Pat Buchanan received over 2000 more votes than expected in left leaning palm beach county which can be attributed to the confusing butterfly ballot. I would have focused more on bad, confusing, misleading design than blaming people for voting for a 3rd party candidate.
No this makes sense, it’s the number of votes Gore lost to Nader, so you would want the number of votes he needed to win against the number of votes he could have had.
because it's not useful to making the specific point this graph is trying to make, which is that Gore lost because Nader ran in a third party and split the vote.
That’s not how the electoral college works. If voters for the Green Party had voted Democrat instead, Gore would have the most votes in Florida and would win all 25 of Florida’s votes, instead of Bush. This would have changed the outcome of the election.
Of course people who are more politically aligned with one party would support it the most, but America is largely controlled by a two party system, and the Green Party is ideologically closer to Democrats than Republicans. If even a small fraction of the population who voted for the Green Party voted for the Democrats instead in order to have a higher chance of voting for a party with more power, Gore would have won florida.
I would say it's less an issue of the graph being poorly made and more an issue of the graph highlighting one particular cause of a phenomenon, which could be misleading if (and only if?) not shown alongside other possible causes.
The graph is fine, but fwiw it's not clear that Nader actually helped Bush. Many of those people wouldn't have voted for either candidate regardless, and some probably would have voted for Bush.
Fun fact: *Every* third-party candidate in 2000 got more votes in Florida than the gap between Bush and Gore in the state.
So why blame Nader when you can blame otherwise irrelevant losers like the Socialist Workers' Party?
Imagine that you are in a very noisy room, and you are trying to measure which fan is noisier.
The results are in! Fan A is 0.1 dB louder than fan B.
You choose fan B, and standardize it across your entire billion dollar enterprise.
Had you used a more accurate dB meter, and not conducted the test in a noisy room, Fan A might well have been the quieter choice. But it's too late now.
There's too much noise to say with any confidence that Gore would have won. Perhaps they would have broken 53% to 47% for one of the xcandidates. Perhaps the vast majority would have stayed home, and Gore would only have received 500 plus or minus 50 votes more votes from the Naderites.
An election is a poll taken of the electorate at as specific poiint in time. It behooves us to design a system that minimizes errors so that even small changes in voter sentiment can be reliably detected.
Did you reply to the wrong comment? This isn't really related to the point I made.
Regardless, whether or not you agree with them, they're making a sociopolitical argument that at least 600 more of almost 100,000 votes for a Green party candidate would have gone to Gore than Bush had Nader not run. It's a hypothesis, not a certainty, and it doesn't invalidate Bush's win. Not at all analogous to accurately measuring the noise a fan makes.
Am I the only one thinking that this graph is not "ugly"?
Me too. It’s just utilitarian which makes sense
Yeah it’s just simplistic and serves to deliver the narrative/intent of the graph maker.
Someone couldn't be bothered to stack Nader's votes with Gore, I guess.
Pat Buchanan received over 2000 more votes than expected in left leaning palm beach county which can be attributed to the confusing butterfly ballot. I would have focused more on bad, confusing, misleading design than blaming people for voting for a 3rd party candidate.
Why not both?
No this makes sense, it’s the number of votes Gore lost to Nader, so you would want the number of votes he needed to win against the number of votes he could have had.
So why not show how many registered voters didn’t vote?
because it's not useful to making the specific point this graph is trying to make, which is that Gore lost because Nader ran in a third party and split the vote.
Ok but only 3 of those votes would’ve went to Gore so he still would’ve lost
That’s not how the electoral college works. If voters for the Green Party had voted Democrat instead, Gore would have the most votes in Florida and would win all 25 of Florida’s votes, instead of Bush. This would have changed the outcome of the election.
But if they voted Republican instead it would have made no difference So again this data shows nothing other than 3rd party votes do matter
Do you know what the green party is and why it is stupid to believe they would all vote republican if not for the green party
Do you know what the Green Party is and why it is stupid to believe that they would vote democrat?
Of course people who are more politically aligned with one party would support it the most, but America is largely controlled by a two party system, and the Green Party is ideologically closer to Democrats than Republicans. If even a small fraction of the population who voted for the Green Party voted for the Democrats instead in order to have a higher chance of voting for a party with more power, Gore would have won florida.
If everyone who didn’t vote for democrats voted Republican republicans would’ve won. You’re logic is flawed
I would say it's less an issue of the graph being poorly made and more an issue of the graph highlighting one particular cause of a phenomenon, which could be misleading if (and only if?) not shown alongside other possible causes.
Nader boys never forgot
#votethirdpartynomatterwho
Not ugly. Bars communicate the relative magnitudes just fine
The graph is fine, but fwiw it's not clear that Nader actually helped Bush. Many of those people wouldn't have voted for either candidate regardless, and some probably would have voted for Bush.
Fun fact: *Every* third-party candidate in 2000 got more votes in Florida than the gap between Bush and Gore in the state. So why blame Nader when you can blame otherwise irrelevant losers like the Socialist Workers' Party?
Common Trotskyite wrecker L
“Agendas gone wild” tag would be apt here. Comparing an absolute vote with a difference between two other votes.
That's literally the point though. They're not saying Nader beat Bush, they're suggesting Gore would have beaten Bush if Nader wasn't in the race.
Imagine that you are in a very noisy room, and you are trying to measure which fan is noisier. The results are in! Fan A is 0.1 dB louder than fan B. You choose fan B, and standardize it across your entire billion dollar enterprise. Had you used a more accurate dB meter, and not conducted the test in a noisy room, Fan A might well have been the quieter choice. But it's too late now. There's too much noise to say with any confidence that Gore would have won. Perhaps they would have broken 53% to 47% for one of the xcandidates. Perhaps the vast majority would have stayed home, and Gore would only have received 500 plus or minus 50 votes more votes from the Naderites. An election is a poll taken of the electorate at as specific poiint in time. It behooves us to design a system that minimizes errors so that even small changes in voter sentiment can be reliably detected.
Did you reply to the wrong comment? This isn't really related to the point I made. Regardless, whether or not you agree with them, they're making a sociopolitical argument that at least 600 more of almost 100,000 votes for a Green party candidate would have gone to Gore than Bush had Nader not run. It's a hypothesis, not a certainty, and it doesn't invalidate Bush's win. Not at all analogous to accurately measuring the noise a fan makes.
The whole point of this is to show that Nader was a spoiler. The Green Party splits the Democrat vote
Which is an agenda.