The final U.S. House race has been determined. The North Carolina 7th district, in the southeast part of the state, re-elected Democrat Mike McIntyre with 168,695 votes. His Republican opponent, David Rouzer, received 168,041 votes. See this story. Only those two candidates appeared on the ballot.
Louisiana will hold a run-off election next month between two incumbent Republicans, so although the identity of every member of the U.S. House is still not known, the party lineup is now known.
There have been news article mentioning that Democrats running for the U.S. House received more votes nationwide than Republicans did, but until all the votes across the nation have been counted, this is not confirmed. Most states still haven’t finished their official vote tallies. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
1/2 votes x 1/2 gerrymander districts = 1/4 control.
Much worse with primary math.
i.e. real minority rule math — about 10-15 percent of the voters nominate the lunatic extremists who later control in each gerrymander legislative body – Fed, State, Local.
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
The problem with the vote totals is that some states, such as Florida, don’t release vote totals of candidates who are unopposed, although they do report those where the only other candidate is a minor party, which skews the major candidate’s party’s vote total up. Other states do release such data.
There were perhaps more cases where the Democrat was only up against a minor-party candidate than Republicans. How to handle California is another question. When a district has two people of one party running, do you count the votes of both people towards that party, or do you count the person whom the other party is voting for (the more “moderate” candidate) as a vote for that other party? Likewise, would the runoff elections in Louisiana both count towards the Republican Party?
Demo Rep is probably right about Gerrymandering being part of the reason for the larger Democratic votes. In the Kentucky House, Republicans got 52% of the votes, but only 45% of the seats. — the lines were drawn by Democrats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
Nonstop gerrymander infections for over 700 years —
England late 1200s – gerrymander formation of the House of Commons
Infection carried into the Brit colonies in the 1600s — starting with VA.
Infection carried into the 1776 era State Consts.
Infection carried into the 1787 USA Const.
The system is almost gerrymander dead — INSTANT gerrymanders using prior election election data and the latest gerrymander pack/crack computer programs.
The data nonreporting in unopposed districts is a direct subversion of 14th Amdt, Sec. 2.
How much of a change is this? Not much IIRC
After 2010, the US House lineup was 242 Republican, 193 Democratic.
So what’s with the arbitrary 435 number anyway? Is that all the fat ar$se chairs they can fit into Congress? IMHO, this number should fluxuate with the census. Take the least populous state, Wyoming, and use its 563,626 as the baseline to divide into the populations of all the other states. Wyoming gets one at-large Congresscritter. Any state that = 1.5 to 2.4 gets two, and so forth. In this way, Congress would expand to over 600, but all with smaller districts to be more responsive to we the people.
#6 P.R. =
Party Seats = Party Votes x Total Seats / Total Votes
Both majority rule and minority representation.
How about abolish the minority rule oligarchy Senate and have 100 U.S.A. Reps.
1 Rep = 1 percent of the voters.
i.e. robot party hack platforms will then mean something.
The accumulated POWERMADNESS in Devil City has reached Civil WAR II mode.
Powermad H. Reps. — 100 percent gerrymanders
Powermad Senate – with its many very small States and blowhard robot party hack Senators.
Powermad Prez – with powermad veto
I was thinking that the Representatives should be elected proportionally nationwide and then state by state.
Using poll numbers I found:
Democrats got 49%
Repulbicans got 48%
Libertarians got 1%
Others got 2%
The allocation would be dividing a party’s vote by the number of votes of the smallest state and then each party gets its share of votes.
#2 is correct that the actual vote totals will never be known due to lazy election officials, and also that Top Two makes a mockery of partisan analysis of the vote.
#6 is correct that 435 is an arbitrary number, with us only for the past century. Congress could change that and should be larger than it is.
#8 is correct about the 2012 congressional vote totals, according to Wikipedia. That means that the party that came in second has majority control of the US House. The only rational solution is Proportional Representation.