“We will put America on track to a balanced budget by eliminating unnecessary programs, by sending programs to states where they can be managed with less abuse and less cost, and shrinking the bureaucracy of Washington.” – Mitt Romney in “My Vision for America.” published on www.cnn.com, November 2, 2012.
“We will put America on track to a balanced budget by eliminating unnecessary programs, by sending programs to states where they can be managed with less abuse and less cost, and shrinking the bureaucracy of Washington.” – Mitt Romney in “My Vision for America.” published on www.cnn.com, November 2, 2012.
“I believe America’s prosperity was built on the strength of our middle class. We’re better off when everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules.” – President Barack Obama in “My Vision for America.” Published on www.cnn.com, November 2, 2012
The U.S. presidential election is scheduled for November 6, 2012; Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts State is the presidential candidate of the Republican Party. He will be challenging the incumbent president and the Democratic Party candidate, President Barack Obama. The two gentlemen are paradoxically similar in ideology but stylishly distinctive in the manner they define their core values. One is a quasi-socialist who pretends to be a fairness and distributive capitalist; the other is a venture capitalist but has socialistic sensibilities and does not want to be seen as neither. The election will largely provide a binary choice for voters; a choice between a big distributive government of tax-the-rich, tax-the-corporations and increase-the-welfare agenda and another big government of cut-the-taxes, free-the-businesses and increase-self-dependency agenda. These two choices are fundamentally ideological.
American voters may have listened to many speeches from the candidates, seen all sort of campaign ads, read candidates’ plans or promises but one thing might be missing; the truth. So, to relief the voters of the burden of misrepresentations or outright lies that have characterized both campaigns, this article identifies five election issues that will be explained in terms of figures only. Voters may have many reasons to vote a choice based on individual convictions and added persuasions from each campaign but in a democratic society, elections are won and lost based on several factors, but when such factors are synthesized, analyzed and then transmuted into quantitative expressions, it becomes a little bit easy to arrive at some algorithms. So the voters and consumers of political speech should have factual measures by which to judge what they hear or read.
America is one of the fewest countries in the world that can be explained in terms of data. This article will discuss only five algorithms that may impact the election so that voters can individually extrapolate facts from figures.
First is the Electoral College: The most important figure that determines who is elected the president will come from the Electoral College. This figure is 270, i.e. a majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. The road to 270 is complex; each state is allocated electoral votes, there are 538 electoral votes in the electoral map, a serious presidential candidate must focus on how to put all campaign tactics, operations and strategies to gather as many as possible electoral votes. A candidate that wins the popular votes in a state carries the entire electoral votes allocated to that state (with the exception of two states). Some voters who vote for a presidential candidate think they are voting directly for a candidate, this is not so; they are actually voting for electors who will then “pledge” to elect the president in the Electoral College. Consequently, there are some important possibilities with Electoral College system voters must know; it is possible for a presidential candidate to win popular votes but lose the election. It happened four times in American history, the most recent was in 2000 - George Bush and Gore. It is possible to win the election by winning eleven states and disregarding the rest of the country. Though it is a long shot, if a candidate were to take California (55 votes), Texas (38), New York (29), Florida (29), Illinois (20), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15), and New Jersey (14) that candidate would have 270 votes.
With the Electoral College system, it is possible no presidential candidate will campaign in the state where they are certain to lose or win. For example, I live in Illinois, Romney has not business campaigning here, he is certain to lose. Obama has no worries here; he is certain to win, so I have no privilege to attend any presidential campaign rally. Because of the Electoral College, some states will merely become “spectator” states watching candidates on TVs campaign in “battleground” states. The point here is that electioneering campaigns will end up focusing only on approximately ten battleground states including Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia, and Michigan. So another algorithm to know is the number of the battleground states. It is also possible for a 269-269 tie in electoral votes. It has happened twice in U.S. history. Presidents Thomas Jefferson in 1801 and John Quincy Adams in 1825 were elected by the House of Representatives. If this happens again, under the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a tie would bump the choice to the newly elected Congress. The House of Representatives, which probably will remain in Republican hands, would choose the president, and the Senate, likely to remain controlled by Democrats, would select the vice president. Do you want a Romney-Biden administration or litigations over political impasse on the final presidential result? So if you are a voter, the Electoral College is about arithmetic figure, your vote counts but may be irrelevant if it does not help your favorite candidate win the electoral vote in your state on the road to the 270 finish line!
The second is the Opinion Polls: In a presidential election, measuring the public opinion is a necessity at least to allow voters express their opinions on the candidates. One of the commonest means of gathering and measuring public opinion on specific issue is through the use of opinion polls and the results given in percentage number. Without going into the details of how polls are conducted, what is germane is that polls may not give the true opinion of an entire population. In this election, there are many pollsters out there testing the opinion of the people, there is Gallup, Rasmussen Reports, Fox News, CBS/New York Times/Quinnipiac, Wall Street Journal/NBC, ABC/Washington Post etc. No matter how legitimate they are, traces of ideological biases are evident in these pollsters. Some may not sample equal number of Democrats, Republicans and Independents; some would sample more cell phone users than land phone users or vice versa, some would sample registered voters only or likely voters only. Polls may report erroneous results because respondents were not chosen in a scientific manner.
For example, from last week, I monitored polls conducted in Ohio by 3 pollsters, in one poll, Romney 49%, Obama 49%, in another poll, Romney 47%, Obama 51%, then the third, Romney 44%, Obama 46% all with sampling errors between ±3.7% and ±4.0% , so which poll is correct? I will say, wait till 11:00 pm E.T on November 6! To gather a better idea about polls, I personally monitor www.realclearpolitics.com because it gives the aggregate average of many polls. Also I monitor prediction markets that find the probability of something happening. My favorite is www.intrade.com, which allows you to make predictions on the outcome of hundreds of real-world events. For political betting, participants also monitor popular polls to make decisions. I think polls are just there to make voters either happy or worried. Those voters who rely too much on polls prior to election may be for a shocker after ballots are fully counted. Therefore, voters should watch out for fraudulent surveys and other types of skewed samples as they may be used to deliberately mislead the public with bogus or unrealistic percentage figure.
The third is Demographics. At the core of the national electorate are the demographic influences of voters. In the aggregate, these demographic influences translate into figures. A candidate will have to win as many demographic groups as possible. Major voter groups that usually influence elections are gender, race, educational attainment, age, religion, and economic status. In each group, there are various sub groups. As a voter you should know where you belong in these sub-groups, you cannot belong to all. For example under age demography, if you are above 65, then you are an adult citizen. Even if you think you are young at heart, say 30, the point is that you cannot claim both 65+ and 30 at the same time. Every year, at least 4 million young Americans reach the age of 18, just eligible for voting, this is a fertile group that can also influence the election. Based on previous exit poll of 5 previous presidential elections collated by New York Times, on average, blacks tend to vote Dems (at least 87%) than GOP (9%); Jews tend to vote Dems (75%) than GOP (18%). White Evangelicals and Protestants vote GOP (63%) than Dems (29%); Hispanics tend to vote Dems (65%) than GOP (29%). All these figures may change in the election but it is important to know the trends.
Other demography that cuts across others is the recent immigrants. Immigrants from all over the world who are eligible to vote should understand one thing: you are probably not here in America to live the same life and government policies you had lived in your home country. In fact, it is very likely for you to draw an easy conclusion between polices in your home country and the current policies in America. Afro-Euro economic policies are mostly based on democratic socialism; government taking control of almost everything. Nonetheless, the results we see today are self-evident; these countries are fast becoming beggar-nations with increasing debts, deficits, inflation, austerity, poverty, unemployment rate, cost of living, corruption, poor educational system etc. So watch out, if you think America is drifting towards the same old big government policies you had left behind, you be the judge if you want to relive same life and policies here in America.
For the other American voters, the lack of water supply, electricity, shortages of gasoline, hopelessness, damaged public infrastructures etc. you are currently witnessing in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy in the East Coast is what happens in many third world countries almost every day in the absence of any natural disaster! Government role is certainly needed in nation building but watch out, when the role of your government becomes too big and extensively regulatory; it will one day run out of money, ideas and excuses at the detriment of continued provision for many social amenities. Don’t believe me; listen to an immigrant, Thomas Peterffy, a Hungarian-born billionaire, talk about it here in this YouTube Ad. “I grew up in a socialist country,” He says in his one-man opinion, “And I have seen what that does to people. There is no hope, no freedom, no pride in achievement. The nation became poorer and poorer. And that’s what I see happening here. Read more here:
Please look out for part 2. The algorithms to discuss will include Economic Data and Campaign Finance
Nester Komolafe monitors the U.S. presidential elections from Chicago, IL.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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