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I'm not American so I'm a little confused.
If "polls" is surveys from individuals, but the popular vote doesn't matter, then what's the point of these headlines anyway?
The winner of the popular vote within the state wins the state's electoral votes. And Florida has a sizeable number of electrical votes.
its so weird that we have a difficult to understand electoral college system and yet one of the common arguments against ranked choice and party list voting is "its too hard to understand"
You don't need to understand the EC to not spoil a FPTP ballot. You do need to understand a more complex process to not spoil a ranked choice ballot. That's an argument I agree with in favor of score, STAR, or approval voting.
Of course the fact that it is mildly easier to understand than some alternatives does not excuse the fact that FPTP is awful for democracy.
Filing out an RCV ballot is no different than any other ranking system. Rank politicians in the order you'd like to vote for them. You may leave some or all blank.
That's it. That's the voter instruction. It's not hard.
Just re-read my comment, I didn't write anything about spoiling the ballot. I had typed it out but forgot deleting it. Sorry.
And giving two candidates the same rank? You are pretending that I wrote it is hard to do. I wrote that it is easier to spoil a ballot. People make mistakes.
Needing to rank candidates relative to each other is different from score voting where you just rank them.
A proper RCV ballot is just numbering candidates. On a computer screen, you might drag the names into order. Score voting isn't just ranking them, you give each one a rating and then there's about 3 different ways those scores can be used to determine a winner. RCV is simple, easy, and better than FPTP.
you mean eclectic votes?
FL has 30 EC votes so a statewide poll on their opinions is pretty important. Having said that, we don't know for sure whether or not the poll is accurate or indicative of the opinions of the people who will actually vote.
Every state gets a number of Electoral College votes, that's a fixed number. And each state is winner take all, the popular vote doesn't matter because every vote past 51% of a state's election numbers is wasted. California has the highest population of US citizens, it generally is very liberal and Democrats win pretty often. From a local perspective, the GOP haven't had significant votes after they started using very racist rhetoric about Hispanics, and it's hard to find anyone in CA who isn't Hispanic, Or the spouse of a Hispanic person, or the in-law, or just friends with all those same people, so it really ruined their numbers out here. So with the majority of the country living in this state, everything after 51% of our total vote numbers is ignored, those millions of votes don't counter the very few votes coming out of Indiana, or Ohio, or Wisconsin. Our effective votes are a percentile below 1, low pop states have effective votes well above 1.
But, it still always matters how many people are voting up to that 51% mark, if the survey projects Harris at or above those numbers she'll get all their EC votes, so that's why the survey matters, it's also how the candidates decide how to spend money, Harris won't put $5mil into Idaho, they aren't even close to voting Democrat and it's one of the most openly racist states in the US the chance they would change their mind is very slim, so, they won't waste the money there. In the end, it always comes down to how much money they raised, and how well they spent it.
Isn't it make more sense to spend more money where you're behind?
Like, if you're so sure you would win at Cali anyway then why even try anymore? On the other hand, you might want to spend extra time and money in places like Idaho to convince and convert more people to vote for you?
You want to spend money in states that could go either way. Swing states they're called. There's no real point in spending a ton of money in a place you can't possibly win, either. Idaho would be a waste of money.
ah yes, swing states, that makes much more sense. thanks.
one more question if it's not too much trouble. Is it mandatory for a president candidate to do a campaign in every single state? Or just the one they feel like it?
No, it's not mandatory at all. That being said all states generally get a bare minimum (radio/tv ads) from local groups or pacs, but not generally the visits with crowds and all that. This was one of the issues that people had with Hillary's campaign is that she only visited certain states, and completely ignored too many swing states that easily could have gone her way.
They don't have to go anywhere if they don't want to. It's just about outreach and exposure.
Ask Hillary how ignoring "safe" states went for her though... She was too arrogant and underestimated Trump to all of our dismay...
I don't think you understand how deeply racist the jello belt is. It's a lost cause, mostly the democrats have to find the states close to tipping and organize in a hurry to make sure people actually show up and vote. The so called flip states are the battleground and there are states that have actually tried to change their election process to game the system so they ARE a flip state, so that the President who wins the state will feel more obligated to pay attention to the states needs, I know NV did this to some success Obama and Romney both spent a fair amount of money and time, with multiple stops in Reno and Vegas. It's a strange thing, honestly I like the legislators who try and create very neck and neck districts to make politicians much more suseptible to their populaces opinions and therefore well being, but I also like living in a state where crazy doesn't get to sit at the big kids table.
Yes but you only spend the money where you are behind by a small enough amount that you might change the result. So if a state is polling 51% / 49% it's a great state to spend in because it might change the electoral college votes.