Sheer Desperation
I had to e-mail my TA for POS2041 American Federal Government for something last semester. At the bottom of his response was his digital signature and a link to this site:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
When I was finished staring in disbelief, I had to laugh. I have never seen educated people go to such great and desperate lengths to justify defeat. I have never seen such an immense waste of time. There's really not a lot I can say about that project-- it is just completely absurd to me that somebody could stand by that work and think they actually accomplished something good.
What I will say is that those folks over at the University of Michigan who published that site should consider taking an introductory political science course. If they had done that, they would have known that the electoral system in the United States is called Single-Member Simple Plurality (SMSP). It is a winner-take-all system in which the country is divided into geographic districts (illustrated on the maps) and the candidate who wins the most votes in a district wins the entire district. The candidate who wins the most districts and the largest portion of the proportionally represented population is then elected. More simply, he/she who receives the most (electoral) votes WINS.
I think the people who generated that website understand this, so I'm not sure what they are trying to demonstrate. Manipulation after manipulation after manipulation, of map after map after map, and the final conclusion? They still lose, but purple is prettier than red and blue.
Well congratulations.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
When I was finished staring in disbelief, I had to laugh. I have never seen educated people go to such great and desperate lengths to justify defeat. I have never seen such an immense waste of time. There's really not a lot I can say about that project-- it is just completely absurd to me that somebody could stand by that work and think they actually accomplished something good.
What I will say is that those folks over at the University of Michigan who published that site should consider taking an introductory political science course. If they had done that, they would have known that the electoral system in the United States is called Single-Member Simple Plurality (SMSP). It is a winner-take-all system in which the country is divided into geographic districts (illustrated on the maps) and the candidate who wins the most votes in a district wins the entire district. The candidate who wins the most districts and the largest portion of the proportionally represented population is then elected. More simply, he/she who receives the most (electoral) votes WINS.
I think the people who generated that website understand this, so I'm not sure what they are trying to demonstrate. Manipulation after manipulation after manipulation, of map after map after map, and the final conclusion? They still lose, but purple is prettier than red and blue.
Well congratulations.
