Backdated - US Congress (Lower House) Elections

US House of Representatives.

WHAT YOU NEED* TO KNOW:

435 seats. Yesss! A nice big slice of statistical data pie for me, I think. Those of you following my long-term coverage (a hypothetical but loyal group) might be thinking 'Didn't we do this 2 years ago?'

Yes. Yes we did. 435 seats, elected every 2 years. That's 2175 seats a decade. I am a happy, happy man. 218 seats are needed for a majority. There are 6 additional seats up for election, but these members cannot vote and are mainly there to talk. In theory, they could sway the house's opinion with stunning rhetoric, but once again we see a system that assumes politicians are honest, hard-working people who want what is best for their country and will listen to more than just their own voice. These 6 members can also serve on congressional committees and the like.

These 6 (arguably redundant) seats are:

• American Samoa's delegate to congress
• Guam's delegate to congress
• Northern Mariana Islands' delegate to congress
• Puerto Rico's resident commissioner
• The US Virgin Islands' delegate to congress

and

• D.C.'s delegate to congress

Puerto Rico's resident commissioner is elected every four years, the rest serving two-year terms like the rest of the house.

Let's start with these guys:

NON-VOTING SEATS

Puerto Rico has never taken the option to re-elect a resident commissioner. Despite this, the resident commissioner has been a federal Republican only twice since the end of World War Two. (These kind of statistics are, however, flawed**) Federal party affiliation does not equate to party affiliation within Puerto Rico, though, and I am struggling to work out who is red and who is blue. My prediction will be a federally Democratic member other than Pedro R. Pierluisi Urrutia, (possibly Rafael Cox Alomar?)

American Samoa is quite easy to predict. American Samoa first elected a delegate in 1970, but it was not until 1981 that the first delegate took a seat in the house. This was Fofó Iosefa Fiti Sunia, a Democrat who held the seat until he retired in 1989. The seat was then given to Eni Faleomavaega, another Democrat, who held it until... well, today, basically. The seat has only had two holders, both Democrats, changing hands only after a resignation. This is as safely Democrat as conceivably possible.

Interestingly, Eni Faleomavaega is the most senior non-voting member in terms of the line of succession. If the president, vice president, every senator and every voting member of the house died, Eni Faleomavaega would become acting President of the United States, one place behind Ron Barber, the last-in-line of voting members.

D.C. another seat only held by two people since being founded, this time in 1971. (I am ignoring the 1871-1875 seat of the same name, held by Republican Norton Chipman.) Both holders were Democrats. Another safe Democrat win.

Virgin Islands are a little less predictable. Founded in 1973, it was Democrat for three terms, Republican for one, returned to the previous Democrat until 1995, became independent for a term and then passed to current Democrat Donna Christian-Christensen. Turbulent (by non-voting seat standards, anyway), but with long periods under the blue flag. Pretty safe Democrat win.

Guam has had four delegates. Three were Democrats, the other a Republican from 1985 to1993. Although this is the most likely seat to go to the Repubicans so far, it is still a pretty safe Democrat win.

Northern Mariana Islands, however, trump Guam, with a more pro-Republican history. From it's founding as a resident representative seat in 1978 it had two Democratic delegates, of 6 years each, then two Republicans with twelve- and seven-year terms. Upon becoming a non-voting delegate in 2009. Gregorio Sablan won the seat for the Democrats, and has now held it for two terms. Given the seat's Republican-dominated past, you may expect this seat to be volatile. It is certainly the most likely to change and most likely to vote Republican of all non-voting seats, however the main theme in my opinion is stable, re-elected representatives (contrast: Puerto Rico) and I will be tipping a Democratic win here too.

As mentioned before, Hurricane Sandy mean East-Coast Americans (including D.C.) and Caribbean islands (Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands) may have higher priorities than voting. Guam, Mariana Islands and Samoa are all in the (currently aptly-named) Pacific, closer to us than U.S. (see what I did there?) and should be fine as far as that particular storm is concerned.

VOTING SEATS

AKA seats with real power. After the mid-terms the Republicans held 242 seats. It takes 218 for a majority, and most people (including me) are predicting a similar seat distribution this time around. The largely Republican swing in the Midterms have given the Republicans a good opportunity for Gerrymandering for the 2010-2020 census period, as I predicted (and more importantly, explained) in detail two years ago.*** In that post, I outlined which states I thought would be most important in this process. My top six seats to watch were Florida, Ohio, Virginia based on marginality and California, Texas and New York based on population. Democrats won California and New York, while Republicans won Florida, Ohio, Texas, Virginia

Republicans won 29 of the 50 governorships, and this may well suggest a slight Republican bias in Congress for the next decade. I am not suggesting that all of the governors made district boundary modification their top priority, but boundary modification was mandatory after the 2010 census, and few would be foolish enough to leave boundaries such that they advantaged their opponent's parties. 12 new seats have been created (Arizona 9, Florida 26, Florida 27, Georgia 14, Nevada 4, South Carolina 7, Texas 33, Texas 34, Texas 35, Texas 36, Utah 4 and Washington 10), and thus 12 have been dissolved (Illinois 19, Iowa 5, Louisiana 7, Massachusetts 10, Michigan 15, Missouri 9, New Jersey 13, New York 29, New York 28, Ohio 18, Ohio 17 and Pennsylvania 19).

Interestingly, although only 18 of the 50 states (36%) require these most radical boundary adjustments, they include four of my top six states with high Gerrymandering potential. (Texas (with a Republican governor) gains 4 seats, Florida (Republican) gains 2 seats, New York (Democrat) and Ohio (Republican) lose 2 each). This is a coincidence, as these new seats are determined by national population distribution, but it means radical boundary modifications were required in these states, and any politician with an ounce of sense will place these new divisions to legally assist his or her party. If you don't believe this is a wide spread practice, look at any any professional district-by-district predictions for Congress, such as Sabato's 'Crystal Ball' or the 'Roll Call'. With in any populous state (Texas and California are excellent examples) there will be a stack of safe Democrat seats, a stack of safe Republican seats and few in between. Such accurate polling is only possible because like minded people are either carefully segregated or so thoroughly merged that one opinion is vastly dominant, offering safe bets. For a discussion on the mechanics of Gerrymandering, see my previous post.***

This Gerrymandering, coupled with similar factors that are leading to a slight pro-Republican swing in the Presidential race, should see Congress retain at least roughly as many Republican seats as at present. Most predictions suggest a similar proportion of ~240 Republican seats. There is a general trend of a swing against the president in midterms and for re-election in full term elections, so one can view this result as a strengthening of the Republican vote cancelling out this return swing. Expect a solid pro-Republican midterm swing in 2014.

SEAT RUNDOWN

The Pokérap of electoral predictions, I'm going to do a rapid-fire run through of all 435 seats (which would nowadays be quicker than a complete Pokérap. Stupid Generations 3 and beyond...)

Democrat (Safe)

AL7, AZ3, AZ7, CA2, CA3, CA5, CA6, CA11, CA12, CA13, CA14, CA15, CA16, CA17, CA18, CA19, CA20, CA27, CA28, CA29, CA30, CA32, CA33, CA34, CA35, CA37, CA38, CA40, CA43, CA44, CA46, CA47, CA51, CA53, CO1, CO2, CO7, CT1, CT2, CT3, CT4, DE, FL5, FL9, FL20, FL21, FL23, FL24, GA2, GA4, GA5, GA13, HI1, HI2, IL1, IL2, IL3, IL4, IL5, IL7, IL9, IL18, IN1, IN7, IA1, IA2, KY3, LA2, ME1, ME2, MD2, MD3, MD4, MD5, MD7, MD8, MA1, MA2, MA3, MA4, MA5, MA7, MA8, MA9, MI5, MI9, MI12, MI13, MI14, MN1, MN4, MN5, MN7, MS2, MO1, MO5, NE1, NE2, NE3, NV1, NJ1, NJ6, NJ8, NJ9, NJ10, NJ12, NM1, NM3, NY3, NY4, NY5, NY6, NY7, NY8, NY9, NY10, NY12, NY13, NY14, NY15, NY16, NY17, NY20, NY26, NC1, NC4, NC12, OH3, OH9, OH11, OH13, OR1, OR3, OR4, OR5, PA1, PA2, PA13, PA14, PA17, RI2, SC6, TN5, TN9, TX9, TX15, TX16, TX18, TX20, TX28, TX29, TX30, TX33, TX34, TX35, VT, VA3, VA8, VA11, WA2, WA6, WA7, WA9, WA10, WV3, WI2, WI3, WI4 (168 seats)

Democrat (Predicted)

AZ1, AZ2, AZ9, CA9, CA24, CA26, CA41, CT5, FL22, FL26, IL8, IL10, IL11, IL17, KY6, MD6, MI1, NV4, NH2, NY1, NY21, NY24, NY25, NC7, RI1, WA1 (26 seats)

Republican (Safe)

AL1, AL2, AL3, AL4, AL5, AL6, AK, AZ4, AZ5, AZ6, AZ8, AR1, AR2, AR3, AR4, CA1, CA4, CA8, CA21, CA22, CA23, CA25, CA31, CA39, CA42, CA45, CA48, CA49, CA50, CO4, CO5, FL1, FL2, FL3, FL4, FL6, FL7, FL8, FL11, FL12, FL13, FL15, FL17, FL19, FL25, FL27, GA1, GA3, GA6, GA7, GA8, GA9, GA10, GA11, GA14, ID1, ID2, IL6, IL14, IL15, IL16, IN3, IN4, IN5, IN6, IN9, KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4, KY1, KY2, KY4, KY5, LA1, LA3, LA4, LA5, LA6, MD1, MI2, MI3, MI4, MI6, MI7, MI8, MI10, MN2, MN3, MS1, MS3, MS4, MO2, MO3, MO4, MO6, MO7, MO8, MT, NV2, NJ2, NJ4, NJ5, NJ7, NJ11, NM2, NY2, NY22, NY23, NC2, NC3, NC5, NC6, NC9, NC10, NC11, NC13, ND, OH1, OH2, OH4, OH5, OH7, OH8, OH10, OH12, OH14, OH15, OK1, OK2, OK3, OK4, OK5, OR2, PA3, PA4, PA5, PA6, PA7, PA9, PA10, PA11, PA15, PA16, PA18, SC1, SC2, SC3, SC4, SC5, SC7, SD, TN1, TN2, TN3, TN4, TN6, TN7, TN8, TX1, TX2, TX3, TX4, TX5, TX6, TX7, TX8, TX10, TX11, TX12, TX13, TX14, TX17, TX19, TX21, TX22, TX24, TX25, TX26, TX27, TX31, TX32, TX36, UT1, UT2, UT3, VA1, VA4, VA5, VA6, VA7, VA9, VA10, WA3, WA4, WA5, WA8, WV1, WV2, WI1, WI5, WI6, WI8, WY (204 seats)

Republican (Predicted)

CA36, CO3, CO6, FL10, FL14, FL16, FL18, GA12, IN2,**** IN8, IA3, IA4, MA6, MI11, MN6, NV3, NH1, NJ3, NY11, NY18, NY19, NC8, OH6, PA8, TX23, VA2, WI7 (27 seats)

Tossup

CA7, CA10, CA52, IL12, IL13, MN8, NY27, OH16, PA12, UT4 (10 seats).

SUMMARY

Ignoring the ten tossup seats, this is 231 Republican, 194 Democrat – a clear Republican victory. In all probability, about 7 of these tossups will probably go Republican, but even if they all went to the Democrats there would still be a 27 seat margin. Expect a Republican-dominated Congress again, which may hamper Obama (if he gets in). This, combined with the traditional anti-president mid-term swing, should see a firm Republican Congress in 2014.

IN MY DEFENCE

My predictions are based on second- or third-hand information, especially where direct, English language copies of information are unavailable. I do not expect all of my predictions to prove 100% accurate. This is just a hobby.

However, if you think I have too much spare time and an unhealthy fascination with electoral politics (both of which are undoubtedly true; elections are my sport of choice) then you should look at Randall Munroe's recent XKCD update at http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/congress.png

That's right. Two XKCD links in one electoral post. This is because XKCD strives for statistical accuracy in every update: the comic for people who prefer physics cartoons to cartoon physics.

*This information may not prove to be vital at any point. I cannot take responsibility for any time wasted memorising this information.
**http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/electoral_precedent.png
***http://psephologyplus.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/backdated-us-gubernatorial-elections.html
****This contrasts with The New York Times, who according to Wikipedia label Indiana's Second Congressional District as Safe Democrat. I'm assuming there was a typo somewhere along the line, because there is no way IN2 is Safe Dem. No. Hecking. Way.

Backdated - US Presidential Election

So, today is tomorrow from the point of view of yesterday's today. And we all know what that means?

We're tired of playing guessing games?

Heck no! It means it is Wednesday! Guessing games are the best part of election predictions. They are also the only part of election predictions. So, here is my US presidential guessing game for 2012. But first:

What happened in Vanuatu?

No-one knows. Yet.

Remember that this is a small nation, which needs to take care to ensure free and democratic elections. Quite rightly, the counting process is conducted in a careful manner with checks and balances along the way. Also, with just under 200,000 registered voters, this is a much bigger election than previously, and their may be some stressing out going on among the vote counters.

ABC radio is, however, releasing the results as they come*, and so far it looks like there's going to be a shake up. The only available early results are Torres and Banks, both exhibiting a change in members.

As predicted, the new Land and Justice Party is doing well. In the capital, at least. So is former PM Edward Natapei.

U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A.

Now to the United States of America, land of many, many things not worth discussing here. Firstly, why do we care?

Why do we care?

Well, I enjoy electoral predictions, but this election will probably affect all of us, and here's how. Currently, the Australian Dollar is high. This is great if you want to buy things from overseas or go on holiday. Unfortunately, there is not much profit to be made in spending money or travel.

Now, broadly speaking, the economy is divided into four parts, or sectors: primary (raw resources like mining, logging etc.), secondary (manufacture and retail), tertiary (services) and quaternary (finance, investment, research, education and anything else information based). There is a fifth, sometimes argued sector, the quinary sector (medicine) which is normally treated as part of the tertiary sector.

With the high Australian Dollar, retail is suffering as more people shop online for cheaper (foreign) items. This flows back to the manufacturers, in extreme cases crippling the secondary sector. This also occurs, to a lesser extent, in the tertiary sector where overseas services are a viable alternative (famously, call-centres). The impact to the primary sector has been bouncing around the media lately, but in case you have been living under a non-mining-related-rock, basically it's the reverse of the cheaper-overseas phenomena, where Australian resources are (relatively) more expensive and consumers buy elsewhere. If we now cost 10% more, but lose half our buyers, we are making 55% what we were before. So the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors are all affected. Anyone in the quaternary sector payed from our taxes (e.g. teachers) may also feel the pinch as taxable income decreases. But fortunately the private quaternary sector long ago learnt to deal with bear markets (see: short selling and all the other dirty tricks used by the investment and financial industries to profit in a economic downturn, such that people central to the economy have no interest in whether it succeeds or not). So if you are an investment banker, you'll be fine. You can also unfriend me now. (Just joking. I never befriend investment bankers.)

Now, I said the AUD$ was high. Really, its more a case of other currencies being low. It was a week of “Yay, we survived the GFC!” followed by years of “Aww poo! No-one can afford our goods and services!” (again, see sup-prime mortgages and other dirty tricks as per above). The Euro problems are famous, with everyone using the current currency (heh heh, “current currency”) and having their stronger economies (e.g. Germany) suffering for the errors of weaker economies (e.g. Greece). America's problems are less reported these days, but more insidious. If country A wants to buy goods from country B (assuming they don't share a currency, Euro nations), do they pay in A-wanese dollars or B-tian rubbles? Actually, it's a fair bet they use USD$. Case in point: every nation who buys Australian mineral exports. So, with USD$ around parity for AUD$, our goods are costing more AUD$/tonne than before. So even if our customers weathered the GFC like us (e.g. China) we look more expensive, and probably are more expensive than some other nations.

That's right. Australian goods may not cost Chinese buyers any more than they did, but it looks like they do because of America, who has zero real input in the transaction.

Now, basically, left wing parties tend to be good at improving living conditions, and thus long-term economic stability. Right wing parties tend to be good at restoring economies in the short term and keeping them in surplus. I could rant here about how the economy is only a means to an end, and there's no point having a surplus for an “emergency” if you get it by cutting vital services and creating an emergency, but that would be getting way of point. Basically, Romney will be one step towards a speedy recovery for Australia, and Obama will minimise (though far from eliminate) the dangers of future repetition of the cycle. Which you favour depends on your own political bias, but the result will probably be a major factor in shaping the economic future of Australia.

So, Romney vs Obama.

We are all familiar with the campaign. We know Obama was hammered in debate 1 and recovered in the following debates. We know Romney made some gaffes and may or may not have been joking about opening windows on planes. We know the polls indicate a very close race.

How am I going to pick a favourite?

Many of the US polls overlook one factor that I think may be the decider. A factor not present in Australian voting. Non-compulsorary attendance. Sure, half the public, when asked, will vote for Obama, and half will vote for Romney. But in reality, tens-, even hundreds-of-thousands won't vote at all. Especially if it's raining. I hear there are some pretty bad storms around at the moment**. Sandy will be punishing Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont ), New Jersey, New York (State)(also, New York City), North Carolina, Pensylvania Virginia and Washington D.C., with possible floods in the Midwest. These are mostly traditional Democrat states, which could be costly for Obama. The two main Republican states on the East Coast (Georgia and South Carolina) appear to be sheltered by the curve of the coast.

Fortunately, many of these people could have applied for postal-voting, allowing them to vote in advance. The majority of pre-voters are republican, though, so this doesn't help Obama.

What may help Obama is the rest of the country. This constant 50-50 polling means all devoted voters (heh heh, “devoted voters”, I crack myself up) will be sure to turn out. And, frankly, I don't think people are that devoted to Romney. His main platform is “I'm not Obama” and while that may appeal to many people, he hasn't really given the public anything to grab onto as a policy. “I will cut the spending to curb our massive debt” is, of course, a decent starting point, but as far as where the money will come from you need more than “f***ed if I know”. Of course, Romney probably does know where he'll cut the money from, he just won't say.

Obama, however, has many ardent supporters. I predict, therefore, a win for Obama, but with some heavy swings to the Republican, especially in the East.

But wait, there's more:

Presidential elections are about more than electing presidents. More to follow!

*http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2012-10-31/vanuatu-election-early-results-trickle-in/1038768
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

Backdated - UNSC, ACT, etc.

It's the last Tuesday in October, which means...

It's almost Halloween?

Yes, but also, next Tuesday is the first Tuesday of November. As in, the Tuesday after the first Monday of November*. And we all know what that means**.

Oh no...

That's right! Dan's doing another*** US election coverage post!

BUT FIRST

What we've missed:

* The first Tuesday in November is not always the day after the first Monday of November.
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_%28United_States%29
*** http://psephologyplus.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/backdated-us-midterm-elections-2010.html

THE UNSC SEAT ELECTIONS

Although the voting is such that we don't know who voted which way, it's a fun little vote to watch, if only for it's global appeal. There are a few of my facebook posts from this vote live, but here's the general summary: there are 5 permanent seats (USA, Britain, France, Russia and China) and 10 non-permanent seats. These non-permanent seats are held for 2 years, with 5 seats up for election each year. These seats are divided among regional blocs to ensure that one continent [cough]Europe[/cough] doesn't hold all the power.

The Candidates:

This time, two seats for the African and Asian block, one for the Latin America and Caribbean block and two for the Western Europe and Others bloc were available. Ideally Africa and Asia are treated as separate, but low nomination rates among poorer countries mean the two are merged in practice. Each nation gets a form for each bloc.

On form A (Africa and Asia) there were four participants: Rwanda (the African vote), South Korea (the annoy North Korea vote), Cambodia (the at-least-you're-trying-to-prosecute-former
-Khmer-war-criminals vote) and Bhutan (the gross-national-happiness-index-is-both-awesome-and-cute vote). Naturally, I favoured Bhutan but traditionally you expect and African (Rwanda) and an Asian seat (South Korea being dominant), which relates back to the Asian and African blocs being theoretically separate.

On form B, nations had a choice of Argentina. That was it, although the results (below) are still interesting.

On form C there were three contenders. Finland, Luxembourg and Australia. Finish and Australian reporters both expected Finland to win in the first round. I have no idea what Luxembourg's reporters were saying.

How it Works:

You (assuming you are the voting nation's representative) get the forms. You write the name of the nation(s) you want to fill the available seat(s) on the relevant forms. You put the forms in a suspiciously shredder-like bin. The votes are counted. You need over two-thirds of the vote to get a seat (not counting invalid votes or abstentions). Now, the mathematically astute may realise that even in a two horse race, 66% may not naturally arise. (Especially when your vote is anonymous so you basically agree to vote for everyone to their face then stab them in the back. I love politics.) Take the 1979 stand-off between Columbia and Cuba. This wasn't settled on the first vote. Or the second. Or the 10th. Or the 100th. After 154 votes, a winner was determined: Mexico. (That's another story.)

So, assuming no abstentions, each seat needs 129 votes out of 193.

The Results:

First, a little sub-Saharan politics note. Rwanda is widely considered to be responsible for warfare, and even war-crimes, against other nations, in particular the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC do not like this very much. Before the vote, one can only interrupt on a procedural matter (i.e. you can only hold the floor to discuss how the vote is being conducted). The DRC did so, except replacing “procedural matter” with “open deceleration against Rwanda's military activities” at the last minute. Unconstitutional outburst? Perhaps. Warranted protest about an international security issue in front of the body responsible for monitoring and reporting on international security issues? Heck yeah!

So, to the results:

Form A (Asia and Africa) – Round 1:
1 abstention, 128 votes to win a seat

Rwanda – 148, seat awarded in round 1 (gosh darn it!)
Republic of Korea – 116, insufficient, continues to round 2
Cambodia – 62, insufficient, continues to round 2
Bhutan – 20, insufficient, excluded (Noooo!)
Tanzania – 3 (Tanzania, you crazy cats! You not on list of contenders!)
DRC – 1 (Protest vote! No kidding who voted DRC!)

Form A (Asia and Africa) – Round 2:
1 invalid vote, 128 votes to win a seat

Republic of Korea – 149, seat awarded
Cambodia – 62, insufficient, excluded

Form B (Latin America and Caribbean) – Round 1:
8 abstentions, 1 invalid vote, 123 votes to win a seat

Argentina – 182, seat awarded (well, duh!)
Barbados – 1 (Barbados? What are you up to?)*
Cuba – 1 (Et tu, Cuba?)*

Form C (Western Europe and Other) – Round 1:
129 votes to win a seat

Australia – 140, seat awarded in round 1 (heck yeah!)
Luxembourg – 128, insufficient, continues to round 2 (but only 1 vote off! Heck, one informal vote and these guys would be in.)
Finland – 108, insufficient, continues to round 2 (but you were meant to be the favourite!)

Form C (Western Europe and Other) – Round 2:
129 votes to win a seat

Luxembourg – 131, seat awarded (Ha, hahaha, ha! Awesome!)
Finland – 62, insufficient, excluded (BUT YOU WERE MEANT TO BE THE FAVOURITE!)

So there you have it: Rwanda, South Korea, Argentina, Australia and Luxembourg join carry-over nations Morocco (Africa), Togo (Africa), Guatemala (Latin America and Caribbean), Pakistan (Asia) and Azerbaijan (Eastern Europe). There must also always be one Arab state on the council, in this case Morocco.

* Technically, there's no proof these were Barbados and Cuba voting for themselves. This could be others nation voting for them so it looks like Barbados and Cuba don't like Argentina. I would so be that nation, just to stir up a little, non-militant discord. (NB: This is why I'm not in international diplomacy.) I personally want to believe Barbados and Cuba agreed to vote for each other so they can truthfully say “I didn't vote for myself” and still not vote for Argentina.



Okay, ACT's pretty simple. Unicameral legislature, so only one vote. No upper-house or lower-house contrasts. No Labor win here and Liberal win there. No two-tier lists with different voting mechanisms or distributions.

One list.

17 seats.

No fun.

Okay, there is some fun, but not much to report. The Canberra Times and National Press both expected Labor to continue to hold power in a minority government, with the Greens holding balance of power in a left-wing coalition (not to be confused the the Coalition). Statu Futuēns Quo (pardon my Latin). Interestingly, ACT uses the Hare-Clark system of voting, perhaps the best proportional representative voting system in use today, but also a slightly complicated system (I said there was some fun!)

Note too that ANY proportional representative voting system (a system where surplus votes overflow as fractions of a vote to other candidates) would have resolved the UNSC voting on form C in one round with exactly the same result (assuming more Finland was the second preference for no more than about 90% of all Australian votes (which round 2 pretty firmly proves)).

It would also most likely have resolved Form C in round 1 with no change in results, making the entire UNSC vote much quicker. Hare-Clark system: 9/10 for efficiency, 2/10 for suspense.

Overview:

Labor, prior to the election, held 7 seats, Liberals held 6 and Greens 4. Interestingly, Greens held the balance of power in the ACT and in Tasmania, which both use the Hare-Clark system. In both cases it worked a lot better than the Federal minority government too.

How it Works:

So, you need 9 seats to hold power. That's basically all you need to know, but I'm going to keep on typing. Skip on down to the results. You know you want to. Heck, just stop reading. I'm amazed anyone read this far! Thanks for the interest though! Make a comment below including the word 'bandanna' if you have read this far, by the way... thought so. No one.

Okay, the Hare-Clark system. Basically, there is a quota. Reach that quota of votes, and you win a seat. The ACT uses the Hare Quota, although the Droop Quota will yield very similar results in most situations. The Hare Quota does technically favour minor parties to a small extent, with hilarious* results in Hong Kong.

Basically, the Hare Quota is what you expect: you need more than V/S votes, where V is the number of valid votes and S is the number of seats. In a 1 seat election, you need 100% of the vote (after, redistribution, I'll explain this soon). With two seats up for grabs, you need 50% of the vote. For three-seater elections you need 33% and so on. (The Droop Quota is basically the “obvious” quota system: over 50% in a 1 seat election, over 33% in a two seater, over 25% in a three seater and so forth.)

Now, once someone reaches the quota, their extra votes flow on to a second preference, and then a third. This is where it get's cool, though anyone who follows Federal or State upper-house statistics (and frankly, who doesn't?) will already know this. Say a candidate has 110 votes – 10 more than needed. Obviously you can't just pick ten votes to flow on, so roughly 91% of each vote stays with that candidate (equal to 100% of the quota) and 9% of each vote flows on. That means a second candidate might get 21% of a vote, giving them a total of, say, 93.21 votes.

So, each person to fill a quota passes on their overflow in this way until all the seats are filled, or no-one has reached the quota (e.g. in a 4 seat election, two candidates have reached 25% of the vote and the other 50% is divided among 5 other candidates, with an average of 10% each.) In this case, the person with the least votes is eliminated and their votes flow on to their second preferences.

Ever wondered why it takes so long to count the votes? Now you know.

The Results:

Labor gained a seat. Liberals gained 2. Greens (obviously) lost three. So, Labor and Liberal each have 8, and the Greens side with Labor. Much as predicted, only closer.

*Hilarious by electoral statistic standards, anyway. Basically, all major parties pretend to be minor parties by listing each candidate as on separate tickets – basically as independents.


Basically, heaps of them happened. I didn't follow them as closely as the others, but SBS world news provides a nice occasional update. Also, their tag line is pretty cool*.

This month alone:

Czech Republic – Senate elections. 1/3 of the senate is elected every 2 years, giving each member a 6-year term.

Czech Republic (again) – It's a crazy carry-over thing when no-one reaches the quota.

Including carry-overs, the leading social-democrat party has increased its lead from 41 to 46 seats out of a possible 81.

Georgia – Georgian Dream, which didn't exist last election, won the majority. Basically, it's a chimera of all the failed past Georgian parties, from left-wing liberals to right-wing racists, and including Zurab Azmaiparashvili, who is currently the worlds 114th best chess player (ELO: 2637)

(85/150 seats, 76 needed to govern)

Lithuania – Social democrats lead here, too, but with only 38 seats of 141 it could well be that the Homeland Union (33 seats) returns if it can form a majority coalition, as it did last time with the National Resurrection Party, Liberal and Centre party and the regular Liberals. This election was coupled with a referendum, which fell against the proposal for a new nuclear power plant. Lithuania relies on foreign energy after closing its Chernobyl-like plant in 2009, thirteen years after Chernobyl failed, and 5 years after agreeing to do so with the EU. Speed, it seems, is not their strong point (but see China, below). Iceland also held a referendum this month on additions to the constitution. Not even I am anal enough to report on Icelandic constitutional changes. Not until after the US elections anyway.

Lithuania (again) – another carry-over thing. (See Czech Republic (again))

Montenegro – Coalition for a European Montenegro lost some ground but still hold the lead with 39 seats out of 79 – one short of a majority.

Ukraine – I think the ambiguously named “Party of Regions” has improved its lead from 175 seats. Sounds like a lot, but it's just over a third of the total 450, and requires another 51 seats. Still, if over 175 seats isn't a good starting point, there's something wrong with the system.

Vanuatu – TODAY! With 52 seats, you need 27 for a majority. Currently, the biggest party has only 11 seats, and the ruling coalition was formed of 8 parties. Now, its ten parties after a few splits. Expect more of the same, with 32 parties and over 300 candidates this time round. There has been some previous problems, with candidates being barred from running (which might help, when you think about it) have been resolved. Personally, I'd suggest watching the Land and Justice Party. It's new, but popular. But then, even if it wins a double-digit number of seats (that's right, more than 9, people!) there's no reason to assume it will be part of a coalition. With this many parties combining into dozens of possible coalitions, how really knows? Not me, that's the heck sure.

Venezuela – Hugo Chavez is still in, with just over 55% of the vote and most of the states. A picture is worth more words that I can write coherently at this hour:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/...

Also China starts voting this month, and finishes in February. Why? Well, as far as I understand, the National People's Congress is elected by a council, which is in turn elected by the Provincial People's Congresses. The Provincial People's Congresses are voted for by another council, voted for by the Prefecture-level People's Congresses, who are voted for by (you guessed it) another council elected by the county-, town- and city-level Peoples Congresses.

Luckily, that is where it ends.

Unless you live in a city divided into districts, of course, in which case the City's People's Congress is elected by a council which is elected by the district Peoples Congresses. The district Peoples Congresses, like the county-, town- and city-not-divided-into-districts-level Peoples Congresses are elected by the people.

Now, if we are honest, the chance of a non-Communist Party member being elected to the lowest level is average at best. The CCP will normally dominate that level, and few non-CCP members will make the council that elects the next level, much less get elected to that next level. Perhaps 1 or two might get through, but then there's another level, and another. So basically, there is no way a non-CCP member will make it to the National People's Congress. Right?

Well, there is some truth to this weeding-out process but actually, there are 888 non-CCP members in the NPC. Sure, they're dwarfed by the 2,099 CCP members, but that's still over 25%. That's enough to win a seat in a 4-seat Hare-Clark election (or a 3-seat droop election)! Turns out China's isn't an entirely corrupt political system. Far from it. Shame on you for thinking such things!

Still, the prediction is … predictable. Significant CCP dominance, with some non-CCP members chilling out on the side. Since at least the 80s, non-CCP members have numerically been in the mid-400s to mid-500s. Only with the last election did the spike to 888 emerge. Is the CCP losing power? Is the country starting to accept the idea of an alternative government? Did the CCP just have a bad year and have now recovered to reduce the non-CCP numbers back to the 500s? I'll let you know in 4 months. If I remember...

*News from home. If you live in the world.