Poling the Electorate

[BeSafe]

Good! Nothing may change but at least he slapped em to get their attention - maybe the FEC will be at least a little less stupidly bias.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Not that it matters any more but...

The Commission on Presidential Debates sponsored four prime time ninety minute debates in 2016 that were covered by nearly every news channel. It’s hard to quantify the value of that free advertising, but it was exclusively given to the Republican and Democrat nominees and withheld from other parties based on arbitrary rules. The Libertarian Party sued the Federal Elections Commission (which regulates the CPD) regarding that decision and labeled it an illegal in-kind political contribution made to the two parties by a purportedly non-partisan (and therefore questionably tax-exempt) Commission....

The Judge in the case just ruled in favor of Level The Playing Field, the Libertarian Party, and the Green Party. The ruling states that the FEC did not adequately consider the evidence put forward that the CPD is not non-partisan and its rules are arbitrary. The FEC has sixty days to rewrite their rules regarding Presidential debate hosting organizations. According to the CPD’s own website “Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) regulations require a debate sponsor to make its candidate selection decisions on the basis of “pre-established, objective” criteria”. Those regulations will have to be rewritten in a way that is “consistent” with this judgement. If they don’t, the judge will authorize the plaintiffs to sue the CPD directly.

The CPD are bipartisan defenders of Duopoly dominance. Bipartisan is not non-partisan. Guns.

 

[Saorsa]

Started as an interesting issue about the difficulty faced by third party candidates, ended with the same old Favre. Disappointing.

Fuck off...Look at the candidates we have to choose from and this is one way in which the system is rigged to preclude more options...Good topic Tom.

Not to BS.

 

[slatfatf]

I suspect that if Johnson had been able to debate, we would have President Clinton and not President Trump.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

I suspect that if Johnson had been able to debate, we would have President Clinton and not President Trump.

Why? Guns.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Arguments in the antitrust case against the Commission on Presidential Debates happened yesterday.

The CPD itself has officials who brag that its debates are the Super Bowl of politics, so Fein speculates on the value of appearing in it in terms of the value of commercial time bought during a Super Bowl broadcast, estimating that the injurious actions of the CPD and its two-party pals cost his clients up to a possible billion dollars.

A billion? And the Sherman Antitrust Act allows for treble damages.

But the LP plaintiff is not talking about the money.

Ron Nielson, Johnson's former campaign manager and speaking for Johnson, said in an email today that "There are several parties involved in this lawsuit, so it isn't appropriate for us to speculate regarding a possible settlement. I would simply say that our fundamental objection has always been the arbitrary use of polling thresholds to exclude otherwise qualified candidates from participating in the debates. Any acceptable outcome has to address that arbitrary exclusion, and prevent it from happening in the future."

I would have liked to have seen four on stage, not just two. Especially if someone took Gary's weed away at least 6 hours before airtime. Guns.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Poled Again

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Tight Duopoly races for the US Senate seats in Nevada and Indiana

So what about the other candidates who are likely to get more votes than the margin of victory?

So what indeed.

 

[Bent Sailor]

So what about the other candidates who are likely to get more votes than the margin of victory?

They remain out of power because you need to win a lot more than just the margin of victory to be the people's representative. You need to win the most votes. Winning 5% of the vote doesn't do the job when second place is winning over 40%. That's how democratic elections work.

 

[Bus Driver]

Here's an interesting bit of polling data - 11% of people who identify as Republican or lean Republican say it's "appropriate" for Russia to help Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming elections. 

Another 29% say it’s “not appropriate, but wouldn’t be a big deal” for the Russians to help. So combined, 40% of Republicans either approve of Russian interference, or don’t strongly object to it.

WTF?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

They remain out of power because you need to win a lot more than just the margin of victory to be the people's representative. You need to win the most votes. Winning 5% of the vote doesn't do the job when second place is winning over 40%. That's how democratic elections work.

If you were polling the electorate in a place where the margin is about 1% and there's a contender at about 5%, would you include that contender in your poll or not?

 

[Bent Sailor]

If you were polling the electorate in a place where the margin is about 1% and there's a contender at about 5%, would you include that contender in your poll or not?

If the poll was for the purposes of predicting who was going to win an election - not really. 5% is nowhere near the percentage of votes needed to win and there are realistic options at >40% of the vote that actually stand a chance.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

If the poll was for the purposes of predicting who was going to win an election - not really. 5% is nowhere near the percentage of votes needed to win and there are realistic options at >40% of the vote that actually stand a chance.

But pre$$ corporations do these polls as part of their vital function of informing the electorate.

With that in mind, is omitting information poling the electorate or polling the electorate?

 

[Bent Sailor]

But pre$$ corporations do these polls as part of their vital function of informing the electorate.

With that in mind, is omitting information poling the electorate or polling the electorate?

Yes, and if the poll is for the purpose of predicting the winner of an election, and the press corporation is informing them about who is likely to win said election - they're providing the information necessary to inform the public of that. 

Press corporations don't owe you and your party the exposure you crave. When you have a chance at winning an election, you become relevant to polls and stories about that. As long as your party's vote remains at less than 8x the support of the second place runner up - you remain irrelevant to that subject. When the press wants to talk about those that also ran, but predictably lost as they tend to do every election, the Libertarians and Greens get their five seconds of media spotlight.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Here's an interesting bit of polling data - 11% of people who identify as Republican or lean Republican say it's "appropriate" for Russia to help Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming elections. 

Another 29% say it’s “not appropriate, but wouldn’t be a big deal” for the Russians to help. So combined, 40% of Republicans either approve of Russian interference, or don’t strongly object to it.

WTF?

Because guns!!!!! Because terrorists!!!! 

Because they hate you, and me, and they never liked America anyway (what little they understood of it).

-DSK

 

[Mrleft8]

There is no doubt in my mind that the MSM's constant reporting on Trump's outrageous behavior, antics, and non-stop freak show is largely responsible for Trump being President. I think if the MSM had spent 1/4 of the amount of time reporting on Bernie Sanders that they did advertising the Trump circus we'd have President Sanders right now.

Headless chickens sell ad revenue, thoughtful dialog sells nothing.

 

[RKoch]

If you were polling the electorate in a place where the margin is about 1% and there's a contender at about 5%, would you include that contender in your poll or not?

Some polls include everyone on the ballot. Some polls exclude candidates polling really low, like under 2% as an example. Some polls offer only the top two candidates as options. Polls can vary pretty widely based on sample size, assumed electorate model, and even how it's worded. 

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Minor Parties Invited, Then Uninvited, To Pennsylvania Senatorial Debate
 

Emails obtained by Reason show that Kerns' campaign was twice assured of a spot in a televised debate by executives at the state's chapter of the League of Women Voters, which typically plays a role in organizing debates. In March, Suzanne Almeida, the then-executive director of the group, told Kerns' campaign manager that Kerns would "certainly" be invited to "participate in candidate forums after the primary."

 
In late August, the campaign again contacted the League of Women Voters seeking information about planned debates. Jill Greene, who had taken over as executive director in July, responded on August 29 to say that she was currently trying to plan a Senate debate with the League's media partners and that she would "be sure to include Mr. Kerns and Mr. Gale."

Six weeks later, after the debate had been scheduled for October 20 on Philadelphia's ABC affiliate, WPVI-TV, Greene emailed Kerns' campaign manager John Odermatt to deliver the bad news. The League had asked to include Kerns and Gale in the debate, she said, but "other organizers" did not "feel as if current poling warranted an invitation."

OK, so maybe I corrected the spelling a tiny bit there at the end...

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

How Minor Parties Are Getting Poled This Election

Same ways as always, starting with ballot access.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Ballot Access Again
 

In 2018, the Libertarian Party candidate for governor in Arkansas, Mark West, received 2.9 percent of the vote. Early this year, Arkansas state lawmakers and Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, teamed up to raise the threshold for automatic ballot access for third parties.

The new mark: 3 percent.

For candidates and political parties outside the Republican/Democratic duopoly, one of the biggest impediments to winning elections is simply getting your name in front of the voters on Election Day. Thanks to state laws that require parties get to a certain amount of the vote to automatically qualifiy for the ballot in future elections, and other rules that often mandate third party or independent voters must collect thousands more signatures than their major party opponents to be included on the ballot, smaller parties are forced to spend valuable and scarce resources to gain simple ballot access.

As what happened in Arkansas this year demonstrates, these rules are always arbitrary, often unfair, and usually set by the very interests that benefit from them: the two biggest political parties.

A bill introduced in Congress this week by libertarian-leaning Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) would put an end to that practice—at least for congressional elections, over which Congress has final authority. His proposal, the Ballot Fairness Act, would prohibit unequal ballot access rules in congressional elections, meaning that third parties and independent candidates could not be held to different standards than Democratic and Republican candidates.

A level playing field. Imagine that.

He also wants to get rid of Partybot voting in Congressional elections. Both good ideas with little prospect for success because one thing unites Duopoly politicians: the desire to avoid oligopoly.