See https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19-4a78160a-023c-4ff0-9069-53cee2a095a8
According to this article, in 14 of states where the voters that showed up favored Trump, the electors can vote for someone else without penalty.
I wonder if any of these petitions are limited to the people who actually showed up, or can those who didn’t bother to vote also sign the petitions?
Do I jest? Not quite, the de facto winner of the 2016 election was “none of the above”. Over 40% of eligible voters stayed home. See Voter Turnout Data - United States Elections Project.
231,556,622 voting eligible population (VEP)
137,297,086 ballots counted
59.3% turnout
94,259,536 didn’t cast a counted ballot
40.7% of VEP
65,476,535 votes (48.1%) Clinton
28.3% of VEP
62,821,935 votes (46.1%) Trump
27.1% of VEP
8,998,616 votes (6.6%) Others
3.9% of VEP
Over half of those who showed up voted for someone else than Donald Trump. That certainly is not “the people” deciding for Trump.
But when you consider that over two-thirds of the eligible voters did not cast a vote for Trump, you would think Trump would have a bit more humility. Don’t hold your breath.
If you were one of the no-shows, remember,
The only way
To throw your vote away
Is to stay away!
Showing posts with label the people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the people. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2016
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
The few don’t represent ‘the people’
Despite a claim to the contrary in the May 11 letter, “Flood of letters makes the answer clear on Central’s fate,” the “people” have not spoken about the fate of Duluth’s Central High property. A large number of letter writers have made their opinions known, but they are only a small minority of all the people of Duluth.
This is like saying the people have spoken because of a large turnout at a hearing on an ATV trail or on clean water.
This is worse than saying a politician won in a landslide with a turnout of less than 60 percent. Even if the vote for the politician was 60 percent, that means 64 percent of the voters either voted for someone else or didn’t make the effort to show up
At least in an election, all the people have the opportunity to show up. In a hearing or in letters to the editor, only a few [can] participate. The few, no matter the view, do not represent “the people.”
Letter to the Editor, published in the Duluth News Tribune, 2016-05-17
P. S. I didn't think to include "the people have spoken" is about as bad as the "People's Republic of ..."
This is like saying the people have spoken because of a large turnout at a hearing on an ATV trail or on clean water.
This is worse than saying a politician won in a landslide with a turnout of less than 60 percent. Even if the vote for the politician was 60 percent, that means 64 percent of the voters either voted for someone else or didn’t make the effort to show up
At least in an election, all the people have the opportunity to show up. In a hearing or in letters to the editor, only a few [can] participate. The few, no matter the view, do not represent “the people.”
Letter to the Editor, published in the Duluth News Tribune, 2016-05-17
P. S. I didn't think to include "the people have spoken" is about as bad as the "People's Republic of ..."
Thursday, February 11, 2016
General Ization’s power grows
Despite my warning in the Reader Weekly of 2007-04-26 (General Ization Battles Truth), people keep enlisting in his armies and misleading others.
The latest is the sweeping generalization that this or that candidate “won” in the Iowa primaries. Figuring out the Iowa caucus results is a bit of a slog, but looking at the result summary in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/iowa), you will see that one candidate “winning” and the others ‘losing” is a serious over-generalization.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton had 49.9% and was effectively awarded 23 delegates. Bernie Sander had 49.6% and 21 delegates. I would hardly call this a Clinton win, because Sanders received almost as many delegates as Clinton and who knows what will happen in the state convention when delegates are selected for the national convention?
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz had 27.6% of the vote and eight delegates, Donald Trump 24.3% and seven, and Marco Rubio 23.1% and seven.
These five candidates were all “winners” in the Iowa caucuses. But how will these results translate into actual votes in November? Iowa is a caucus state, not a primary state. My guess is that a lot fewer people show up for caucuses than do for primaries, and a lot fewer show up for primaries than do for final elections.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s registered-voter list has 586,835 “active” Democratic voters and 615,763 “active” Republican voters. But it lists 727,112 “No Party Active” voters. The Republican caucus turnout was 186,874 or less than a third of the “active” Republican registered voters.
I would say that the biggest winner, based on the large number of “no-shows” in the Iowa caucuses was “None of the Above”, and that means the biggest loser is democracy.
“New Hampshire Embraces Trump’s New York Bombast” (New York Times Online 2016-02-07). Really? Did all the voters in New Hampshire really embrace Trumps bombast? If we look at the figures of how many thousand New Hampshire voters actually turned up for Trump’s speeches, maybe the headline should read “New Hampshire Rejects Trump’s New York Bombast”.
Closer to home, the Duluth News Tribune has had headlines that imply all of Duluth is involved in something or other.
When a student died of exposure on Woodland Avenue, the News Tribune had a headline similar to “Duluth should be ashamed.” Did each and every person in Duluth know she was outside freezing to death? Was each and every driver passing by her house in any position to know that somebody was outside in need of help? Were even any of the very few pedestrians in a position to see somebody huddled at a door? Her death should never have happened, but only a few people were in any position to prevent this or come to her aid.
A recent headline was “Duluth feels ‘the Bern’”. How many Duluthians showed up for Bernie Sanders’ rally in Duluth? I think it was about 4,000. That is a rather good turnout, but that also means that about 76,000 Duluth residents didn’t show up for Sanders’ rally. How many would have liked to attend but didn’t for one reason or another? How many didn’t even want to consider going? We don’t know the numbers for either of these possibilities. But considering that probably more than 4,000 Duluth voters would not vote for Sanders, we could also have the over-generalized headline: “Duluth rejects Sanders”. If Sanders wins the Democratic endorsement, we will have to wait until November to find out if “Duluth rallies for Sanders” or if “Duluth rejects Sanders”. Either headline will be a generalization because there will be a large number of people who voted for the Republican candidate. These voters are also “Duluth”.
Since my previous column on General Ization, I’ve learned he would not have all this power without the able help of his lieutenants, Xavier Aggeration and Ms. Direction. You can detect some of X. Aggeration’s contributions above.
Ms. Direction has been spreading the notion of “value voters” embracing the Republicans. But don’t most voters have values? Besides anti-abortion and Biblical literallism, aren’t there the values of peace and justice? I find it strange that these “value voters” align themselves with supporters of “greedy corporations” who hold no values except “shareholder value”.
Ms. Direction, like her boss General Ization, doesn’t play favorites. She spreads the idea of “greedy corporations” as if all corporations treat their workers as serfs and cheat their customers as often as they can. There are many corporations that value their employees and often tell the regulators that something went wrong in the production of some product. And we find many corporations that are changing their products to suit their customer’s wants.
Of course, they only know what some customers want. Maybe other customers don’t want change, or if they want change, they want change back to products they could buy some years ago. Hopefully, the customers that want certain changes are those who volunteered the information, not those who were coerced into agreeing to a desired response in a focus group.
This leads us into the worst generalization: “The People”. It would be great if “The People” were a majority of all eligible voters. Unfortunately, election after election it is a “majority” of those who actually show up to vote; this too often means that a minority of eligible (and too often registered) voters “decided” the outcome. I hope you, dear reader, are going to be one who shows up and shows General Ization, X. Aggeration, and Ms. Direction that they are wrong.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2016-02-11 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/02/11/6703_general_izations_power_grows.
See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/02/general-ization-battles-truth.html.
The latest is the sweeping generalization that this or that candidate “won” in the Iowa primaries. Figuring out the Iowa caucus results is a bit of a slog, but looking at the result summary in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/iowa), you will see that one candidate “winning” and the others ‘losing” is a serious over-generalization.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton had 49.9% and was effectively awarded 23 delegates. Bernie Sander had 49.6% and 21 delegates. I would hardly call this a Clinton win, because Sanders received almost as many delegates as Clinton and who knows what will happen in the state convention when delegates are selected for the national convention?
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz had 27.6% of the vote and eight delegates, Donald Trump 24.3% and seven, and Marco Rubio 23.1% and seven.
These five candidates were all “winners” in the Iowa caucuses. But how will these results translate into actual votes in November? Iowa is a caucus state, not a primary state. My guess is that a lot fewer people show up for caucuses than do for primaries, and a lot fewer show up for primaries than do for final elections.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s registered-voter list has 586,835 “active” Democratic voters and 615,763 “active” Republican voters. But it lists 727,112 “No Party Active” voters. The Republican caucus turnout was 186,874 or less than a third of the “active” Republican registered voters.
I would say that the biggest winner, based on the large number of “no-shows” in the Iowa caucuses was “None of the Above”, and that means the biggest loser is democracy.
“New Hampshire Embraces Trump’s New York Bombast” (New York Times Online 2016-02-07). Really? Did all the voters in New Hampshire really embrace Trumps bombast? If we look at the figures of how many thousand New Hampshire voters actually turned up for Trump’s speeches, maybe the headline should read “New Hampshire Rejects Trump’s New York Bombast”.
Closer to home, the Duluth News Tribune has had headlines that imply all of Duluth is involved in something or other.
When a student died of exposure on Woodland Avenue, the News Tribune had a headline similar to “Duluth should be ashamed.” Did each and every person in Duluth know she was outside freezing to death? Was each and every driver passing by her house in any position to know that somebody was outside in need of help? Were even any of the very few pedestrians in a position to see somebody huddled at a door? Her death should never have happened, but only a few people were in any position to prevent this or come to her aid.
A recent headline was “Duluth feels ‘the Bern’”. How many Duluthians showed up for Bernie Sanders’ rally in Duluth? I think it was about 4,000. That is a rather good turnout, but that also means that about 76,000 Duluth residents didn’t show up for Sanders’ rally. How many would have liked to attend but didn’t for one reason or another? How many didn’t even want to consider going? We don’t know the numbers for either of these possibilities. But considering that probably more than 4,000 Duluth voters would not vote for Sanders, we could also have the over-generalized headline: “Duluth rejects Sanders”. If Sanders wins the Democratic endorsement, we will have to wait until November to find out if “Duluth rallies for Sanders” or if “Duluth rejects Sanders”. Either headline will be a generalization because there will be a large number of people who voted for the Republican candidate. These voters are also “Duluth”.
Since my previous column on General Ization, I’ve learned he would not have all this power without the able help of his lieutenants, Xavier Aggeration and Ms. Direction. You can detect some of X. Aggeration’s contributions above.
Ms. Direction has been spreading the notion of “value voters” embracing the Republicans. But don’t most voters have values? Besides anti-abortion and Biblical literallism, aren’t there the values of peace and justice? I find it strange that these “value voters” align themselves with supporters of “greedy corporations” who hold no values except “shareholder value”.
Ms. Direction, like her boss General Ization, doesn’t play favorites. She spreads the idea of “greedy corporations” as if all corporations treat their workers as serfs and cheat their customers as often as they can. There are many corporations that value their employees and often tell the regulators that something went wrong in the production of some product. And we find many corporations that are changing their products to suit their customer’s wants.
Of course, they only know what some customers want. Maybe other customers don’t want change, or if they want change, they want change back to products they could buy some years ago. Hopefully, the customers that want certain changes are those who volunteered the information, not those who were coerced into agreeing to a desired response in a focus group.
This leads us into the worst generalization: “The People”. It would be great if “The People” were a majority of all eligible voters. Unfortunately, election after election it is a “majority” of those who actually show up to vote; this too often means that a minority of eligible (and too often registered) voters “decided” the outcome. I hope you, dear reader, are going to be one who shows up and shows General Ization, X. Aggeration, and Ms. Direction that they are wrong.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2016-02-11 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/02/11/6703_general_izations_power_grows.
See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/02/general-ization-battles-truth.html.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Do we have these Orwellian people in our midst?
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power.
…
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists … pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We know that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end."
- "1984", George Orwell, p. 263, Signet Classic paperback edition
…
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists … pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We know that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end."
- "1984", George Orwell, p. 263, Signet Classic paperback edition
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Has this prediction become true?
"In a way, the world-view of the [Manipulators] imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
Who are the manipulators? In George Orwell's "1984" it is the Party. Who would it be in our world: corporations, the military-industrial complex, the national security establishment, the Tea Party, …?
Could the attack on public education be an attempt to ensure that people are incapable of understanding the manipulations? Could the attack on true health care be an obfuscation to cloud understanding. Could the use (or misuse) of words like patriotism, free market, tax burden, job creation, and on and on be used as "flagrant violations of reality"?
Could all this manipulation be a means to confuse people so that they became "not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening" and therefore not even show up to vote?
Who are the manipulators? In George Orwell's "1984" it is the Party. Who would it be in our world: corporations, the military-industrial complex, the national security establishment, the Tea Party, …?
Could the attack on public education be an attempt to ensure that people are incapable of understanding the manipulations? Could the attack on true health care be an obfuscation to cloud understanding. Could the use (or misuse) of words like patriotism, free market, tax burden, job creation, and on and on be used as "flagrant violations of reality"?
Could all this manipulation be a means to confuse people so that they became "not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening" and therefore not even show up to vote?
Thursday, December 23, 2010
"The People" decided what?
In a presidential election year, when a president is selected by the number of electoral votes, many of those who supported the successful candidate say, "The people decided…"
Wait a minute! Electoral votes do not always coincide with actual votes. A candidate may win based on electoral votes, but not have gained a majority, or even a plurality of the actual votes. The people who voted for the other candidate are not "people"?
In a presidential election year, the party of the winning presidential candidate generally gets majorities in both the House and the Senate. But the other party always gets a large number of votes. The people who voted for the other party are not "people"?
Then two years later, supporters of the party that was less successful start saying the President and members of Congress are not listening to "the people". But the President and Congress are listening to "the people" that elected them.
Unfortunately, too often more people didn't bother to vote than voted for either candidate in far too many races. Does this mean "the people" don't give a damn about either party?
It would be great if "people" would use more precise words in their discussions and writings, but it ain't going to happen. "People" want to use imprecise words so that they can prevent both their supporters and the opposition from thinking clearly.
Wait a minute! Electoral votes do not always coincide with actual votes. A candidate may win based on electoral votes, but not have gained a majority, or even a plurality of the actual votes. The people who voted for the other candidate are not "people"?
In a presidential election year, the party of the winning presidential candidate generally gets majorities in both the House and the Senate. But the other party always gets a large number of votes. The people who voted for the other party are not "people"?
Then two years later, supporters of the party that was less successful start saying the President and members of Congress are not listening to "the people". But the President and Congress are listening to "the people" that elected them.
Unfortunately, too often more people didn't bother to vote than voted for either candidate in far too many races. Does this mean "the people" don't give a damn about either party?
It would be great if "people" would use more precise words in their discussions and writings, but it ain't going to happen. "People" want to use imprecise words so that they can prevent both their supporters and the opposition from thinking clearly.
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