dangoldin » Politics

What’s the easiest way to be elected President?

Dan — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:12:51 +0000

Answer: Be elected for a first term, the second term will follow.

It turns out it’s pretty likely that a president will be elected to a second term. If we examine all previous Presidential Elections, we will see 8 presidents who failed to get reelected:

President	Result
Benjamin Harrison	Failed to get reelected in 1892
George H. W. Bush	Failed to get reelected in 1992
Herbert Hoover	Failed to get reelected in 1932
Jimmy Carter	Failed to get reelected in 1980
John Quincy Adams	Failed to get reelected in 1828
Theodore Roosevelt	Failed to get reelected in 1912
William Henry Harrison	Failed to get elected in 1836
William Howard Taft	Failed to get reelected in 1912

On the other hand, if we look at all presidents with 2 or more terms, we only see a few Presidents who have failed to get elected. Some of these, like Andrew Jackson, failed to get elected initially but were then able to get 2 terms in office. Grover Cleveland had non consecutive terms in office. In total, there were 16 presidents who had a second term.

President	Result
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Jackson	Failed to get elected in 1824, was elected in 1828 and 1832
Bill Clinton
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Franklin D. Roosevelt
George W. Bush
George Washington
Grover Cleveland	Failed to get reelected in 1888 (was pres in 1884 and 1892)
James Madison
James Monroe	Failed to get elected in 1808, was elected in 1816 and 1820
Richard Nixon	Failed to get elected in 1960
Ronald Reagan
Thomas Jefferson	Failed to get elected in 1796
Ulysses S. Grant
William McKinley
Woodrow Wilson

Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for, and won, a 3rd term in 1940 using the idea that one should “not change horses in midstream.” He did not need to do that since it seems people stick with what they are comfortable with.

Note: If I made a mistake anywhere let me know so I can correct it. The data was retrieved from Wikipedia.

Weekend Voting

Dan — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:22:58 +0000

I found an op-ed in the NY Times that claimed that the best way to increase voter turnout was by having election day fall on a weekend. They provide a few examples but nothing too detailed. I tried pulling in some data and seeing if I could come to the same conclusion. I used two data sets: voter turn out by country and election dates by country.

Combining this data into one table, and ignoring the missing data:

Country	Election Type	Date	Day of week	Weekend	Turnout
Czech Republic	Presidential Final	Fri 2/15/08	6	No	85%
South Korea	Parliamentary	Wed 4/9/08	4	No	75%
Canada	Parliamentary	Tue 10/14/08	3	No	76%
Czech Republic	Parliamentary	Fri 10/17/08	6	No	85%
United States	Presidential	Tue 11/4/08	3	No	54%
Romania	Parliamentary	Fri 11/28/08	6	No	81%
Russia	Presidential	Sun 3/2/08	1	Yes	61%
Malta	Parliamentary	Sat 3/8/08	7	Yes	94%
Spain	Parliamentary	Sun 3/9/08	1	Yes	73%
Italy	Parliamentary	Sun 4/13/08	1	Yes	90%
Iceland	Presidential (Cancelled)	Sat 6/28/08	7	Yes	89%
Austria	Parliamentary	Sun 9/28/08	1	Yes	92%
New Zealand	Parliamentary	Sat 11/8/08	7	Yes	88%

It does seem as if they are on to something – the average turnout for weekday election days was 76% while the average turnout for weekend election days was 84%. This wasn’t a very rigorous examination and I am sure there are many more issues that factor in to the voting process but it does make intuitive sense.

Voting System Proposal

Dan — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:06:11 +0000

It seems that there is a recent emphasis on “character” in the election. Unfortunately, character can be faked with some acting and campaign management. To understand how the candidates will perform in office we need to look at their past accomplishments and failures. Public records show the vote history for the candidates and all it takes is a little bit of research to see how the candidates have voted.

But people aren’t interested in looking at data; they are more interested in how much candidates spend on their haircut or who looks more “confident.” I imagine that before radio or television existed and the only news source was the newspaper, candidates would have stood on their issues alone. The vast majority of the population would not have seen the candidates in person and would have to have focused on the issues each candidate presented. Maybe it’s time we go back to those days with a ballot only containing issues.

In addition, why not throw in an intelligence test geared towards the issues and use the score to weigh the vote. If companies can use intelligence in their hiring decisions, why can’t the government use it in the voting process? The impact of a wrong decision is much greater.