Result oriented

The discussion should not stop there there, though. When we regard the results, be it in education, employment and income disparity or the results of the latest election we ought to keep our eyes out for skew in the results. Then we have to ask ourselves honestly what factors account for the result —innate fault or disparity in the playing field.

A couple of results come to mind that have me apondering.

The first statistic that struck me odd was noted in one of our discussions the other day, that while Republicans retained significant control the House (as The Speaker is quick to point out) the actual total of votes cast across the country in House elections significantly favored Democrats. How could this be? There are of course two sides the answer. Since the last census there has been the requiste redistricting going on and it is frankly impossible for political preference to not weigh in with some amount of gerrymander. It’s human nature. There’s also the fact that the turnout in districts that were sure locks for GOP might have been lower based upon the Mitt factor. There were a lot of the party faithful who just weren’t that enthused for the top of the ticket.

The next little study comes along in the case of the Virginia State Senate. This past week the evenly divided body chose Inauguration Day, when one member, a noted Democrat and Civil Rights leader, was known to be away from town attending the ceremonies, to vote upon measures that would award the state’s Electoral College votes by Congressional District. The measure passed 20 votes to 19. Maybe one can be a fan of this idea of awarding by district. The argument goes that voters in decidedly red or blue states might be more engaged if they thought they had a chance of at least turning their own home district a different color. I’ll note I’ve even floated the idea myself in our own state.

But let’s take a look at what the result would be, should this approach become the ruling method for awarding Electoral College votes. In Virginia, where President Obama won both the popular vote and the full slate of Electoral College delegates, Romney would have actually been awarded a majority of delegates. And as it turns out that pattern would hold across the entire country. That’s what the map I’ve given above is about. Looking at the election returns across the entire country and awarding delegates by district, Mitt Romney would have won the presidency. The President’s five million vote margin in the popular vote would have been —well, an anomaly—just a statistical skew in the result.

As the saying goes, go figure