Talk:Election

"Popular Vote"

I have no idea what the problem is, but I added something that was deleted and someone said it should be on the talk page. So here it is, relating to the electoral college.

Because of this, it's a misnomer to even call it a "popular vote," as it is, in reality, dozens of different popular votes, with different circumstances affecting the outcomes. For example, a vote in 2000 in Massachusetts or Texas -- states where the victory of Al Gore and Bush, respectively, were virtually assured -- was mostly symbolic, while in Florida -- which was much closer -- each vote meant a lot more. So turnout might be higher in Florida, and lower in Masschusetts and Texas, in 2000. Or people in the latter two states might have been more likely to vote for third-party candidates, like Ralph Nader. Also, each state conducts its elections differently, within certain paramaters, including the method of voting, and even who is eligible to vote (e.g., convicted felons). Due to these and other factors, lumping all the votes from all the states in the nation together into one "popular vote" to determine who "won" is statistically invalid.

Pudge 20:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I was the one that reverted that edit. It seemed like a controversial addition that deserved some further discussion. Thanks for posting it here.

Here are my comments:

• This is a rather large amount of text to add to the relatively-short "Who is elected" section of this wikipedia page. If this talk page were a paper, I would include your text as a footnote if I thought the idea of "popular vote" needed clarification.

• I see what you're getting at here... but in some sense any large election is going to suffer from regional discrepancies in how elections are administered, conducted, etc. And at the center of all of this, the definition of popular vote that the article is talking about is along the lines of: "tabulating all votes in an election contest from the official statement of results from subordinate jursidictions (states, counties, etc.)".

• Do you have any source to which you can attribute this argument?

But the fact is that "tabulating all votes ... from subordinate jursidictions (states, counties, etc.)" has no statistical meaning. While differences are true "in some sense" in any large election, what's different here is that you are not actually all voting for the same thing, whereas in most large elections, you do. Because I am voting for the electors in Texas (who are already going to Bush) and you are voting for electors in Florida (where the election is close), we are not voting for the same thing and we will have different motives for voting the way we do. To lump them all together is meaningless. The fact is, for all we know, Bush might have had more popular votes than Gore if we had an actual popular vote for President, all other things being equal.

Maybe you can think of a better way to express this?

As to source, I don't see that one is needed; the conclusion obviously follows from the known facts. You can no more add Florida and Texas together as you can add NFL and NBA scores together. I have some though, for example, Empirically Evaluating the Electoral College, which notes among other things:

The results in Figure 5.4 are only approximate, not just because of the specific modeling choices made, but also because of the implicit assumption that the patterns of voting would not be affected by changes in the electoral system. For example, states such as California and Texas that were not close in the 2000 election might have had higher turnout under a popular vote system in which all votes counted equally. Thus, our results compare different electoral systems as applied to the actual observed votes and do not directly address counterfactual questions about what would happen if the electoral system were changed.

-- Pudge 01:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you're getting at... I've still got a couple of questions. I'm just running out the door right now, but will return to this tomorrow. -- Joebeone (Talk) 03:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to respond... while we may be voting for different things (electors for different states), what do we think we're voting for? That is, has there ever been any survey work that shows people from different states believe that they are not voting for president but voting for the electors in their state? Could you propose a shorter version of the material that you added for inclusion? (I could take a shot at it, if you'd like). -- Joebeone (Talk) 20:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I know that in 1996, I voted for Harry Browne. I lived in Massachusetts, where Clinton was a shoo-in to win. If I had lived in a "swing state," I would have voted for Dole (I did not like Dole, but preferred him over Clinton). And I know I am not nearly alone in this, as I've met many people who have voted similarly (or not voted at all). Yes, it's anecdotal evidence, but it's also a given that for many people, their voting patterns change because of whether their state is competitive; indeed, how your vote will be counted is considered so influential to how you vote that there are whole voting systems created to counteract the effect (see, for example, Condorcet method).

The question really isn't so much whether we can prove the election result would be different had it been an actual poular vote, it is whether you can show it wouldn't be. We cannot assume that changing a major component of the election system will not have an impact on the result. Pudge 17:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The general "Election" article probably isn't the best place for extensive detail of particular electoral systems, except when illustrating general concepts. There are articles for U.S. Electoral College and Elections in the United States where this sort of stuff should live, and be pointed to or summarized here as necessary. I did some stop-gap rewording of the text in question to eliminate the problematic "popular vote" phrasing. - David Oberst 22:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Your edit still has two big problems. First, it says that it is "somewhat a formality," which to me means that it is not significant in determining outcome, which is the very question we're discussing, and to me seems to be POV. Second, it incorrectly implies that the "winner" of the "popular vote" necessarily has either majority or pluralirty support, when, again, that is simply not known. It is simply false to say that Gore had more "support" than Bush in 2000, because there is no significant evidence supporting that conclusion; you're taking the "national popular vote" to mean something it doesn't mean. It is true that Gore may have had more popular support, but as popular support was not actually measured, we can't state it as a fact.

In the interests of agreeing with the spirit of your edit here, I've removed that part of the discussion, letting people find out more by going to the Electoral College page. Pudge 17:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

For the purposes of this article, it doesn't matter if some people wrongly think the US presidential elections are a simple direct election, or would advocate making it one, or whatever. The section in this article is just covering "Who is elected", and points out the somewhat indirect nature of the election in some cases. The "majority or plurality" referred to is of the votes cast in whatever process is in place, the point being that this is not a simple direct election - it doesn't imply that this "majority or plurality" of votes is the actual mechanism by which the winner was chosen. The "somewhat of a formality" (I couldn't come up with a better wording on short notice) can be taken to refer to the electors in the current system, which could be removed from the existing system without too much trouble. The state-by-state allocation, on the other hand, is what makes this different from a popular vote, but the questions of direct elections, opinion sampling, or whatever can be taken up at the US-specific articles, electoral reform, or wherever. - David Oberst 20:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Does it "matter" in "this" article if there's factually incorrect information in it? Because that's the problem. It is, for example, simply incorrect to say "In both cases the office is not being voted on directly, and the distribution of legislative seats (or the state-by-state results in the American case) may produce a winner who lacks a majority or even a plurality of support, as in the 2000 US Presidential election." There is *no evidence at all* that Bush did not get majority/plurality support, because there is no actual measurement of that. It's one thing to decline to get into the issue, but it's another to misinform. My edit last time didn't take for some reason; fixing it now (basically, just removed the whole end of the discussion; as you say, people can go to the individual pages to find out more). I hope you will agree this is acceptable. Pudge 00:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

"because there is no actual measurement of that." Really? The states did not count votes? I find that hard to believe. Every state should have published the total amount of votes each candidate was able to obtain, and those numbers can be added up for the entire USA. Of course this is irrelevant for the outcome of the election, but I am pretty sure such proof (or falsification) can be *easily* delivered...2001:A61:B42:9201:749B:AB76:8A9F:6431 (talk) 11:04, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I restored the paragraph, replacing "support" with "votes cast", which wording should alleviate your concern without deleting the entire text. - David Oberst 01:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

But now instead of stating something that's incorrect, it merely implies it. I don't think that's an improvement. I also don't get how it is useful to talk about electors being bound by law or custom when we aren't told how electors are selected to be on the ballot, and so on. Apart from the false implication of the meaningfulness of the popular vote -- which is unnecessary since the facts already stated imply that the so-called popular vote, which doesn't actually exist, can end up with a different result -- this all seems to raise more questions than it answers. As you said, this should all just point to the relevant articles, which it already did. Pudge 08:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Caption

I don't understand the caption for the first picture.

"Leaves the second round of parliamentary elections in Iran election"

What is that supposed to mean? Tad Lincoln (talk) 06:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Wild guess: leaf in the sense 'sheet of paper', i.e. "Ballots for ..." —Tamfang (talk) 00:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing the same. EmGaGa (talk) 00:57, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Very closely related articles not mentioned

There are a number of other articles, such as Elections Canada or Elections in Sweden, which are not mentioned or referred to at all here, as if they did not exist. What can be done about that? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 14:17, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Are elections "free" if it is compulsory to vote?

Just asking. --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 10:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
Good question, ExperiencedArticleFixer. That made me think. EmGaGa (talk) 00:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Simplifying introduction

What's wrong with this? User:FlightTime, please explain yourself, and also please explain why reverting such an edit qualifies as a minor edit. 122.150.71.249 (talk) 01:12, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I use edit summaries. Change it back if you want. - FlightTime (open channel) 01:47, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I agree with the IP editor. I'd say that "one or more individuals" sounds more clear than "an individual or multiple individuals". I'd even support people in place of individuals, though I know there are a few dogs which hold mayoral titles. SchreiberBike | ⌨  01:25, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Open Democracy

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation–supported course assignment, between 31 August 2022 and 7 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): FlaresofCryo (article contribs). Peer reviewers: SailordeSuisse.

— Assignment last updated by SailordeSuisse (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Transparent ballot boxes

In the sham elections in southern Ukraine, transparent ballot boxes were used. It was claimed that that symbolized the transparency and legitimacy of the process. Or could this have been a measure to control what people voted for? ◅ Sebastian 15:04, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

pop-up for this article

the pop-up that appears for this article when you click on the related link in another article on the Wikipedia Mobile app says "election Jimi," I don't know how to fix this. I don't know if it appears like this on the web version. Unrefined Gasoline (talk) 14:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)