You may remember that in the 2000 election, Bush won (or should we say ‘was awarded’) the presidency despite not winning the popular vote, which went to Al Gore. History also tells us that this happened also in 1888 when Benjamin Harrison was elected despite incumbent Grover Cleveland winning the popular vote.

I attended an election panel on campus the other day in which one panelist defended the electoral college by saying something to the effect that well, it’s only happened twice in our country’s history and that doesn’t sound like a constitutional crisis to me. Excuse me? How about the argument that it should never, ever happen in a country that is supposedly the pinnacle of democracy?!?

With that in mind, in a short article entitled “The Creative Math Behind Elections,” the November 2004 issue of Wired Magazine described different options available to do away with the outdated and decidely undemocratic electoral college:

CUMULATIVE VOTING
Promise: You get a bunch of votes -- say, 10 -- to distribute however you’d like: 10 votes to your favorite candidate, or perhaps 3 to one and 7 to another.
Precinct: Numerous jurisdictions in Alabama and Texas, and many corporate boards.
Problem: Giving all 10 votes to your top choice might handicap your second, who then turns out to be the one with a chance to beat the ultimate winner (who you hate). But 5 votes each to your first and second choices might hurt your favorite.

INSTANT RUNOFF
Promise: Voters rank the candidates, and their top picks are tallied. If that doesn’t produce a majority winner (one with more than 50% of the votes), the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped, and his/her supporters’ ballots are recounted and allocated to the second choice. Process continues until there’s a winner.
Precinct: Australia, Ireland, and San Francisco.
Problem: Strong challenger to one person/one vote but isn’t perfect. Mathemetical models prove that ranking a candidate lower can cause that person to climb in the overall rankings. It also assumes more than two candidates per race.

APPROVAL VOTING
Promise: Voters give one point to every candidate they consider acceptable.
Precinct: Many professional associations.
Problem: Doesn’t distinguish between a great candidate and an adequate one. Most people vote for only one candidate (their favorite), while some select several, potentially making results wildly errratic.

BORDA COUNT
Promise: Point values are assigned to voter rankings of each candidate. If there are eight candidates, first place is worth eight points, second place is worth seven, and so on. High score wins.
Precinct: The Associated Press polls for college football and basketball.
Problem: Theoretically immune to outcomes opposite of voter intentions. But voters may not know or care enough about each candidate to decide, say, who should be sixth versus seventh. Millions of votes would be arbitrary.

I personally like the instant runoff process myself, but anything is better than this innane electoral college crap.

The Boston Red Sox have finally done it! They’ve reversed the curse and are now the 2004 World Series Champions.

Absolutely incredible -- not just that they finally broke the Curse of the Bambino but that they completely destroyed the St. Louis Cardinals by sweeping the team that had the most wins in the regular season. It wasn’t even close. I guess it just goes to show how powerful emotion, momentum, and confidence can be.

Congratulations to the BoSox and to all of their long-suffering fans who have stayed with them through the years!

Comments:

Name: C.N.
Cheeky Prof, I’m Vietnamese and Vietnamese tend to be quite superstitious. In fact, my superstition routine during the Sox’s entire eight game winning streak was to skip the first half of the game and let them build their lead and then tune in the second half of the game to see them close the deal. Can’t argue with results -- they won all eight of those games!
Posted Oct 28, 7:33 PM

Name: Cheeky Prof | Email: cheekyprof@cheekyprof.com | URI: http://www.cheekyprof.com
Now, you don’t really believe in all that curse nonsense, do you?
Posted Oct 28, 10:07 AM

The Republican effort to suppress voter turnout (especially among the poor, working class, and voters of color) is in full swing. In battleground states, the Republican party has several thousand people ready to challenge the legality of any vote from any voter who they suspect is not eligible. In other words, they are up to their dirty tricks once again and therefore, the results can be very significant and very costly to our nation and our entire democracy.

In order to guard against this, MoveOn.org has just released a wallet-size Election Protection Card that contains useful tips for making sure that your vote is counted. Some of their tips are:

• Find your polling place ahead of time. Sites like MyPollingPlace.com can help with that.
• When in doubt if you’re at the right polling station or how to use the voting machine, ask poll workers to help you -- that’s their job.
• If your name is not on the official voter list but you believe you are eligible to vote in that precinct, even if an election official challenges your vote, you have the right to cast a “provisional ballot.”
• If you’re in line when the polls close, you should stay in line because you’re entitled to vote.
• In many states, your employer must allow you time to vote at some point during the day. You can’t be fired for being late due to long polling lines.
• Bring photo ID, preferably government-issued ID or a utility bill, phone bill, or paycheck with your name and current street address. If you’re a new registrant, it may be required.
• Vote in the morning to prevent getting caught in lines later in the day.
• If something does go wrong, first, document it. If people challenge your right to vote, intimidate voters, or interfere with the process, try to get their names. Write down exactly what happened, including the time of day, descriptions of the people involved, and any other details you can remember.
• Then, report it to organizations like MoveOnPac.org, OurVote.com, Common Cause: Call 1-866-MYVOTE1, or 1-866-OUR-VOTE, described as the “911″ of voter suppression hotlines.

The Boston Red Sox have to be blessed by a higher power or something. How else would you explain committing four errors in both games one and two but still handily winning both?

I keep thinking that their run so far is only a dream and that everything will come crashing down on them eventually, as they have done in the past. Will history repeat itself now that they have to play in St. Louis or is this the year? Check back in about a week to find out.

I’m still a relatively new resident of Massachusetts, only having been here for a little over a year. Therefore, I have not had the experience of being a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan. So I guess my perspective is a little different from diehard BoSox fans.

All I have to say is, WOW! Like many other people, I thought the Sox were toast after getting pounded by the Yankees in the first three games of the ALCS. But then they did the close-to-impossible -- first they were three outs from being swept but tied the game against one of the best closers in the game and eventually won game four in extra innings. Then they fought the Yankees into extra innings again to win game five.

Then they came into Yankee Stadium and beat the Yankees again in game six. That made them the first time to come back from an 0-3 deficit to ever force a game seven. Then of course, last night’s incredible game when they dominated the Yankees and finally beat their dreaded rivals to go to the World Series.

As a sports fan, I’ve got to tip my hat off to the BoSox -- what they did was pretty amazing and incredibly gutsy, and they should feel proud of it. Today, it feels good to be a Massachusetts-ian.

Comments:

Name: Cheeky Prof | Email: cheekyprof@cheekyprof.com | URI: http://www.cheekyprof.com
Like you, I’m not a native New Englander, although I’ve been her since fall of 2000. Also, I happened to meet and marry a die-hard Sox fan so I’ve gone from not following baseball to discussing it over dinner. How odd! Still, you’re right, you’ve got to hand it to them!
Posted Oct 26, 8:11 PM

A recent article in CNN.com shows that my undergraduate alma mater, U.C. Irvine, has received more Nobel Prizes than UCLA and just as many as U.C. Berkeley in the last ten years. They also mention that U.C. Santa Barbara has received more than any other U.C. -- five in the last ten years.

Aparently U.C. Irvine has spent heavily to build up its chemistry and molecular and evolutionary biology programs and the results are paying off. I suppose that’s a good thing. Go Anteaters!

You might recall that earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is constitutional to consider race as a factor in college admissions as long as racial/ethnic minority applicants are not given extra points in the admissions process. But ironically, wishing to avoid potential lawsuits, many universities are ending programs that specifically targeted students of color and instead, are opening them up to all students. This recent article from the Chicago Tribune explains:

Throughout the country, schools such as Northwestern are opening up minority scholarships, fellowships, academic support programs and summer enrichment classes to students of any race. The change follows last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that race can be considered in college admissions but only among other factors and that each candidate must be evaluated individually.

That landmark 5-4 decision, hailed as a victory by college and university officials, preserved affirmative action in admissions, but found unconstitutional a University of Michigan program that automatically gave extra points to African-American, Latino and American Indian applicants. In what some now say is an unexpected erosion of affirmative action, colleges are interpreting the ruling to mean they can no longer offer race-exclusive programs designed specifically to help minority students.

This development is happening at a time when the pool of underrepresented students of color applying for college is actually declining. This means that even as affirmative action is being validated, the numbers of disadvantaged Blacks and Latino students may still decline. Not very encouraging to liberals like me.

From one of Dave Letterman’s recent episodes:

Top Ten President Bush Explanations For The Bulge In His Jacket

10. “It’s connected to an earpiece so Cheney can feed me answers -- crap, I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
9. “It’s a device that shocks me every time I mispronounce a word.”
8. “Just a bunch of intelligence memos I haven’t gotten around to reading yet.”
7. “Mmm, delicious Muenster cheese.”
6. “John Kerry initially voted for the bulge in my jacket, then voted against it.”
5. “I’ll tell you exactly what it is--it’s a clear sign this econonmy is moving again.”
4. “Halliburton is drilling my back for oil.”
3. “Oh like you’ve never cheated in a presidential debate.
2. “Accidentally took some of Governer Schwarzenegger’s ‘roids.”
1. “If Kerry’s gonna look like a horse, then I’m gonna look like a camel.”