and things went downhill from there

I was playing around with the numbers form the latest presidential election south of the border, looking at some "what if" scenarios if the system more closely matched the actual will of the voters.

This is not an attempt to point fingers at a broken system, since our own system has its own serious failings. In fact, I think the single biggest failing in both systems is the nature of first past the post and winner takes all nature of them.

Since they just had an election, though, I'm going to focus on the US system.

If you look at the national results (there are still some absentee/overseas/military counts happening, but this is based on the numbers at the time when I write this).

Candidate	Total	Percent	Votes
Trump:	73,967,466	47	232
Biden:	80,259,147	51	306
Other:	2,887,049	2	0

While the college votes match the popular vote to the extent that the successful candidate got the majority of both, the actual numbers make the winner's total look much more decisive. If one were simply to divide up the electoral college votes proportionally to the overall percentages, the winner would still be the same in this case, but it would no longer effectively disenfranchise the 2% who voted for neither of the main candidates, and it would do a better job of showing how close the election actually was.

Candidate	Total	Percent	Votes
Trump:	73,967,466	47	253
Biden:	80,259,147	51	275
Other:	2,887,049	2	10

On the other hand, if you were to break down the electoral votes by having each state award them based on the proportion of votes in that state, you would get something more along this line.

Candidate	Total	Votes
Trump:	73,967,466	265
Biden:	80,259,147	272
Other:	2,887,049	1

The effects of first past the post are mostly felt in US elections by the fact that the contests have, over time, been reduced to two parties. On the other hand, 52 of the electoral votes were decided in states where the winning candidate finished with a negative margin (that is, a majority of the voters in that state voted against the candidate). While the second and third tables show that it would not have been sufficient change to affect the results of the election, it still effectively disenfranchised roughly 8,670,097 voters in those states who voted against the candidate who won their state.

The difference between the second and third tables shows how the results skew toward the smaller states when the counts are handled on a state-by-state basis, resulting in 90% of the people who voted for a third candidate having their votes nullified versus going with national counts. The shifting of 3 votes away from the winning candidate also illustrates how there is an imbalance of electoral votes between the states, with smaller ones having disproportionally more votes than they should. (Not to get into partisan politics, but this is also why the side who currently benefits from this has been working to sabotage the national census.)

What's the solution? I don't know - the system is pretty convoluted, and it is baked into a constitution that would be almost impossible to change under the current, polarized conditions in the country.

The fairest solution would be to award electoral votes based on the national counts.
A suboptimal solution - that is still better than present day - would be for the states to award their votes proportionally based on their state counts.

One might argue that the disproportional power given to smaller states was intentional to offset tyranny by the majority, but my (from an outsider, obviously) understanding was that this was accomplished by giving states 2 votes in the senate, regardless of their population.

The senate is another can of worms. I don't think the original architects of it anticipated the vast population differences that would start to build over the years, or they'd have realized that they were substituting a tyranny of the majority for a tyranny of the minority. I just find it odd that a vote in Wyoming should hold the same weight as 68 votes in California, or a vote in Vermont should have the same weight as 46 votes in Texas. Solutions might be to reduce the power of the senate a bit, or award senators to states based on a more equitable formula where it's based on their population's standard deviation above or below the median.

Anyway, it's fun to analyse an electoral system that's almost as flawed as our own. On the balance of probabilities, I can envision the system sliding into an authoritarian dictatorship before I can see it ever being patched to make it more equitable. Just my $.02.

I am fascinated by urban decay. This was a shot I took when we were out for a walk yesterday.

Last night as the results of the US presidential election was starting to become inevitable, the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration web site crashed. It was essentially hit by a DDOS by people looking for an easy escape from the disaster that was unfolding.

It has become a common refrain in almost every election of late. Regardless of who is running, persons on the other side of the spectrum declare that they are "moving to Canada" if the results do not go their way. It's not that we would not welcome immigrants here - we have a fairly generous immigration policy, especially when it comes to people with marketable skills. The thing is that it's not a simple matter of loading up the car with the kids and driving up here to a new life.

Given the casualness with which people toss this out every time there is a domestic crisis, one gets the feeling that they think it involves the same kind of logistics as moving to the neighbouring county to get away from a new school tax. I know that the vast majority of people who say they are going to move here when they don't get their way are just venting, and only a few actually even bother to investigate it. Well, enough to bring that department's web site to its knees last night.

Of the ones that investigate it, most never pursue it because of the cost and work involved, or because they find out that they might not even qualify.

I suppose on the one hand it is slightly flattering that so many people think they want to move here, but on the other hand, it's a bit insulting that people assume we will just welcome them in because they're not happy with their election results. It's like having the guy across the hall assume he can just march across to your place and flop on your couch if he has a fight with his roommates. I mean, if he's in real danger then only a heartless person would refuse him refuge, but nobody wants to have him barge in your front door every time his buddy squeezed the toothpaste from the middle rather than the end.

Obviously I am not comparing the electoral disaster to a minor roommate squabble, and I don't mean to make light of the the true fear and despair that people are feeling right now, but when your house is a mess, you need to clean it up. Don't just assume you can move in with the neighbour.

The implied notion that we are some kind of consolation prize for people who did not get their way gets a bit old. It may surprise them to learn that we're not just another state that they can pack up and move to. We're a sovereign nation with our own, Byzantine laws governing immigration and refuge. We have our own politics; we're socialists. We have our own culture (it may not seem like it because we look and act so much like you, but atara will attest to the fact that we are actually different). A good percent of us actually speak another language from you.

What I am saying is that you are welcome to come here. We are accommodating and friendly. But unless you are fleeing for your life, then make sure you are bringing something to the table when you come. Show us that we have a reason to let you move in. "My roommates are jerks" is not a good enough reason.

Here is one of our modern, socialist medical devices.


Behold the glory of a socialist sunset. All hail the balance of colours.

The electorate have opted for change, but not much.  The voters have given Harper a "show me" minority government.  He gets one chance to prove to the people that he's not a scary, radical, bible-belt wingnut from Alberta.  If he wants to get in any of his more radical platform issues, he should probably act early rather than later, since it sounds like the Liberals will be going through a leadership change, and they'll be reluctant to force another election when they have no leader.

And now for the dumbest thing you'll likely read today.  The word "asinine" barely begins to describe this.