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Super Tuesday, McCain Leads Reps, Dems Undecided
Following the so called Super Tuesday primary mega bash yesterday, McCain has solidified a strong lead in the primary race over his rival Republicans. Things aren't so clear for the Democrats: while Clinton leads, the race is still too close to call.
Looking at CNN, a lot of the delegate counts are still short for the democrats, based on the total number of delegates they've assigned for a lot of the super tuesday states and a the number of delegates tha they say the state has tied to yesterdays elections and caucuses. So the balance could still shift some.
Generally I've been disappointed with the reporting on the elections so far. Before super tuesday, Obama had gotten the most pledged delegates or tied with clinton in all the contests, but there were a few were they called Clinton the winner. It would be like declaring the the super bowl winner based on the number completed passes and not the score, which according to espn would make the Patriots the winner, which we all understand they are not.
Beyond my general dismay at the misrepresentation of the democratic primary results, I am frustrated with the confusion that this type of reporting causes. The outlets glaze over the actual electoral mechanics and come as close as they can to portraying each contest as a statewide popular vote. Then when the presidential election comes around they will do their best to portray it as a national popular election. First in the US not all votes are equal, electoral votes are based on # of members of both houses of congress from the state so because of each state getting two senators, the ratio of electoral votes to population, means that they people in low populace states have votes that are worth more of an electoral vote each. After that because most states are winner take all when it come to electoral votes if a candidate wins 100% of the vote in states that make up 40% of the electoral college and loses the other 60% of the electoral vote worth of states in a 48%/52% split then he would lose the election but would have won the make believe nationwide popular election by a pretty good margin, and people would be pissed, and feel cheated. And most of the time they would blame it on the disparity of the states in the electoral college.
The worst part about all this electoral confusion is that blaming the electoral college is how you make sure the system never changes. The electoral college is based on squarely in the constitution and would be a major undertaking to change. However the constitution has nothing at all to do with how each state allocates there votes. That can be addressed on a state by state level. Currently most states are winner take all. Which means that a thousand or so voters (or the fraud perpetrated on a thousand or so voters) can decide millions of peoples worth of vote. If all the states switched to proportional voting then the margins for how much the popular vote can differ from the results would decrease. It would also severely reduce the rewards for disenfranchising voters, and candidates would have to do a better job of appealing to the majority. If you don't like the elections don't bitch about the electoral college, work for change at the state level. Once we have the state elections behaving more inline with our expectations and at this point our desired system, we can see if we really need to tinker with the much harder to tinker with constitution.