Posts by Don Christie
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Strange they have not called VA and TN for the Reps. Most precincts counted in both states and TN especially seems a long way out.
-
Hamish - the Senate was *never* going to be a route for the Democrats. The demographics of Senate representation simply don't favour them.
Basically, each State gets 2 Senators, regardless of population. This skews representation towards the large mainly rural states and is one of the reasons behind the massive agriculture subsidies and pork barrel politics in general that are all pervasive in the US system.
So we may see big swings in the votes between parties but if all that swing is concentrated in a few populated states it is unlikely to change much in the Senate.
-
Maybe, as an ex-developer I always prefer the incompetence explaination to be explored first :-)
That said, I am genuinely interested in the e-voting process there and why it is taking so long to churn out a result.
-
What I cannot understand is with all the electronic voting, why do the precincts take so long to report? Should the result not be immediate?
-
These exit polls are amazing - who in their right mind is going to stick around for long enough to answer this list of 1000 questions?
My favourite is "FAMILY'S FINANCIAL SITUATION"The reponses are:
"getting ahead; have just enough; and falling behind"
How can you tell? Am I gittin' ahead? and of so, of whom?
-
More in the Governors' powers:
"The outcome of these elections will also play a big part in redistricting, the drawing of political lines that sets the stage for who can win Congress. The state party with control over a governor's office and the entire legislature has near-total freedom to draw congressional districts as they see fit. Democrats could snare unified control in Colorado, Minnesota and more."
-
Serendipity, Harris was losing just as I made my post :-)
-
Another interesting fascet of US elections is how the race for Governors is being watched. Governors control the state executive, the state executive does stuff like, oh, run elections. Remember how Jeb Bush's campaign manager is (was?)also the Chief Electoral Officer equivalent for Florida?
The influence of this can presumably be quite profound adn will no dount influence the reult of the 2008 presidential election. The only equivalent I can think of is the way electoral boundaries (used to be?) drawn up, usually in favour of the ruling party. Not such an issue now that we have MMP, although Rodney Hide might disagree.
-
Tim, unless you have two CIRs to chuck into the blender :-)
-
Tim, quite right about the quick counting here. I believe at the last elections early ballots were counted in a sealed room prior to polls closing and then the result released whne the polls closed. As each polling station finishes the preliminary count these results are released straight away.
It *does* tend to mean that results small stations come through early and larger urban ones with lots of votes to count come in later, which can make for some interesting calls during the process. I remember one jorno calling an election for Winston Peters on the basis of the result of a about 1 polling station.
All that said, it takes much longer for the official count to take place, but I for one am very glad we have that period of scrutiny.