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Omar Wasow Profile picture
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11 Dec, 7 tweets, 2 min read
For democracies that like to gamble, the choice is clear.

Popular vote: boring definitive winner
Biden: 81,282,376 (51.3%)
Trump: 74,222,576 (46.9%)

Electoral College: exciting like a coin toss
In WI, GA & AZ, Biden defeated Trump by 42,918 votes

42,918/(155,504,952)=0.000276
Sources: (1) From @Redistrict:

⁩
Sources: (2) From @robertisnthere:
“Across Wisconsin, Georgia & Arizona, Biden defeated Trump by 42,918 votes, a narrower margin than Trump defeated Clinton by four years ago with 77,744 votes across WI, MI & PA…”
statehood.substack.com/p/2020-was-amo…
For democracies that like to gamble, the choice is clear.

2016 popular vote: straightforward definitive winner
Clinton: 65,853,514 (48.2%)
Trump: 62,984,828 (46.1%)

2016 Electoral College: thrilling roll of dice!
Margin in MI, PA, WI: 77,744 votes

77,744/(128,838,342)=0.0006
For democracies that like to gamble, the choice is clear.

2000 popular vote: dull definitive winner
Gore: 50,999,897 (48.4%)
Bush: 50,456,002 (47.9%)

2000 Electoral College: the ultimate rush!
Florida’s margin: 537

537/(101,455,899) = 0.0000053
For democracies that like to gamble, the choice is clear.

1976 popular vote: yawn, clear winner
Carter: 40,831,881 (50.1%)
Ford: 39,148,634 (48.0%)

1976 Electoral College: I feel lucky!
Margin in MS & OH: 25,579

25,579/(79,980,515) = 0.000319
For democracies more into boring history that exciting games of chance, a counterargument:

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More from @owasow

Omar Wasow Profile picture
4 Nov
Remember folks, the Electoral College:

— Designed to increase power of slaveholding states via 3/5ths clause

— Winner take all rules created, in part, to deny equal voice to Black voters

— In 1970, popular reform blocked by filibuster led by segregationist Senators
“Under 3/5s compromise, 5 slaves were equal to 3 free people in order to increase the South’s representation in Congress. Thus, in electing the president, the political power southerners gained from owning slaves would be factored into electoral votes…” people.uncw.edu/lowery/pls101/…
“Thanks to 3/5ths clause, slave states got extra votes in House, just as in Electoral College.
…
As a result, every president until Lincoln was either a Southerner or a Northerner who was willing (while president) to accommodate the slaveholding South.” nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opi…
Read 8 tweets
Omar Wasow Profile picture
23 Oct
If folks want to drive in same direction as other traffic on public roads, they are free to do so. Those who don’t want to drive in the same direction as traffic on the right side of the road shouldn’t be shamed into it, and govt should not mandate it.
Using variation in timing across different regions of Ontario, economists found mask mandates increased “self-reported mask-wearing by 30 percentage points”and “may have reduced new weekly Covid cases by as much as 25%.” nationalpost.com/news/canada/ma…
Study finds “if the U.S. had introduced a uniform national mask mandate for employees of public-facing businesses on April 1, the number of deaths in the U.S. would likely have been 40 percent lower on June 1.” news.mit.edu/2020/masks-man…
Read 11 tweets
Omar Wasow Profile picture
22 Oct
Electoral College

— Designed to increase power of slaveholding states via 3/5ths clause

— Winner take all rules created, in part, to deny equal voice to Black voters

— In 1970, segregationist Senators filibuster popular reform

Do I detect a pattern?🤔

nytimes.com/2020/10/22/pod…
“Thanks to 3/5ths clause, slave states got extra votes in House, just as in Electoral College.
…
As a result, every president until Lincoln was either a Southerner or a Northerner who was willing (while president) to accommodate the slaveholding South.”
nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opi…
“Under 3/5s compromise, 5 slaves were equal to 3 free people in order to increase the South’s representation in Congress. Thus, in electing the president, the political power southerners gained from owning slaves would be factored into electoral votes…” people.uncw.edu/lowery/pls101/…
Read 4 tweets
Omar Wasow Profile picture
4 Oct
Even low-probability events, given enough trials, are likely to occur. Put another way, Trump has been playing Russian roulette with Covid using a “revolver” that had one bullet and thousands of chambers. 1/
Any individual encounter with another person was like a spin of the cylinder and a pull of the trigger that was exceedingly unlikely to result in a bad outcome. 2/
In recent weeks, though, amid reports of uneven testing and visibly crowded gatherings, the White House appears to have become even more lax about Covid. 3/
Read 8 tweets
Omar Wasow Profile picture
3 Oct
New cross-national study finds “nonviolent tactics strongly increase movement support relative to violent tactics & preference for nonviolent resistance is primarily driven by intrinsic commitments to the moral superiority of nonviolence.” 🧵 researchgate.net/profile/Jonath…
5000 survey participants in 33 countries were presented with “a fictional vignette described as a recent news article about a public demonstration against an autocratic regime.” The vignette randomly varied protester tactics, repression by regime & movement success. 2/
Subjects were then asked would you support the movement? Do you imagine a citizen of that country would support the movement? Do you imagine citizens would join the protests? Would you donate? 3/
Read 11 tweets
Omar Wasow Profile picture
1 Oct
”In mid-1970s, DC activists pushed for a DC Voting Rights Amendment, to treat district ‘as though it were a state.’ It won support from staunch conservative senators like Goldwater of AZ and Thurmond of SC (under pressure from his Black constituents).” nytimes.com/2020/10/01/opi…
“‘Human rights begins at home, here in the nation’s capital,’ Strom Thurmond intoned as the Senate passed the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment in 1978.” nytimes.com/2020/10/01/opi…
“In the past 40 years the Republican Party has become unalterably opposed to D.C. statehood… Democrats, meanwhile, have wavered. Though many supported statehood in principle, they were unwilling to spend political capital to make it happen.” nytimes.com/2020/10/01/opi… ImageImage
Read 5 tweets

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