There has been so much anxiety this year, that I think I've seen more than the usual number of "Psychic animal picks Clinton victory" or "arcane stock market mini-index picks Trump victory" stories. Usually they talk about the uncanny accuracy of said method, and say who this uncanny method has picked for this year. No shortage of examples for either side. There is one mock contest that usually picks correctly that makes sense, though, FWIW. The Scholastic Student Vote, in which kindergarten through high school kids cast a vote. This makes sense, as most kids simply mirror who their parents are going to vote for. Hillary Clinton Wins Scholastic Student Vote They've gotten it wrong only twice, both close elections: Truman/Dewey, and Kennedy/Nixon. This year it's gone 52/35 (!) to Clinton. Obviously, this is imprecise, and the map will not match the Scholastic map. Texas picked Clinton by 9 points, for example... a reflection of the younger skewing (and thus with school-age children) Hispanic population in Texas, perhaps?? But with a large sample size (153,000), and the easy-to-understand reason that the kids usually pick the winner (mirroring their parents), and the size of the victory... this makes me feel a little better than the goat story.
Unfortunately, Paul the Octopus' career as a prognosticator were short lived. He passed away in 2010 only a few months after becoming a celebrity.
All I know is, about 24 hours from now, I'm either going to be terrified and sickened or tremendously, incredibly relieved.
I'm expecting to feel terrified and sickened regardless of who wins. One imagining what the winner will do, the other imagining what the losers will do.
Well, just hours away from the first poll closings. There was a good sized crowd this morning at my polling place. I find myself watching people come and go from the polling place, wondering who they're for (or against). A couple of people were in and outta there very quickly, clearly not filling out the entire ballot, only voting for president. That's too bad, because all those local candidates and issues are really where the rubber meets the road. Speaking of rubber meeting the road, never in my life did I think I'd have a ballot in CA so filled with issues about condoms, guns, and weed. LOL Whatta country.
Our ballot had four things - President, House member, and two "aw hell nah" state constitutional amendments. Each one on a different page. I don't think our voting machines were the latest and greatest.
Please tell us more, 2oony. We had NO ballot initiatives this year. I'm familiar with the weed initiative, but not the condom and gun ones. As a former CA resident, I'm curious...
1964 comes to mind. The people actually passed prop14 which allowed for discrimination in selling your house. That 60 is a WTH to me. I am reminded of a Robert Heinlein book where CA is independent and has an election every day.
Come to Colorado, where this election cycle was full of how our state Constitution is the easiest Constitution to amend so we have the most amendments. This year we have an amendment to make the Constitution harder to amend, which is basically the red parts of the state complaining that Denver and Boulder are too progressive. We had 6 amendments and 3 Propositions at the state level, and several local ballot issues as well.
Dabob -- There were two death penalty initiatives on the ballot -- one to eliminate the death penalty, the other to speed up the process and limit appeals. There's one to make recreational use of marijuana legal. There's another to require that adult film stars be required to wear condoms and get employer-provided STD testing. One initiative would make single use plastic bags illegal statewide. There's an initiative to impose an additional $2.00 per pack tax on cigarettes (both traditional and electronic). Locally, there's a bond measure to fund BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) infrastructure improvements on the aging system. And in San Francisco and Oakland (and perhaps a couple other places), there are soda tax measures funded by Michael Bloomberg. I think the soda measures have spent the most on air time, but pro (Bloomberg) and con (soda industry). Prop 63 would impose background checks on certain people buying ammunition and forbid large-capacity magazines completely. It also would increase the penalty for stealing ammunition.
"There were two death penalty initiatives on the ballot -- one to eliminate the death penalty, the other to speed up the process and limit appeals." And I bet the number of people who vote for both will be just appalling.
The California ballot initiative process is out of control. Many of the things put up for a vote are things that really should be handled by elected officials. Voting on adult film stars wearing condoms? That's either a public health issue, a workplace safety issue, or not. Why should that sort of issue be on the ballot and up for a vote? And all these "sin" taxes on cigarettes, soda, etc. Again, these are either public health issues, or they are not, and elected officials should either propose taxes or oppose taxes as part of their job. And then either win or lose based on those records.
