On Thu, September 8, 2016 4:33 pm, Russell Coker via luv-talk wrote:
On Wednesday, 7 September 2016 3:39:43 PM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
The Republicans (AKA 'GOP' = Grand Old Party) have a recurring nightmare of shutout nationwide. Unlike with the Westminster system, shutout is possible: If your party consistently gets 40% of the vote everywhere, you will have zero elected offices.
The Westminster system doesn't require the Australian Ballot or any other voting system. The UK has first past the post for parliament which drives voters to support 1 of 2 parties thus driving out small parties. This combined with voting for a single candidate in the electorate means that a party with 40% support everywhere will get no seats in parliament.
Quite correct; the difference between the "Washington" and "Westminster" systems is a distinction between the powers of the president/prime minister and the legislature. Voting methods can vary widely regardless of this distribution. What Rick is, of course, talking about is the potential of the GOP receiving a low (zero is extremely improbable) number of Electoral College votes, which determines the President. In nearly all cases the states have a "winner takes all" approach for the number of EC votes for each state. Here is the 2012 US Electoral College map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29#/media/F... By population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29#/media/F... And here is current expectations from five38 http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ Interestingly, Clinton might even win by a bigger margin than Obama. If the predictions are right and she loses Iowa but gains North Carolina, that's a net improvement. It might be that a very large number of Americans simply aren't fond of Trump. It is also interesting that the Libertarian candidate (and ex-GOP governor) is picking up notable, albeit single digit, support. -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt