California Recall:--rather staggering statistics

[Aidoneus]

(note: numbers roughly calculated with around 80-82% of the vote officially counted and some numbers/proportions may change slightly before the end, but the point I intend to make shouldn't change too signifigantly.. maybe after this is all settled someone can go back and make exact figures. PS--corrections of potential errors in calculation of the figures presented would be appreciated if there are any.)

I was just thinking--a dangerous habit, I know, but bear with me on this one..

California has some thirtyfive million people (or somewhere between 34mil and 37mil, statistics and estimates I found are in conflict).

In 2000, the number of voting-age people was around 25mil (that's probably higher now).

Arnold seems to be winning with around 2.8mil, out of approximately 5.6mil votes counted at the time of this writing (with around 80% of the precincts counted):--around 1/2 of the total votes in the race and a sizeable amount over the other candidates. That's the story you hear on the news, and all of those power sluts are pissing themselves with glee as the vacuous thug they so meticulously promoted is crowned--and paradoxically the Fox News people are still going on and on about the "liberal media establishment" that conspired against him. :eyes:

None of that jumped out at me as the more interesting story here.

Arnold's 2.8mil is a small fraction of the state population, only around 1/10th of the potential people of voting age, with a little over 1/5th of the total voting age people apparently having even participated in this Recall vote.

To reiterate, Arnold's big win is around 8% of the total state population and around 11% of the potential voting-age people.
(approximate percentages at time of writing, 1:18am PST)

...and this is being referred to as a victory? As "democracy"? Is this normal?

[mddemo]

1. democracy

yes this is a win for arnold and its still democracy, nobody has to vote, you have the choice to vote or not, if your candidate wins your happy, if he loses your pissed, it might not be the best system, but what would you replace it with.

[haymaker]

6. Nice explanation.

How many total votew were there mensa?

[mddemo]

9. total votes

if you want the totals just go to the californian website, it has up to date totals, you dont need to be a member of MENSA to figure that out.

[truthseeker1]

28. here's the site:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections.htm

The estimates are 10-12 million.

[Aidoneus]

30. where's the 10-12mil estimate?

looking at past figures from that site, this doesn't seem to have been a whole lot better than when Davis was re-elected in 2002.

I guess the point I was aiming at still stands (a bit diluted, perhaps), that out of 25mil of the potential voting age only 6-7mil at most decide it..

[truthseeker1]

33. Over 7 mil at 93%

NY Times estimated 10-12 million

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/national/07BALL.html?th

[Aidoneus]

36. ok

I'll check on it later and re-calculate the figures.. seems they're not as dramatic as I assumed in the original. Probably still a quite interesting figure, but not quite the 8%/11% of the original estimates.

[joshcryer]

7. Democracy is equality with majority rule.

That is, each persons vote is equal. If a given percentage of the population votes, and the others don't, your votes are inherently more equal than the rest. This is the flaw with representative democracy.

Required participation would make things much more sane.

[mddemo]

11. required to vote

So what you gonna do have the cops round people up to vote, fine them, sounds to much like saddams iraq to me, people have the choice to vote or not, aint freedom grand.

[joshcryer]

15. Nah, you just fine people. All they need is motivation.

Look at Austrialia.

You have ot pay to not vote. Sounds reasonable. If you're not going to participate in the society you live in, you don't belong in that society.

[YourDad]

18. what if you have two candidates you don't like?

having to vote for one even though you don't like either of them is not very democratic at all.

[joshcryer]

19. That too! I prefer the AU system.

The US's two party system is only one party better than a dictatorships one party system.

[joshcryer]

20. Oh, your question was rhetorical.

Tsk, a null vote could fix that. The fact that people would be there, and participating in the election, provokes them to actually understand what the hell is going on. So the null votes wouldn't be that pronounced.

[Aidoneus]

25. I don't know about that

Far from being reasonable, the problem sounds more a matter of motivation than whatever statist punishments could be conjured up. Do indeed look at Australia, they ended up with that rightwing colonialist and quisling lackey John Howard.

Earlier this evening I saw a CNN online poll that I didn't quite understand at the time given the other poll numbers that were being flashed around, but one that makes a lot of sense now. Out of well over 100,000 responses, at the time I saw it only 19% of them thought the recall could solve what are assumed to be California's problems (with the other 81% thinking that it wouldn't). Granted that this poll was not limited to Californians as the recall vote was, it appears to be an almost exact replica of what voting-age people in California thought too, as 'NONE OF THE ABOVE' won the election with an overwhelming 80% (approx.--that figure is probably off by now with 10% more of the precincts counted but I'll leave it anyway for now) of the potential voting-age people, with Arnold coming in 2nd at around 11% of them. :shrug:

[joshcryer]

26. Bleh, screw the state completely. ;)

Let's go anarchist, I tell you!

[truthseeker1]

29. You don't get your paycheck until you vote

You could vote through your employer.

[IkeWarnedUs]

With the increasing numbers of unemployed

Sounds like another Republican trick to eliminate potential Democrats from being able to vote.

Of course, then there is the Republican wet dream - let the employer vote for his employees. Of course, when I think about it, that would solve the unemployment problem too. Companies would be competing to hire as many people as they can afford, just for their votes. At last, a system the individual voter can benefit from too.

[truthseeker1]

34. yeah, I thought of that as I hit "send"

It was just an idea....maybe if there were multiple options for people. Maybe absentee ballots should be pushed more.

[YourDad]

2. and most of those small votes were rigged

by the voting machines.

[mddemo]

3. rigged

And if davis had won, would you still say it was rigged. The paranoia isnt gonna win any converts, reasoned arguments will.

[YourDad]

17. what else can you say??

republicans wanted to win very badly and they wheel out the new electronic voting machines that everyone is saying has so much possibility for voting fraud. they took no precautions to make sure the voting was on the up and up. and arnold wins out of the blue in a very liberal state. it is natural to think the voting was rigged, and it is also true

[mddemo]

24. rigged

So any election that goes against what you want is automatically rigged, I think the beuty of democracy is that people vote, if they want to, sometimes one party wins sometimes the other, i can tthink of any system that works better.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Well what has my tinfoil has going is

I was dropped from the rolls, so was my husband.

Now there is a percentage of this happening EVERY election
in EVERY state of the Union. (What made Florida unique was
it was purposeful and in quite the nunmber)

Now if what happened to me is just the normal oops it happens
then the tinfoil hat does not belong, but if this is part
of a pattern with intent, then the tinfoil hat belongs in my head.

Oh and by the way rigging elections is far easier than people
think with or without BBV

[haymaker]

8. I got a special place for you.

Guess where?

[HitmanLV]

4. true, but not that important

The same can be said for most elections.

Indeed, it looks like Cali had a high turnout, all things considered.

Focus on issues and on winning candidates.

[joshcryer]

12. High turnout? Looks like barely 50 is going to make it.

Heh

[HitmanLV]

13. Uh, yep. Looks like more people voted in 2003...

...than voted in 2002.

[joshcryer]

21. Heh... yeah, who said 2002 is our metric?

I think high turnout should at least mean more than 50%.

We're at 90% counted and only 47% showed up.

[HitmanLV]

35. 2002 is our metric because,,,,

That's the election that elected Davis.

By that standard, this election has to be as least as legit as that one, and indeed, more so, because more people joined the process.

More people voted for Arnold tonight than voted for Davis tonight.

More people participated in the recall of Davis than in the election that put him in office.

[HitmanLV]

37. I heard today that the recall vote....

...had almost 70% voter turnout, and had the highest turnout in 20 years in California.

I'd say that's a high turnout.

[Sapphocrat]

5. You're reading my thoughts...

And, as of about 1:30 a.m. PDT, Steroid Boy has 47.5% of 86.1% precincts counted.

Which also means, as of right now, he's won with less than the total (purported) vote for Georgie Boy in '00.

Something to chew on, all right.

[Vulture]

14. But still more than Clinton...

...in one of his Presidential elections if you recall, with a spoiler taking the same overall percentage as McClintock (though undoubtedly distributed differently). Quite frankly, the number everyone should be concerned with is Schwarzenegger + McClintock, which is a startling figure. The bottom line is that the Party couldn't get the Democrats and Independents to show up at the polls at all, and many defected. The fact that Schwarzenegger can get 47.5% of the vote when running against both a right-wing AND a left-wing candidate speaks volumes.

If you subtract the Kool-Aid drinkers, Schwarzenegger has as close to a "mandate" as we've seen in California in years. That may not be pleasant to think about, but no problem was ever solved by shying away from reality.

[bhairava]

10. But this is no mandate

More interesting still is the fact that more voters as of 3:30AM CST have voted to RETAIN Davis than voted FOR Arnold. I concede it is only a slight plurality (though of course this might change I doubt that the For Arnold votes will be more than 10-15% more than those against the recall).

[Vulture]

16. Even that doesn't hold

I know several registered Dems who said "no" on the recall and then voted for McClintock. Strange but true. The party served up a stinker this election, and a non-trivial fraction of the registered Dems wanted nothing to do with it but voted against the recall on principle. If they had been given a simple choice of potential governors (including Davis), many of them quite openly stated that they would give Davis the finger. He is not a well-liked person even in his party for reasons that don't need to be repeated. "No" votes are not votes for Davis. I even know some Republicans who voted "No" for various reasons.

[joshcryer]

23. Looks like it has it by about 10k

...

[truthseeker1]

27. Yes, democracy

Those who don't vote don't care enough to vote. It's not a priority for them. Either they don't feel educated enough to vote or they don't think their vote will count. Or they're just too lazy and selfish to bring their ass to the polls.

By not voting, they're - in a way- making their choice. I heard Lawrence O'Donnell say a few weeks ago that we've reached a point as a country where we've earned our right to be apathetic and to not vote (or something along those lines). I had never thought of it like that before.

Hopefully we don't lose democracy in this country before people figure out how important their vote is.

Our society needs to teach kids that it's not only their right and their privelege, but their responsibility to vote.

[spooky3]

31. a simple-minded question, but

is it possible that the main problem is really simple--that both Davis and Bustamonte are weak candidates, and had an appealing Democrat won, the results would not have been close? My only exposure to Bustamonte was the televised debate, and I thought he came across badly.

[Aidoneus]

32. altering my question a bit

is this sort of turnout/breakdown comperable to past elections? With California's size, it just seemed very small to me..