Presidential election figuring

Tony Soprano (to his shrink): "I'm a man and you're a woman.  End of story!"

Wednesday I had lunch with Pam at the Schnitzel Hub.  She had fish and chips and let me finish her French fries!

Wednesday night was the History Discussion Group.  The subject was the 1950s and I got a pretty good turnout of six people.  I've started collecting the dues for 2017, which I've lowered from $7 back to $5. (My Meetup groups have been growing somewhat.)

The other day I dreamed that we were in our Sackville house for the last time when we got visited by the rock band Journey!  That's an odd dream because I'm not a Journey fan by any means.

A Movie Meetup went to see The Poseidon Adventure at The Event Screen last night. ("...and he's dead, and that's it--or do you want to make something more of it?") I thought of seeing it but didn't bother in the end.

Today I did some figuring.  How would the American election have gone if they'd reformed the Electoral College system of each state being "winner take all"?  First I figured out what would happen if each state's total electoral votes--House seats plus two Senate seats--were allotted as close as possible to its popular vote.  This system, under which small states would have a slight advantage, would give this result:  261 electoral votes for Democrat Clinton, 260 for Republican Trump, 15 for Libertarian Johnson, 1 for Green Stein (in California), and 1 for independent Evan McMullan (in Utah). A squeaker victory for Clinton!

Then I figured it under a system where each state's electoral votes would be two fewer, with just its House seats--a system closer to overall popular vote.  Now we get 217 Clinton, 209 Trump, 8 Johnson, 1 Stein, 1 McMullan.  A less narrow Clinton victory.

But another possible system is for the two votes from a state's Senate seats to be "winner take all" and the votes from the House seats to be proportional, maximizing the advantage for small states.  Clinton won 20 states and the District of Columbia while Trump won 30 states, so the new result is 259 Clinton, 269 Trump, 8 Johnson, 1 Stein, 1 McMullan.  A Trump victory, and compared to the first system his gains are mostly at Johnson's expense.

I enjoy figuring stuff like this from time to time...