What, by the public predictions that have "supposed" a Democratic House and usually a Democratic Senate for months? By the even more accurate "government relations" offices of the corporate bribers^Wcontributors?

After the committee chair and ranking minority member, it doesn't matter how senior you are - only your membership in the majority, and friendship with the majority chair. Even the ranking minority member has influence only by getting on TV, against the possibility they'll chair the committee in the next Congress.

Your version isn't how the Congress works. But it looks like it is how the spin works. Which, combined with Republicans' higher campaign expenses producing a higher bribe demand, is how their corporate bribers worked, too. Worked wrong, this year, in every sense of the word.

the same as the "get out the vote" initiatives that come out every election cycle. When you come right down to it, if someone's only going to vote because MTV told them to, it's probably someone that shouldn't be voting

But on the other hand, if Some Guy on Slashdot tells them to vote, they're just the kind of folks we need to take back the government from those Republican Diebold-lovers, so Don't forget to vote in the US election tomorrow kids!

Well, presuming you're a US citizen. And presuming you're of age. And presuming you remembered to register -- and if you didn't now would be a good time to get it out of the way for the 2008 election, eh?

If you're feeling clueless about the process, you can check the Can I vote? site.

Take a look at the current state of the polls: Electoral Vote. The control of the Senate is balanced on a knife-edge right now.

(And if you live in California: Don't forget to vote for Debra Bowen for Secretary of State -- unlike the Republican appointee she's running against, she understands something about electoral integrity. And in my opinion, the world could use some better action movies far more than it needs a Hummer-driving environmentalist in the government office, so send him back to Hollywood, all right? And read up on Prop 90 before you walk into the booth.)

And just for the sake of saying something useful, keep an eye on electoral-vote for the current state of the polls.

But frankly, it doesn't seem hopeful. Utah is a deep-red state (71% Bush in 2004). The Votemaster shows Ashdown is polling as bad, especially since undecideds generally break for the incumbent or incumbent party.

So, barring photos of Orin Hatch raping a dead sheep in front of the Salt Lake City Mormon Temple hitting the press between now and election day, I don't think the senator from the RIAA can lose. However, hopefully the run will at least help stir public discussion of policy.

Democrats will take the 435-member House of Representatives back by a likely margin of 5-15 seats. There are almost no serious analysts who disagree on this point.

I wonder why we need to have the election, then?

If you want to keep an eye on the latest poll results, I recommend Andrew Tanembaum's site: Electoral Vote

Neither site notes the Libertarian candidate for Tom Delay's district, TX-22
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Info/hothous e.html#TX
They note one of the (several) Republican write-ins, but ignore someone who is actually on the ballot.
Part of the whole red-blue trend that ignores other possibilities.

Check again. The house races are there, and the current projection is 229 Democrats, 205 Republicans, 1 Tie.

Or there is still Electoral-Vote.com from Mr Tanenbaum himself. Z.

To address your general sneer: concerns about the validity of the recent elections extend far beyond sour grapes. But you'd actually have to read up on the subject to know something about that, and it is of course much easier to stick with complaining about those whiney democrats.

After all the gibberish you've spewed over the years, you've got nothing worth hearing to say about "Bush Hating".

You're a Bush worshipping troll.

But for the benefit of those fortunate not to have slipped in your slime before, I'll just point out what a sicko you are.

1. Bush is putting nukes in space, after proving he can't do anything right, which makes him do more. All dangerous. Now upping the ante to space nukes. Insane.

2. Bush specifically said in that policy that we should use nukes to put weapons in space. Of course that's his #1 priority. Everyone knows he hates science, that he put a Republican flack to work censoring "big bang" science because it reinforced evolution science rather than Creationism.

3. "We" are only a long way from worrying about space combat because you are in denial of the apocalyptic dreams Bush pursues at every chance.

4. The Rumsfeld "issue"? That berzerk loser is unfit to command a garbage scow, and you're calling him an "issue"? Rumsfeld has been putting nukes on US missiles for years, changing our policy to "preemptive strike" even while bathing in the blood of that strategy's Iraq failure. The solution is for the Senate to force Bush to fire Rumsfeld, which a Democratic Senate will probably do next year. The Constitution is "still in effect" while Bush has the right to torture anyone he wants to secretly kidnap, prosecute and execute them with secret evidence they never even see? He can wiretap anyone he wants? Which constitution are you talking about?

And finally, you show just how useless is your advice with your final words. Americans should arm ourselves to the teeth to oppose a nuke military space program? Right, because every armed insurrection has always been a stabilizing effect on a warmonger government with world-destroying power. Yeah, the reasonable Constitutionalists will surely carry the day when armed revolt fills the streets and countryside, with gun fetishists practicing their survival skills the past few generations.

What kind of fantasy world do you live in? I know: the one that worships Bush, and fills the air with meaningless drivel that preoccupies us while Bush throws peace and prosperity into the pit of hell.

He has an interesting page at: http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Info/senator -ratings.html discussing that there really aren't any senators in the middle anymore.

From my analysis of his table "mean" column...
What I found interesting from the table is that the 55 Republicans are more beholden to their side (on avg, 10.47 away from 100% on all issues) than the 44 Democrats are to their side (on avg, 13.56 away from 100% on all issues).

Since that data is taken from all the same bills/amendments/etc, it is a meaningful difference.

Of course, as a registered Green, I knew this already: the Democratic party became "Republicans lite" and left me a long time ago...

The Electoral College gives a greater weight to smaller states - so they liked it and decided to join our "Union."

This may have been the case 200 years ago, but for the last state to join the union (Hawaii, 1959), the weight was not a significant reason. There are many other reasons, but that is of the very lowest priority.

Every so often Congress votes to enlarge the member count. When that happens (last time was in 1911), then much of the significance of that weight becomes diluted. Enlarging Congress is not likely though, because the current members then have to share power with even more people.

Another reason this solution would be unlikely is that to bring the electoral college balance back to the level it was in 1911, the house would need to expand from it's current total of 535 to just under 1400. They'd need a bigger meeting place, among other things. Also, the job of a representative is to have their voices heard - imagine how much harder that would be if you had to try yelling over that many more people, who also doing the same. :)

Nice write up found here.

Interesting. I didn't know that. That actually changes my view of it a bit - but only partly. According to National Conference of State Legislators 29 states have laws binding the rep's to vote the way they stated they would. My state (IL) does not. The states that do have laws account for 300 electoral votes, which is more than enough to have a fully legal election. However, some of those states have wussy laws, like New Mexico where apparently it is a misdemeanor and they can be charged up to $1000 which would be more than paid for by whomever bought you off for your vote anyway. This page with more Electoral info lists three elections where a single person did not vote the way they were supposed to, including one that was supposed to vote for Gore in 2000 (not that it would have mattered). Doing a bit of research I found that of the big states with 10 or more electoral votes, ten of them do not have laws governing their electoral college votes. Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. These account for 179 electoral college votes, and you need 270 votes to win the election. Apparently there's a new district system where the state can have electoral college rep's from both sides as decided by voting districts, but none of the states actually passed the law in yet. That sounds much better than our current system to me. Bush only had 271 electoral college votes in 2000. Imagine if the rep who put in a blank ballot when they were supposed to be voting for Gore had been a Bush rep, and they had gotten one other person to do it as well. I'm not saying it's likely, but the way our laws are written now it is entirely possible, and I find that to be a huge problem.

The heartland turned vicious this week when an Oklahoma town...

I'm shocked at this report of such profound ignorance and stupidity on the part of a government official in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is normally such a liberal, tolerant, open-minded place.

(from weakest to strongest) It provides a last (theoretical!) check on "the will of the people." Even though being a faithless elector is against state law in many states, an elector can still choose to cast his vote for whomever and his vote will be federally binding.
- Not sure how I feel about that, I think in practice the "faithless elector" scenario is impossible on a meaningful scale. It brings up all sorts of things - for example, in 2000, the FL legislature was debating a bill that in essence said "the hell with all this, our electoral votes go to Bush". What does something like this do to a democracy?

The electoral college makes it highly improbable that a third-party candidate will win. Compare to Germany's recent mess, where it took a month just to figure out which party would actually be able to form a coalition.
-You're right, except that I think a viable 3d party would be a usefull antidote to many of our political ailments. At the very least it'd be possible to have a wider range of opinions in politics. Currently getting too far left makes you a pariah (it's been argued, and I agree, that the 2 party system leads to a situation where the range of acceptable opinion is quite narrow compared to other democracies- the rightward shift that we've seen in that last 25 years can then be understood as a shifting of the entire range somewhat to the right, while the width of the range has stayed relatively constant).

It balances population and geography. In the Legislative Branch, the House is stacked in favor of populous states; the Senate, in favor of less populous states. That was agreed upon for a reason: the smaller states wanted to balance the power of bigger states like ... erm, New York. Similarly, the Electoral College allows a balance between population and geography in the presidential selection process.
-You're incorrect here, the house is only stacked in favor of populous states in the sense that NY has more overall votes than montana. However, my individual vote is less powerfull in the house compared to an individual vote of a montana voter.Here's a good reference page I found. I noticed that
a) A person in Wyoming's vote for president counts for about 3.8 times what mine does.
b) according to the wikipedia article you cited, if the electoral college would be made slightly more proportional (by removing the 2 votes per senator) so that it more accurately reflected population, Gore would've won in 2000.

The Electoral College isolates the consequences of voter fraud. Let's say someone commits fraud in New York City on election night. It would have to be massive (Republican!) fraud to actually make a difference in the outcome. By contrast, under a straight popular vote, just a small amount of fraud in every state could swing a tight race. Obviously, counterarguments could be made for fraud in tight states like FL in 2000 -- but the point is that regulators know where to look for the fraud, as opposed to having it distributed across the country.
-True in the sense that god knows what we'd do about a national recount. False in that in 2000 (and in 2004 (link to GAO report included) a single state fraud magnified the results of fraud.

The electoral college provides that the candidates will have to make a genuine effort in many different states. If popular votes were the only consideration, candidates would promise and then enact policies favorable to high-population-density areas, and let the rest of the country go to hell. So to speak.
-Disagree here, think you've got it exactly backwards. What's happened in the past is hot contention over battleground states - you get millions of candidate visits to Ohio, none to Alaska or Hawaii, and more noticeably a more partisan split- There's never any reason under the cur

He also deserves praise for his work on the 2004 Election. He updated a map every day, using poll data from a number of sources, and mapping it against the electoral values of each state.
It was a tremendous site, and I look forward to his coverage of the 2006 Senate.

Obviously, the iconic "they" wouldn't have given Bush a 100% win in every state; they'd never have gotten away with it. Rather, subtle modifications across the board would be virtually undetectable and allegations of such could be easily deflected.

Funny, maybe; but what... entity... modded this insightful?

Assuming he doesn't outright completely suspend elections or the constitution (which even a Republican Congress and a packed Supreme Court would go apeshit over), he'd need to have the 22nd Amendment repealed. This would require another amendment, much like the 21st repealed prohibition. This would require ratification of three quarters of the states-- 38, assuming no new states are admitted, and no current states split.

In the2004 presidential election, Bush carried only 32 states. Given that he has not massively increased his popularity since (especially given current sentiments on term limits), I'd consider the 61st Amendment far more likely.

There's also the question of whether such an amendment could realistically happen in time for Bush to run in 2008. A state-called convention seems unlikely. While some amendments have passed really quickly, others took longer. Given that it would be relatively controversial, it seems not unreasonable to believe it would take a year after getting out of congress. Furthermore, given the shennanigans that the Republican Senate lacked the votes to obtain cloture against a filibuster, it seems unlikely they would have be able to pass such an amendment.

Hmmm, thousands of people can't be that wrong, but 55 Million can be wrong? How can that be?

Besides, changing ohio STILL won't win it for Kerry.

According to the final tallies at http://www.electoral-vote.com/, Kerry currently has 252 EVs, Bush 286. Flip Ohio's 20 votes- and Kerry has 272 Evs to Bush's 266. Thus Kerry will win. So sorry- you're wrong- changing Ohio WOULD win it for Kerry. Of course, the FIRST count in Ohio isn't done yet (absentee and provisional ballots legally will be able to be counted tomorrow), so we'll have more data then.

The current voting system in the US is arguably one of the worst ever used. Sure, I'm glad I have the right to vote, but I'd be much happier about it if the voting system did not make my vote irrelevant.

There are two main problems with the US voting system: an incomplete way of expressing one's preference, and the electoral college. Together, these create a system which is extremely chaotic and sensitive to small manipulations. Look at the way results change over time, and the numbers jump wildly around. Sites such as http://www.electoral-vote.com have detailed election data demonstrating this.

Limitations of Singular Voting
Many people, when deciding how to vote in the US, encounter the same problems and dilemmas over and over. For example, what if you really like a 3rd-party candidate? Do you "throw your vote away" by voting how you truly feel? Or, do you "choose the lesser of two evils" by picking one of the Democrat or Republican candidates? Frankly, in the current system, voting for a 3rd-party candidate in a major election means you choose to let your vote be ignored. The only way you can make your vote count in this environment is to lie on your ballot. But why should it be necessary to falsify your preferences?

Much effort has gone into voting theory research, in an attempt to find an ideal way to choose an action based on personal preferences. This field involves two main concepts: collecting the most detailed and accurate preferences possible, and evaluating the data in the most fair manner. In both of these aspects, Condorcet voting has emerged as a fairly clear winner. It has the most desirable properties of any voting system devised so far, and the fewest undesirable properties.

I propose changing the US electoral system to use Condorcet voting, instead of its current system.

Electoral College
Once upon a time, the Electoral College was a good idea. Back when it took a very long time to send a messenger across the country, it wasn't feasible to count every person's vote. So we used the next best thing -- a smaller model of the country, designed to be as fair as possible without becoming unmanageable.

But the restrictions of back then no longer apply. The electoral college now is, at best, an inconvenience which reduces the accuracy of elections. At worst, it is an effective and abused tool for Gerrymandering. It produces large changes in the election results based on very small populations of people, making elections very chaotic. It usually has the effect of throwing away nearly half the votes of each state, and sometimes (as with Dubya) even produces a different result than the popular vote. People in states which are either Democrat or Republican strongholds cannot make a difference by voting against the majority.

Several people have created programs to deal with the symptoms of the broken electoral college, such as vote-trading organizations. In that way, you can relocate your vote to a place where it might matter, instead of wasting it where you can be assured it will not count.

I propose eliminating the Electoral College, and using the popular vote instead.

Vote for Nobody
As an added enhancement, adding "Nobody" to each ballot would make it possible to more accurately express preferences. If you disapprove of all the candidates (or, in Condorcet, disapprove of any), voting for "Nobody" means you don't have to choose the lesser of various evils. And, if the "Nobody" candidate wins, the election would need to be held again, with entirely different candidates.

(this is a copy of the on-topic rant at my site)

danheskett wrote:
>
> > This is not surprising; as the Diebold CEO has pledged to give Shrub the votes.
>
> Right.
>
> The Republicans faked 90% of every poll leading up to election day that showed Bush narrowly winning

Actually, the last polls done right before the election showed Kerry narrowly winning.

Also there was much speculation that the pre-election polls overestimated the number of Republicans in their "likely voter" estimates, and didn't take in to account all the newly registered voters, who were more likely to vote for Kerry.

Indeed, the exit polls showed Kerry winning by an even wider margin.

The exit polls are the most accurate polls we have, and they're often used to verify the legitimacy of elections.

"Exit polls are almost never wrong", writes Republican Dick Harris, who had ordered exit polls be conducted in Mexico in order to make sure the election was legitimate. "To screw up one exit poll is unheard of. To miss six of them is incredible. It boggles the imagination how pollsters could be that incompetent and invites speculation that more than honest error was at play here."

Indeed. I'd like to see a cartogram in which not only are states' areas are adjusted by their number of electoral votes (like this one) but within states, counties are shown and their areas are adjusted by population.

Perhaps the point Mr Engberg missed is that one doen't get news from a single source in the Internet world? Instead, multiple sources are read and compared to minimise bias and stupidity. If there are statistics which require a PhD, go and find someone who has a PhD, knows satistics and can explain it to you, such as Tanenbaum.

Bush Hijacked the election and we have to live with the consequence for Four More Years because nobody is going to anything to fight it. What else is there to say...?
The most infamous one so far is Kerry Won. I live in the state of flordia and i know how floridians think. This state is democrat period. The polls on the last week even showed it. And so did the Exit Polling. And please save me the Liberal Whining as the former site is non-partisan, and of course the liberals will show that this election was robbed again because they would be the only ones who have interest to prove it!

Well, seeing as Bush got 40% of the vote in New York, and 45% of the vote in New Jersey and California, this whole nation must be "Jesusland".

Yee-haw!

Not really--the map is still quite red! It would be neat to see this done in a cartogram style, where the size of each county/state is scaled to the population.

Compare the states' current election results with states' past policies, and you can see how attitudes of the past carry over to influence decisions of the present. States afraid of minorities yesterday are afraid of gays and women today (Bush voters stated that anti-gay, anti-abortion "morality" was the most important issue in America, more than war or the economy). Fear is unfortunately the most easily cultivated factor in American decision making.

I also find it surprising that Florida was so clearly for Bush given how tight it was last time. (Maybe retirees care more about terrorism and Iraq than I thought?)

Much of Ohio uses Diebold voting machines, which leave no paper trail. Early in the campaign, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, a GOP fundraiser, promised to deliver Ohio to Bush. :(

Question: If someone committed fraud, would it be better to make it a decisive victory in order to avoid scrutiny?

These guys should start with the big counties in states such as Florida and Ohio that seemed to turn out contrary to prediction.

First off, there's a big difference between "heavy load" and "attack". You can usually tell the difference by looking at the network traffic, which I'm sure he had done, and seeing if there are lots of matching TCP sequence numbers (the sequence number is constant in the "industry-standard" syn-flooders for Windows).

Second, it's a tad strange that, for every time Bush is not a sure-fire winner, his site is attacked. That could be some bias, but that's what the webmaster says.

I am a Kerry supporter. I am open about that. Despite my political preference, I have bent over backwards to be scrupulously honest about all the numbers, and have carefully designed the main page to be strictly nonpartisan. Only the third row of menu items below the map contains material that could be considered pro-Kerry (e.g., jokes about George Bush). If you are a Kerry supporter, an independent, a moderate Republican who is fed up with the President's fiscal and other policies or even a conservative Republican who feels betrayed and who has a sense of humor, you will probably enjoy them. If you want an election site that has a pro-Bush bias from beginning to end, including all over the main page, try www.electionprojection.com.

It's cool, he has been updating electoral college maps for the past few months, based on various polls. I've only followed it for the past few weeks, and it's consistently shown Kerry leading. (Tennenbaum only 'came out of the closet' today to acknowledge who he was, it was pretty funny that I actually heard of the guy that ran that site.)

I don't necessarily agree with his polling method. He chooses the most recent poll for each state, instead of either weighing or averaging several polls. For example, his current data uses the most recent polls from Wisconsin and Ohio from a notable poll that disagrees with many other polls highly favoring Kerry. Similarly, New Jersey has been shown by several polls to lead Kerry, but as per his rule he's sticking with a known Republican-oriented polling house. So he set his rules awhile ago and is still sticking to them.

But he has been projecting a notable Kerry win (in electoral votes) for quite some time now, and bases this on his own personal weighing of various polls. His current EV prediction is a Kerry victory of 306 to 218. We'll see how close he comes.

This is best because it still preserves the two things the E.C. is good for: (1) preventing low-population states from becoming completely irrelevant, and (2) maintaining the U.S. as a federation of states, rather than as one big homogenous population.

The overrepresentation due to (1) isn't really so bad -- if you take a look at an Electoral-vote-based cartogram of the U.S., the minimum-size states are still pretty small.

Reason (2) is still a good idea because having stronger States means better local control -- and more power for you, as an individual, to have an effect on many of the matters that affect your life directly. If we just had direct national elections, the individuality of States become less relevant to a degree. There could also be other consequences that we haven't thought of -- I think this is one case where maintaining the tradition is the safest thing.

So then that leaves just the one adjustment to make: the proportional allocation. This would solve one of the big problems we've seen in this election, that states that are comfortably predicted to go for one candidate or another get neglected. And people also get discouraged from voting because they think it won't matter. The E.C. already fixes these problems for small states; those of us in the "solid" states need something too!

Also, this would have a better chance of letting 3rd parties into the process. Yes, a threshold would have to be passed, but in a big state like California or Texas, there's a good chance that a third party could get several E.C. votes.

Of course, there's at least one thing in the way of making this actually happen. Since it's up to each State to decide how to allocate its votes, this can't be just done all at once at the federal level. But the parties in control of states like California or Texas certainly aren't going to make such a change by themselves -- why would they want to give away almost half their votes, with no guarantee of reciprocation from the other side?

So that's the solution: guarantee the reciprocation in the wording of the law/referendum/whatever that changes the alloction to proportional. For example, California could pass a referendum that includes a statement like "This will not go into effect until the following states also allocate their electors proportionally, or have a similar law that would gurantee this once the new allocation has gone into effect in California: Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Tennessee, ... ".

Non-partisan? An MIT/University of California graduate, who is a Professor, who left the United States to live in Amsterdam, whose favorite reading material is the New York Times, LA Times, and Washington Post. A man who openly disagrees with Bush's policy. An excerpt:

"If other countries won't help out, Bush is going to be faced with an unpleasant choice: accept another Vietnam-type quagmire lasting for years or reinstitute the draft. There is no way we can win in Iraq with current troop levels. Something has to change. More of the same won't work. And it is an open secret that after the election, Bush is going to ask Congress for another $70 billion down payment on Iraq. Who is going to pay for it? We are."

Yeah this guy can be counted on for complete unbiased coverage!

Read it for yourself

The Votemaster is reporting another "attack" this morning, but I think he may have just seen a CNN-grade slashdotting. =) Of course, even at the worst that I saw (when I checked it at 8ish after my morning comics), the attack didn't reach the third of his eight servers. Fortunately, he also reports he has co-workers who are researching flash crowds. Lucky them!

• http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/Around_the_World/Coun tries/United_States/Government/Politics/Elections/ 2004_U_S__Elections/
• http://www.electoral-vote.com/
• http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/
• http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/campaign/ind ex.html
• http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
• http://www.factcheck.org/

Here is a site that shows the results of the latest polls around the US. He has stated he will be working all day today to provide the results. The site is already in the top 1000 web pages!

http://www.electoral-vote.com

A fun fact:
http://electoral-vote.com/ is run by Andrew Tanenbaum of MINIX fame (among other things).

I will stay up all night election night and update the site in real time. I am NOT promising to stay up until we know who the president is. I would definitely like to go to bed sometime during the month of November.