Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature

[u/slaysia]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa

[u/korelin]

This is fantastic. Whenever someone trots out the ol' "vote don't matter" trope, you can just rub this one in their face.

[u/Dregon → u/korelin]

Lots of votes don't matter thanks to the electoral college and first-past-the-post jokes of an electoral system.

[u/ohitsasnaake → u/[deleted]]

FPTP/the way nearly all states (all but 2 iirc, and them using congressional districts instead is worse, because it allows for gerrymandering) grant all their EC votes to the winner, do mean lots of votes are wasted, though. Not just 3rd party ones, but also those who voted for the ticket which lost in that state, and also every vote for the winning ticket past 50%+1 vote. Beyond that point, no further votes count towards the national result. Basically, only those 50%+1 votes ever matter, whoever gets them. Compare to a popular vote for president, where both the excess votes for the winner of a winner-takes-all EC vote and the losing vote would count.

Consider California in 2016:

Clinton Trump
Popular vote 8,753,788 4,483,810
Percentage 61.73% 31.62%

If the US presidential election was by popular vote, not only would the 11.73% of Clinton's "excess" have counted, but also the 31.62% for Trump. And in all likelihood, everyone would have been more motivated to vote, since the state being a safe majority for one party wouldn't matter, due to every vote being counted nationally.

[u/Dregon → u/[deleted]]

I'm not talking about vote weighting, although that is what lost Hillary the presidency, I'm talking about how in most states the Electoral College votes are allocated on a plurality basis aka First-past-the-post (FPTP)

So when Texas Votes aprox. 52% for Trump and 43% for Clinton, 100% of the electors are allocated to him (ignoring faithless electors). If the electoral College votes in each state were allocated proportionally, Hillary would've lost by 2 electoral college votes instead of 74.

But FPTP matters WAYYY more in state legislatures, because it makes gerrymandering possible and because, by it's nature of creating districts, it means that representation by party will be disproportionate (unless 100% of people voted for the same party in every riding).

FTPT means the losers votes are always irrelevant when the do not need to be.

Watch these videos to get a better idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k?t=2m43s

[u/user-user → u/[deleted]]

The electoral college doesn't mean your vote doesn't matter, though.

That's exactly what it means.

If 100% of my state's votes go to the winner, and my vote has zero impact on the outcome of the winner, then the electoral college means my vote doesn't matter.

Here is all possible cases, with all possible outcomes:

• I vote R: 100% of my state's EC votes go to D.
• I vote D: 100% of my state's EC votes go to D.
• I vote I: 100% of my state's EC votes go to D.
• I don't vote: 100% of my state's EC votes go to D.

Notice how every single thing I do has the same outcome? That means my vote doesn't matter.

[u/[deleted] → u/korelin]

It's almost 2018. I thought we agreed to stop rubbing things in people's faces. Do you want to get fired? Because that's how you get fired.

[u/user-user → u/korelin]

Cool, one election out of how many where a single vote mattered?

People also win lotteries.

[u/Zexapher → u/user-user]

It happens more often than you'd think, especially in the smaller local elections.