"moving all uni teaching online - hasn’t been adopted."
Unbelievable that this is the case, it can't be done with lab based work but tutorials could and should have been done through Zoom/teams or w/e. My course (Maths) could be delivered online for instance. This isn't school where deprived kids are going to suffer through a lack of tech/motivated parents.
Uni teaching is not the problem. It's idiot students ignoring all the Covid guidance.
But who's going to pay 10k a year and get into a lifetime of debt in exchange for a few ted talks and a weekly zoom call?
My course was a bit more than that ! The extra work needed by lecturers to prepare an online say maths course would be considerable.
Sage didn't recommend 5 interventions. It gave a short list of 5 to be selected from. That's what the minutes say. Sam Coates needs to learn to read English.
Look paragraph 2, though. Really strong steer that a single measure from the menu won't be enough.
The Swiss Cheese model.
I wish more people (in the media especially) understood this, its a pretty simple and powerful concept.
There was a piece I posted a link to the other day about the most important man in America on election night: Fox News voting data analyst.
If I can find it again I will be repost. From memory it was reassuring, he has no intention of calling anything too soon and he wont be lent on by Fox's owners and so on.
Its crazy to call a state if the result is not certificated by their equivalent of the Returning Officer.
IIRC official results don't come in on the night, so nothing would get called.
The likes of Hodges, Telegraph and the Speccie have all been squawking for ages that Boris has gone too far though ! Boris has gone too far <-> Boris hasn't gone far enough. Yes it's an unholy mess and he's not very good but at least he's not listened to the cassandra voices of the Allison Pearson tendancy too much.
Struck because Cassandra was right. Pearson ain't.
Is the clown now a hostage? He doesn’t seem to have power over anything.
Don't worry, in a day or two there will be a massive headline announcing that Johnson is taking "immediate and personal charge" of the spiralling crisis. He will lead from the front and so on.
There was a piece I posted a link to the other day about the most important man in America on election night: Fox News voting data analyst.
If I can find it again I will be repost. From memory it was reassuring, he has no intention of calling anything too soon and he wont be lent on by Fox's owners and so on.
Its crazy to call a state if the result is not certificated by their equivalent of the Returning Officer.
In most of US this is state Secretary of State, and locally county/town clerk or auditor or whatever who is directly responsible for administering & conducting elections.
NOTE that official certification of results typically occurs weeks after EDay.
Since waiting that long is both a drag AND unnecessary unless some races are very close (or lots of votes still outstanding) the practice developed (in 19th century) of newspapers recording and collating local results in their publication area. Fairly early on journalists began using (at first) rudimentary analysis to calculate how votes from late-reporting jurisdictions were likely to affect the final outcome.
In 20th century national news services, most notably Associated Press (AP) took over this function. Up until early this century their practice was to have someone in just about every county (or town) election office to get the results throughout ENight and report to AP.
Yes, I understand that is why the press call states on the night, but it is a daft system, and particularly so in this strange year.
It's difficult to understand how anyone could have thought this was a good idea.
"The culture secretary has disowned a government advertising campaign that suggested ballet dancers could “reboot” their careers by retraining in IT." (£)
I honestly don't see the fuss. Why shouldn't people retrain for wildly different careers?
I think the message is bluntly put, and understandably upsets people especially those who might feel their industry is not getting the support others are, but the basic premise seems fine even if the execution in this way is likely not the way to go about it. Even in good times dancers might need to take other jobs, there's bound to be more people want to be professional dancers than their are jobs. And when we have millions unemployed that'll be true for many, unfortunately.
It was the example that made it such a downer. The notion of losing ballet in favour of more "cyber". That does not sound like progress either for the individual featured - "Fatima" - or for society.
They should have shown a hairdresser - "Trevor" say - with a caption that although he doesn't know it yet his next job might be in renewables.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
It does absolutely nothing. The whole strategy is just completely short sighted and the scientists seem to be captured by the same groupthink and lack of imagination as the politicians.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
Absolutely right. All a circuit breaker lockdown does is push the problem 2 to 3 weeks down the line. Pointless.
Especially when we aren't doing anything any importing new cases.
To me, we need to restrict unnecessary travel and stop household mixing across the country...and make it cleae no you aren't going on your ski holiday in Morzine in Feb or Dubai for Christmas.
OF COURSE the whole notion that election results must be declared immediately (if not sooner) is a journalist ramp. Which political partisans jump upon depending on how the votes appear to be stacking up.
In my own misspent youth remember well how I went to bed on ENight 1968 hopeful that Hubert Humphrey could still pull it out - only to find the morning after that 'twas NOT to be.
In 1916 the result was still in doubt on Thursday morning, when California result went to Wilson (by margin of 3.8k out of 1m cast); CA GOP conceded that evening.
Note that in both these cases, communications were almost as speedy (via telegraph & telephone) as today; also that almost all voting in 1916 was via paper ballots with multiple races to count, while in 1968 the percentage of votes cast via paper ballot was much less but still substantial, esp in rural states and counties.
In most European countries 99.9% of votes are counted within a few hours of the polls closing. I don't know why the United States can't do the same thing.
Because we are NOT voting on just one thing, we have MULTIPLE races on our election ballots.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
"moving all uni teaching online - hasn’t been adopted."
Unbelievable that this is the case, it can't be done with lab based work but tutorials could and should have been done through Zoom/teams or w/e. My course (Maths) could be delivered online for instance. This isn't school where deprived kids are going to suffer through a lack of tech/motivated parents.
Uni teaching is not the problem. It's idiot students ignoring all the Covid guidance.
But who's going to pay 10k a year and get into a lifetime of debt in exchange for a few ted talks and a weekly zoom call?
And if its completely online then why not pay considerably less for an online course originating in a different country.
OF COURSE the whole notion that election results must be declared immediately (if not sooner) is a journalist ramp. Which political partisans jump upon depending on how the votes appear to be stacking up.
In my own misspent youth remember well how I went to bed on ENight 1968 hopeful that Hubert Humphrey could still pull it out - only to find the morning after that 'twas NOT to be.
In 1916 the result was still in doubt on Thursday morning, when California result went to Wilson (by margin of 3.8k out of 1m cast); CA GOP conceded that evening.
Note that in both these cases, communications were almost as speedy (via telegraph & telephone) as today; also that almost all voting in 1916 was via paper ballots with multiple races to count, while in 1968 the percentage of votes cast via paper ballot was much less but still substantial, esp in rural states and counties.
In most European countries 99.9% of votes are counted within a few hours of the polls closing. I don't know why the United States can't do the same thing.
Because we are NOT voting on just one thing, we have MULTIPLE races on our election ballots.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
Does this help answer your question?
The UK manages this just fine with simultaneous local and European elections. Just separated the ballots.
FYI, NYT / Siena poll out for the Michigan Siena race - Peters only now +1 ahead of James. That follows the CBS poll yesterday that showed Peters only at +3. Note 13% of the respondents in the NYT said refused / don't know
James did this last time with Stabenow where he ended up strong and came in closer than expected. It looks the same pattern here and he started out less behind with Peters than he did with Stabenow.
Interestingly, the same NYT poll gives Biden as +8 in Michigan
I think Iowa might be back in play again - there have been a string of poor polls for Joni Ernst of late.
My current "will flip" states are:
Arizona and Colorado. (And Alabama, of course.)
There are then two or three states which are now probables:
Iowa, Maine
Then there are the possibles:
Michigan, Georgia (x2), North Carolina
And then the theoreticals:
Montana, South Carolina Maybe Kansas or Kentucky if it's an extraordinarily bad night for the Republicans
My best guess right now is that Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Maine will go Dem, while Alabama goes Republican. I'd then expect one or two of my "possibles" to flip.
Local authorities in the Liverpool City Region will be put under the highest alert level, tier three. The affected boroughs are Liverpool, Knowsley, Wirral, St Helens, Sefton and Halton.
The areas in tier two are Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Warrington, Derbyshire, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North East, Tees Valley, West Midlands, Leicester and Nottingham.
The rest of England has been placed under the medium alert level - tier one."
I assume "West Midlands" means Birmingham, Solihull, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, and doesn't also include Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire.
Great, so as you were in London then. Rumours nonsense?
Well the briefing from Sadiq is that it’s coming in the next couple of days. He’s really gung ho and at some point the Govt will give in to his special pleading.
There’s still nothing massively remarkable about the London figures in general, be it cases, hospitalisation or deaths. Boroughs seem to basically changing places as “hotspots” every couple of weeks (perhaps with a general drift upwards - but that could be testing numbers related). Leaving aside the “university + GP home address issue)
The virus is hitting too many immune host bodies in London. Sadiq doesn't understand the science behind it.
It's interesting if London has reached effective herd immunity. Do you know what the current sero-positive rates are?
An estimate I saw for London was about 25%. Pulled out of my arse, of course.
Less than 15% IMO, a long way off herd immunity. Imperial calculated London at 13% in August.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
It does absolutely nothing. The whole strategy is just completely short sighted and the scientists seem to be captured by the same groupthink and lack of imagination as the politicians.
Worrying about how they'll come out of an inquiry probably doesn't help clear decision making.
There are of course scenarios in which Trump could win. But much of this type of story relies on GOP state officials talking up their guy's chances (Mandy Rice Davies has that covered) and Democratic supporters worrying about losing again.
Could it happen? Yes. Is it likely? No.
One thing slightly interesting is that if - and it's an if - the polls are right re Michigan, Biden should handily beat Trump but Peters may lose to James. That seems odd given the consensus seems to be that ballot-splitting is on the way out. In fact, from what can see, neither in 2012 or 2016, did a state flip one way for the Presidential election and the other way for the Senate election.
In fact in the Brexit referendum 100% of votes were counted in exactly 9 hours. Polls closed at 10pm and the final declaration was from Cornwall at 7am.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
There are of course scenarios in which Trump could win. But much of this type of story relies on GOP state officials talking up their guy's chances (Mandy Rice Davies has that covered) and Democratic supporters worrying about losing again.
Could it happen? Yes. Is it likely? No.
One thing slightly interesting is that if - and it's an if - the polls are right re Michigan, Biden should handily beat Trump but Peters may lose to James. That seems odd given the consensus seems to be that ballot-splitting is on the way out. In fact, from what can see, neither in 2012 or 2016, did a state flip one way for the Presidential election and the other way for the Senate election.
Sorry, that wasn't clear - what I meant was that if let's say the state had voted Republican for President and Democrat for Senator, I can't find an example where they both switched sides in the same election.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
It does absolutely nothing. The whole strategy is just completely short sighted and the scientists seem to be captured by the same groupthink and lack of imagination as the politicians.
Worrying about how they'll come out of an inquiry probably doesn't help clear decision making.
The focus here seems to be Trump. Fair enough. I have a feeling that his contracting the virus might indeed have been a "gift from God" , but not as he meant it. Rather, his general reaction has underlined how egocentric he is, caring F##k-all about ordinary people.
But I'm wondering how the Congress is shaping up. I believe a goodly number of Republican senators are up this time. If both houses would be Democratic maybe they could undo some of the damage. The Dems might try the catchphrase
I also thought it was bonkers that Sturgeon, after talking tough ln new restrictions, is allowing half term holidays anywhere you like.
Does she have the power to stop that?
I believe she has the power to say you must remain within x miles of your home. That is what Wales did during lockdown and I think its a very sensible policy as it stops 100k people descending on a single beauty spot.
There was a piece I posted a link to the other day about the most important man in America on election night: Fox News voting data analyst.
If I can find it again I will be repost. From memory it was reassuring, he has no intention of calling anything too soon and he wont be lent on by Fox's owners and so on.
Its crazy to call a state if the result is not certificated by their equivalent of the Returning Officer.
In most of US this is state Secretary of State, and locally county/town clerk or auditor or whatever who is directly responsible for administering & conducting elections.
NOTE that official certification of results typically occurs weeks after EDay.
Since waiting that long is both a drag AND unnecessary unless some races are very close (or lots of votes still outstanding) the practice developed (in 19th century) of newspapers recording and collating local results in their publication area. Fairly early on journalists began using (at first) rudimentary analysis to calculate how votes from late-reporting jurisdictions were likely to affect the final outcome.
In 20th century national news services, most notably Associated Press (AP) took over this function. Up until early this century their practice was to have someone in just about every county (or town) election office to get the results throughout ENight and report to AP.
Yes, I understand that is why the press call states on the night, but it is a daft system, and particularly so in this strange year.
A "call" from the networks has no legal force, though, does it? If the actual count in a state ultimately differs that takes precedence, surely.
There was a piece I posted a link to the other day about the most important man in America on election night: Fox News voting data analyst.
If I can find it again I will be repost. From memory it was reassuring, he has no intention of calling anything too soon and he wont be lent on by Fox's owners and so on.
Its crazy to call a state if the result is not certificated by their equivalent of the Returning Officer.
In most of US this is state Secretary of State, and locally county/town clerk or auditor or whatever who is directly responsible for administering & conducting elections.
NOTE that official certification of results typically occurs weeks after EDay.
Since waiting that long is both a drag AND unnecessary unless some races are very close (or lots of votes still outstanding) the practice developed (in 19th century) of newspapers recording and collating local results in their publication area. Fairly early on journalists began using (at first) rudimentary analysis to calculate how votes from late-reporting jurisdictions were likely to affect the final outcome.
In 20th century national news services, most notably Associated Press (AP) took over this function. Up until early this century their practice was to have someone in just about every county (or town) election office to get the results throughout ENight and report to AP.
Yes, I understand that is why the press call states on the night, but it is a daft system, and particularly so in this strange year.
Press (or at least semi-responsible media) will NOT declare result UNLESS & UNTIL they are confident that post-ENight counting AND canvassing of returns will NOT change the result.
Thus in September 2020 Massachusetts Democratic Primary, the media called the (not close) US Senate result on PNight BUT did not call the (very close) result in Joe Kennedy's old congressional district until Thursday IIRC.
AND in the New York Democratic primary, the results was so close and voting counting so slow, that media did NOT declare winners in two US House primaries until TWO WEEKS after PDay.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
"moving all uni teaching online - hasn’t been adopted."
Unbelievable that this is the case, it can't be done with lab based work but tutorials could and should have been done through Zoom/teams or w/e. My course (Maths) could be delivered online for instance. This isn't school where deprived kids are going to suffer through a lack of tech/motivated parents.
Uni teaching is not the problem. It's idiot students ignoring all the Covid guidance.
But who's going to pay 10k a year and get into a lifetime of debt in exchange for a few ted talks and a weekly zoom call?
And if its completely online then why not pay considerably less for an online course originating in a different country.
This is the death of the university, as we know it, I fear.
A few very strong brands will survive as traditional unis. Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial, LSE in the UK. Harvard, MIT, Yale in the USA, etc. And others elsewhere
But any universities weaker than that will collapse due to the competition from good cheaper online teaching. Why not?
One of the problems the US faces is the deliberate attempts at voter suppression. You want to make it as hard as possible for those on the opposing side to vote. The more hoops you need to pass through the better. The Republicans get most of the blame for this now but perhaps they have long memories of when Kennedy beat Nixon allegedly due to graveyard voting.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
I think you would have to have a very slow opening back up of the economy, i.e. much what I referred to earlier.
Pubs open at lunch time only, only allowed meetings outdoors, etc.
The problem with that is business can't cope with stop, followed by very limited start, followed by potential stop again.
Many places just opening for lunch isn't going to be economical.
CHB doesn't obviously appear to live in the real world. Fine his insistence that come what we need is a "national lockdown" (not defined). But this idea he's got about pubs and restaurants "opening up for lunch" is one of the strangest obsessions i've heard.
One of the problems the US faces is the deliberate attempts at voter suppression. You want to make it as hard as possible for those on the opposing side to vote. The more hoops you need to pass through the better. The Republicans get most of the blame for this now but perhaps they have long memories of when Kennedy beat Nixon allegedly due to graveyard voting.
Some urban areas have one polling place for thousands of voters which makes big queues inevitable.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
I think you would have to have a very slow opening back up of the economy, i.e. much what I referred to earlier.
Pubs open at lunch time only, only allowed meetings outdoors, etc.
The problem with that is business can't cope with stop, followed by very limited start, followed by potential stop again.
Many places just opening for lunch isn't going to be economical.
CHB doesn't obviously appear to live in the real world. Fine his insistence that come what we need is a "national lockdown" (not defined). But this idea he's got about pubs and restaurants "opening up for lunch" is one of the strangest obsessions i've heard.
It's like Sturgeon's pubs with no booze. It's moronic.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
While some politicians bang on about the outrageous 9k fees (which for 99% of home students is just a capped graduate tax), accommodation fees have exploded far in excess of inflation.
In many places you could rent a whole house for the cost of a room in halls.
The likes of Hodges, Telegraph and the Speccie have all been squawking for ages that Boris has gone too far though ! Boris has gone too far <-> Boris hasn't gone far enough. Yes it's an unholy mess and he's not very good but at least he's not listened to the cassandra voices of the Allison Pearson tendancy too much.
Struck because Cassandra was right. Pearson ain't.
Yeah, Hodges was saying the 10pm Curfew had killed London.
A few hours before images of thronged streets festooned Twitter.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
I think you would have to have a very slow opening back up of the economy, i.e. much what I referred to earlier.
Pubs open at lunch time only, only allowed meetings outdoors, etc.
The problem with that is business can't cope with stop, followed by very limited start, followed by potential stop again.
Many places just opening for lunch isn't going to be economical.
CHB doesn't obviously appear to live in the real world. Fine his insistence that come what we need is a "national lockdown" (not defined). But this idea he's got about pubs and restaurants "opening up for lunch" is one of the strangest obsessions i've heard.
At lunch time was just a suggestion to allow limited social interaction but not at a time where people are likely to get plastered and ignore the rules.
I would close the pubs entirely and provide Government support, if that was required.
I struggle to see how a circuit breaker for 2 weeks does much more than squish down infections for a few weeks.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
I think you would have to have a very slow opening back up of the economy, i.e. much what I referred to earlier.
Pubs open at lunch time only, only allowed meetings outdoors, etc.
The problem with that is business can't cope with stop, followed by very limited start, followed by potential stop again.
Many places just opening for lunch isn't going to be economical.
CHB doesn't obviously appear to live in the real world. Fine his insistence that come what we need is a "national lockdown" (not defined). But this idea he's got about pubs and restaurants "opening up for lunch" is one of the strangest obsessions i've heard.
It's like Sturgeon's pubs with no booze. It's moronic.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
While some politicians bang on about the outrageous 9k fees (which for 99% of home students is just a capped graduate tax), accommodation fees have exploded far in excess of inflation.
In many places you could rent a whole house for the cost of a room in halls.
My uni charged me £7 a week back in 1980s. Admittedly a room in a row of terraced houses near the uni (which they owned) rather than a hall.
This was before universities became fully fledged businesses.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
Not all. One or two own no student accommodation at all.
The large private sector investment in student accommodation over the last few years was seen as relatively low risk, predictable return. That is not going to turn out well.
It says that multiple things should be done and here are some to consider. Its all been considered and multiple have been done.
Again this is the Swiss Cheese model. You don't need a single perfect defence, nor do you need every possible defence. You need a few defences layered together and they work in combination to only let a few problems through.
OF COURSE the whole notion that election results must be declared immediately (if not sooner) is a journalist ramp. Which political partisans jump upon depending on how the votes appear to be stacking up.
In my own misspent youth remember well how I went to bed on ENight 1968 hopeful that Hubert Humphrey could still pull it out - only to find the morning after that 'twas NOT to be.
In 1916 the result was still in doubt on Thursday morning, when California result went to Wilson (by margin of 3.8k out of 1m cast); CA GOP conceded that evening.
Note that in both these cases, communications were almost as speedy (via telegraph & telephone) as today; also that almost all voting in 1916 was via paper ballots with multiple races to count, while in 1968 the percentage of votes cast via paper ballot was much less but still substantial, esp in rural states and counties.
In most European countries 99.9% of votes are counted within a few hours of the polls closing. I don't know why the United States can't do the same thing.
Because we are NOT voting on just one thing, we have MULTIPLE races on our election ballots.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
Does this help answer your question?
The UK manages this just fine with simultaneous local and European elections. Just separated the ballots.
Thats TWO races on TWO ballots. Note that MY ballot (which will be arriving in mail end of this week) has (if you add up above) approx THREE DOZEN different races.
Not to mention fact that under our (almost) all vote-by-mail system, returned ballots are valid IF they are postmarked by EDay or (in absence on pm) dated on or before EDay by the voter. Note that EVERY voter signature for EVERY returned ballot is checked. Thus no way to have anything but partial count on ENight.
PLEASE keep in mind that 99.46% of Americans, regardless of political or other persuasion, do NOT give a blink fiddler's final feck IF a pack of Brits loose their shirts betting on our elections. OR if you have to wait a wee while to find out IF you won or lost filthy lucre.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
While some politicians bang on about the outrageous 9k fees (which for 99% of home students is just a capped graduate tax), accommodation fees have exploded far in excess of inflation.
In many places you could rent a whole house for the cost of a room in halls.
It's only possible because accommodation costs are covered by the same loan regime as fees. Paid for on the never never. There was a time when student accommodation was cr*p but it was also about the cheapest there was. The base of the market landlords got to choose between slums and students. Now it's still pretty cr*p but also ludicrously expensive. And built into university budgets to the extent that they are massive reliant on it.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
While some politicians bang on about the outrageous 9k fees (which for 99% of home students is just a capped graduate tax), accommodation fees have exploded far in excess of inflation.
In many places you could rent a whole house for the cost of a room in halls.
At Hull Uni my son is paying £157 a week for an ensuite room with a double bed, big desk, loads of storage space free wifi and no utility bills. He's currently sharing with one other person a kitchen/diner for 6 students, and the kitchen is immaculately equipped. For that standard of accommodation I think the cost is ok, especially as I'm paying for it.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
While some politicians bang on about the outrageous 9k fees (which for 99% of home students is just a capped graduate tax), accommodation fees have exploded far in excess of inflation.
In many places you could rent a whole house for the cost of a room in halls.
My uni charged me £7 a week back in 1980s. Admittedly a room in a row of terraced houses near the uni (which they owned) rather than a hall.
This was before universities became fully fledged businesses.
Just checked my alma matter (West Mids Glass Plate). My (self catered, non-ensuite) halls have gone up from £40/week to £100 in 15 years. Not as horrific as I expected to be fair. Feel old now though.
"moving all uni teaching online - hasn’t been adopted."
Unbelievable that this is the case, it can't be done with lab based work but tutorials could and should have been done through Zoom/teams or w/e. My course (Maths) could be delivered online for instance. This isn't school where deprived kids are going to suffer through a lack of tech/motivated parents.
Uni teaching is not the problem. It's idiot students ignoring all the Covid guidance.
But who's going to pay 10k a year and get into a lifetime of debt in exchange for a few ted talks and a weekly zoom call?
And if its completely online then why not pay considerably less for an online course originating in a different country.
This is the death of the university, as we know it, I fear.
A few very strong brands will survive as traditional unis. Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial, LSE in the UK. Harvard, MIT, Yale in the USA, etc. And others elsewhere
But any universities weaker than that will collapse due to the competition from good cheaper online teaching. Why not?
Because it won't be online for ever, and also it is all funded on loans that most will never repay.
It is the new Sub Prime Scandal, and will be quite a problem for some government when the music stops.
"moving all uni teaching online - hasn’t been adopted."
Unbelievable that this is the case, it can't be done with lab based work but tutorials could and should have been done through Zoom/teams or w/e. My course (Maths) could be delivered online for instance. This isn't school where deprived kids are going to suffer through a lack of tech/motivated parents.
Uni teaching is not the problem. It's idiot students ignoring all the Covid guidance.
But who's going to pay 10k a year and get into a lifetime of debt in exchange for a few ted talks and a weekly zoom call?
And if its completely online then why not pay considerably less for an online course originating in a different country.
This is the death of the university, as we know it, I fear.
A few very strong brands will survive as traditional unis. Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial, LSE in the UK. Harvard, MIT, Yale in the USA, etc. And others elsewhere
But any universities weaker than that will collapse due to the competition from good cheaper online teaching. Why not?
I think it can be adapted to shorter courses and science / engineering / medical courses will still require a physical presence.
My idea would be for the government to give everyone a 'lifetime learning' allowance for reskilling purposes.
Do universities rely on residential property for a lot of their income? Are they just another part of the UK economy kept going by such means?
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Yes, exactly. Significant source of income for unis nowadays (rents have shot up hugely in recent years). They made sure students were in attendance before announcing the shift to online, a Russell Group lecturer acquaintance of mine confirmed this was the plan back in August.
While some politicians bang on about the outrageous 9k fees (which for 99% of home students is just a capped graduate tax), accommodation fees have exploded far in excess of inflation.
In many places you could rent a whole house for the cost of a room in halls.
My uni charged me £7 a week back in 1980s. Admittedly a room in a row of terraced houses near the uni (which they owned) rather than a hall.
This was before universities became fully fledged businesses.
Just checked my alma matter (West Mids Glass Plate). My (self catered, non-ensuite) halls have gone up from £40/week to £100 in 15 years. Not as horrific as I expected to be fair. Feel old now though.
Mine was self-catered ensuite (height of plushness) at turn of century. £42 a week i think. Now £180.
It's not NHS Test and Trace. I do wish people like Peston would get this right. iirc it is PHE and it is being run by Dido Harding and not Simon Stevens.
There are of course scenarios in which Trump could win. But much of this type of story relies on GOP state officials talking up their guy's chances (Mandy Rice Davies has that covered) and Democratic supporters worrying about losing again.
Could it happen? Yes. Is it likely? No.
One thing slightly interesting is that if - and it's an if - the polls are right re Michigan, Biden should handily beat Trump but Peters may lose to James. That seems odd given the consensus seems to be that ballot-splitting is on the way out. In fact, from what can see, neither in 2012 or 2016, did a state flip one way for the Presidential election and the other way for the Senate election.
Ballot splitting may be reduced this election, but his hardly a vanishing phenomenon.
For one thing, millions of voters actively WANT to split their votes in order to validate (to themselves) that they are true independent voters.
AND trying to predict ticket-splitting patterns with any precision (esp in close races) is a chumps game.
Personally have sat in plenty of WA county canvassing board meetings where ballots were reviewed for voter intent. AND witnessed MANY instances where voters split their tickets in VERY creative ways that would try the incredulity of a hardened politico, let alone a political science professor.
"moving all uni teaching online - hasn’t been adopted."
Unbelievable that this is the case, it can't be done with lab based work but tutorials could and should have been done through Zoom/teams or w/e. My course (Maths) could be delivered online for instance. This isn't school where deprived kids are going to suffer through a lack of tech/motivated parents.
Uni teaching is not the problem. It's idiot students ignoring all the Covid guidance.
But who's going to pay 10k a year and get into a lifetime of debt in exchange for a few ted talks and a weekly zoom call?
And if its completely online then why not pay considerably less for an online course originating in a different country.
Or simply create your own degree with MOOCs, paying the $35 for certification of each MOOC. A top class college education for what, $700-$1000?
OF COURSE the whole notion that election results must be declared immediately (if not sooner) is a journalist ramp. Which political partisans jump upon depending on how the votes appear to be stacking up.
In my own misspent youth remember well how I went to bed on ENight 1968 hopeful that Hubert Humphrey could still pull it out - only to find the morning after that 'twas NOT to be.
In 1916 the result was still in doubt on Thursday morning, when California result went to Wilson (by margin of 3.8k out of 1m cast); CA GOP conceded that evening.
Note that in both these cases, communications were almost as speedy (via telegraph & telephone) as today; also that almost all voting in 1916 was via paper ballots with multiple races to count, while in 1968 the percentage of votes cast via paper ballot was much less but still substantial, esp in rural states and counties.
In most European countries 99.9% of votes are counted within a few hours of the polls closing. I don't know why the United States can't do the same thing.
Because we are NOT voting on just one thing, we have MULTIPLE races on our election ballots.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
Does this help answer your question?
The UK manages this just fine with simultaneous local and European elections. Just separated the ballots.
Thats TWO races on TWO ballots. Note that MY ballot (which will be arriving in mail end of this week) has (if you add up above) approx THREE DOZEN different races.
Not to mention fact that under our (almost) all vote-by-mail system, returned ballots are valid IF they are postmarked by EDay or (in absence on pm) dated on or before EDay by the voter. Note that EVERY voter signature for EVERY returned ballot is checked. Thus no way to have anything but partial count on ENight.
PLEASE keep in mind that 99.46% of Americans, regardless of political or other persuasion, do NOT give a blink fiddler's final feck IF a pack of Brits loose their shirts betting on our elections. OR if you have to wait a wee while to find out IF you won or lost filthy lucre.
Well just have a separate ballot paper for the presidency. Getting that counted as quickly and efficiently as possible would surely help reduce the chance of any foul play in the days and weeks between the election and the certification of the results.
A circuit breaker is a good start but I think we need longer than two weeks unless we intend to open up very slowly.
The only point of a short circuit breaker is to open up differently from how we opened up last time.
I would have thought the point of a circuit breaker is that people are thought to be infectious for about 14 days. A 14 day lockdown should be *theoretically* able to stop the virus in its tracks.
A circuit breaker is a good start but I think we need longer than two weeks unless we intend to open up very slowly.
The only point of a short circuit breaker is to open up differently from how we opened up last time.
I would have thought the point of a circuit breaker is that people are thought to be infectious for about 14 days. A 14 day lockdown should be *theoretically* able to stop the virus in its tracks.
We thought that last time and it took 8 weeks for shops to reopen. It's a rubbish idea.
The good news is the apparent shift towards local tracing instead of national call centres. Shame that so much time and money has been wasted on the way.
OF COURSE the whole notion that election results must be declared immediately (if not sooner) is a journalist ramp. Which political partisans jump upon depending on how the votes appear to be stacking up.
In my own misspent youth remember well how I went to bed on ENight 1968 hopeful that Hubert Humphrey could still pull it out - only to find the morning after that 'twas NOT to be.
In 1916 the result was still in doubt on Thursday morning, when California result went to Wilson (by margin of 3.8k out of 1m cast); CA GOP conceded that evening.
Note that in both these cases, communications were almost as speedy (via telegraph & telephone) as today; also that almost all voting in 1916 was via paper ballots with multiple races to count, while in 1968 the percentage of votes cast via paper ballot was much less but still substantial, esp in rural states and counties.
In most European countries 99.9% of votes are counted within a few hours of the polls closing. I don't know why the United States can't do the same thing.
Because we are NOT voting on just one thing, we have MULTIPLE races on our election ballots.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
Does this help answer your question?
We get a different ballot paper for each race rather than trying to cram them all onto the same piece of paper. Then they can all be counted reasonably rather than messing around.
I would have thought the point of a circuit breaker is that people are thought to be infectious for about 14 days. A 14 day lockdown should be *theoretically* able to stop the virus in its tracks.
The members of SAGE thought it would help, but they forgot to check with the PB brain trust before making their recommendations...
A circuit breaker is a good start but I think we need longer than two weeks unless we intend to open up very slowly.
The only point of a short circuit breaker is to open up differently from how we opened up last time.
I would have thought the point of a circuit breaker is that people are thought to be infectious for about 14 days. A 14 day lockdown should be *theoretically* able to stop the virus in its tracks.
Nobody is suggesting a circuit breaker with no holes. People will still go to work. Students will still be at university. And infectious people infect the people they live with. So 14 days becomes a lot longer.
The other point about a circuit breaker. Which has to be enacted and finished in without knowing whether it has worked or not, is that it inevitably leads to a massive surge in infectious contact just before it is introduced ("one last hurrah"/stocking up) and additional social contact the moment is lifted.
OF COURSE the whole notion that election results must be declared immediately (if not sooner) is a journalist ramp. Which political partisans jump upon depending on how the votes appear to be stacking up.
In my own misspent youth remember well how I went to bed on ENight 1968 hopeful that Hubert Humphrey could still pull it out - only to find the morning after that 'twas NOT to be.
In 1916 the result was still in doubt on Thursday morning, when California result went to Wilson (by margin of 3.8k out of 1m cast); CA GOP conceded that evening.
Note that in both these cases, communications were almost as speedy (via telegraph & telephone) as today; also that almost all voting in 1916 was via paper ballots with multiple races to count, while in 1968 the percentage of votes cast via paper ballot was much less but still substantial, esp in rural states and counties.
In most European countries 99.9% of votes are counted within a few hours of the polls closing. I don't know why the United States can't do the same thing.
Because we are NOT voting on just one thing, we have MULTIPLE races on our election ballots.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
Does this help answer your question?
The UK manages this just fine with simultaneous local and European elections. Just separated the ballots.
Thats TWO races on TWO ballots. Note that MY ballot (which will be arriving in mail end of this week) has (if you add up above) approx THREE DOZEN different races.
Not to mention fact that under our (almost) all vote-by-mail system, returned ballots are valid IF they are postmarked by EDay or (in absence on pm) dated on or before EDay by the voter. Note that EVERY voter signature for EVERY returned ballot is checked. Thus no way to have anything but partial count on ENight.
PLEASE keep in mind that 99.46% of Americans, regardless of political or other persuasion, do NOT give a blink fiddler's final feck IF a pack of Brits loose their shirts betting on our elections. OR if you have to wait a wee while to find out IF you won or lost filthy lucre.
Well just have a separate ballot paper for the presidency. Getting that counted as quickly and efficiently as possible would surely help reduce the chance of any foul play in the days and weeks between the election and the certification of the results.
Might cut down on mostly-mindless chatter of journos & other pundits. But seriously doubt it would do very much in that direction, at least NOT enough to justify adding yet another level of complexity into an already VERY complicated system.
PLUS would NOT solve the "problem" that millions of valid votes will be received by election authorities AFTER Election NIght.
It says that multiple things should be done and here are some to consider. Its all been considered and multiple have been done.
Again this is the Swiss Cheese model. You don't need a single perfect defence, nor do you need every possible defence. You need a few defences layered together and they work in combination to only let a few problems through.
And another journalist who doesn't understand the phrases "shortlist" or "to be considered"
There was a piece I posted a link to the other day about the most important man in America on election night: Fox News voting data analyst.
If I can find it again I will be repost. From memory it was reassuring, he has no intention of calling anything too soon and he wont be lent on by Fox's owners and so on.
Its crazy to call a state if the result is not certificated by their equivalent of the Returning Officer.
In most of US this is state Secretary of State, and locally county/town clerk or auditor or whatever who is directly responsible for administering & conducting elections.
NOTE that official certification of results typically occurs weeks after EDay.
Since waiting that long is both a drag AND unnecessary unless some races are very close (or lots of votes still outstanding) the practice developed (in 19th century) of newspapers recording and collating local results in their publication area. Fairly early on journalists began using (at first) rudimentary analysis to calculate how votes from late-reporting jurisdictions were likely to affect the final outcome.
In 20th century national news services, most notably Associated Press (AP) took over this function. Up until early this century their practice was to have someone in just about every county (or town) election office to get the results throughout ENight and report to AP.
Yes, I understand that is why the press call states on the night, but it is a daft system, and particularly so in this strange year.
A "call" from the networks has no legal force, though, does it? If the actual count in a state ultimately differs that takes precedence, surely.
Of course not. But if the election is close, it might on occasion persuade candidates to concede when they should not. (And could conceivably give Trump excuses to attempt to sabotage the result this time.)
In reality, all that counts constitutionally is the electoral college votes formally cast in each state in December, and ratified by Congress in January. There is no reason to rush the count, and indeed constitutional originalists, as the Republicans claim to be, ought to deprecate any such thing.
Since the 15th of September we have seen two doublings as of the 5th of October, so approximately a doubling ever 10 days rather than 7.
Given people were trying to claim there was no exponential increase at all Whitty and Valence have done alright with their not a projection.
There was a slow increase followed by a jump from the student infections and pretty stable during the last week.
None of which were predicted by the graph.
It doubled twice in exactly 20 days with the first double happening after 10. That didn't happen with a single sudden jump.
Are you really trying to say that the student infections had no effect on the numbers ?
The graph predicted 45k today, we had under 14k - about 30%.
Now if Vallance and Whitty had used a sensible R such as 1.5 the graph would have looked accurate and scary.
Of course that R was if we did nothing and since then we have had weeks of talk of needing to take this seriously, the rule of 6, the curfew etc, etc, etc so of course R should have come down since then. If it had followed their graph I'd be wondering why the rule of 6 etc, etc had not had any impact at all on transmission.
"moving all uni teaching online - hasn’t been adopted."
Unbelievable that this is the case, it can't be done with lab based work but tutorials could and should have been done through Zoom/teams or w/e. My course (Maths) could be delivered online for instance. This isn't school where deprived kids are going to suffer through a lack of tech/motivated parents.
Uni teaching is not the problem. It's idiot students ignoring all the Covid guidance.
But who's going to pay 10k a year and get into a lifetime of debt in exchange for a few ted talks and a weekly zoom call?
And if its completely online then why not pay considerably less for an online course originating in a different country.
This is the death of the university, as we know it, I fear.
A few very strong brands will survive as traditional unis. Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial, LSE in the UK. Harvard, MIT, Yale in the USA, etc. And others elsewhere
But any universities weaker than that will collapse due to the competition from good cheaper online teaching. Why not?
Because it won't be online for ever, and also it is all funded on loans that most will never repay.
It is the new Sub Prime Scandal, and will be quite a problem for some government when the music stops.
It will also be a problem for the taxpayers at that point - who will be the current students in their 40s and 50s.
The good news is the apparent shift towards local tracing instead of national call centres. Shame that so much time and money has been wasted on the way.
Hidden away in there is likely poor rates of adherence to self isolation. It's about time there was greater criticism of members of the public who are wilfully not adhering to Covid guidance and therefore making a major contribution to the problems we face.
For those following the drama of the NC senate race Cunningham the Dem challenger who admitted to sexting and having an affair has seen his poll numbers rise driven by more younger people and men overall .
In the last Survey USA poll he was up by 7 points , he’s increased that to 10 points leading Tillis 49 to 39 !
OF COURSE the whole notion that election results must be declared immediately (if not sooner) is a journalist ramp. Which political partisans jump upon depending on how the votes appear to be stacking up.
In my own misspent youth remember well how I went to bed on ENight 1968 hopeful that Hubert Humphrey could still pull it out - only to find the morning after that 'twas NOT to be.
In 1916 the result was still in doubt on Thursday morning, when California result went to Wilson (by margin of 3.8k out of 1m cast); CA GOP conceded that evening.
Note that in both these cases, communications were almost as speedy (via telegraph & telephone) as today; also that almost all voting in 1916 was via paper ballots with multiple races to count, while in 1968 the percentage of votes cast via paper ballot was much less but still substantial, esp in rural states and counties.
In most European countries 99.9% of votes are counted within a few hours of the polls closing. I don't know why the United States can't do the same thing.
Because we are NOT voting on just one thing, we have MULTIPLE races on our election ballots.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
Does this help answer your question?
We get a different ballot paper for each race rather than trying to cram them all onto the same piece of paper. Then they can all be counted reasonably rather than messing around.
That was common practice in parts of US in 19th century. BUT with more than say two or three ballots, led to a LOT of confusion, including fertile opportunities for miscounting, sometimes on purpose.
Would be interesting to know, how many PBers have actually observed their (or any) election process (as opposed to analyzing polling & results) at all closely.
About the one one I can recall on here (besides yours truly) was John Looney. Though am sure they are a few other PBers out there with some face time observing the election process.
A circuit breaker is a good start but I think we need longer than two weeks unless we intend to open up very slowly.
The only point of a short circuit breaker is to open up differently from how we opened up last time.
I would have thought the point of a circuit breaker is that people are thought to be infectious for about 14 days. A 14 day lockdown should be *theoretically* able to stop the virus in its tracks.
Only if everyone isolates completely from even family for the 14 days, including children and essential workers
There are of course scenarios in which Trump could win. But much of this type of story relies on GOP state officials talking up their guy's chances (Mandy Rice Davies has that covered) and Democratic supporters worrying about losing again.
Could it happen? Yes. Is it likely? No.
One thing slightly interesting is that if - and it's an if - the polls are right re Michigan, Biden should handily beat Trump but Peters may lose to James. That seems odd given the consensus seems to be that ballot-splitting is on the way out. In fact, from what can see, neither in 2012 or 2016, did a state flip one way for the Presidential election and the other way for the Senate election.
Ballot splitting may be reduced this election, but his hardly a vanishing phenomenon.
For one thing, millions of voters actively WANT to split their votes in order to validate (to themselves) that they are true independent voters.
AND trying to predict ticket-splitting patterns with any precision (esp in close races) is a chumps game.
Personally have sat in plenty of WA county canvassing board meetings where ballots were reviewed for voter intent. AND witnessed MANY instances where voters split their tickets in VERY creative ways that would try the incredulity of a hardened politico, let alone a political science professor.
Oh, not saying it can’t happen. But, as I mentioned, I can’t find an example in 2012 or 2016 where the state flipped one way in the Presidential election and the other in the Senate race. In New Hampshire in 2016, the Democrats took the seat with a majority that was as razor thin as Clinton won the state. And ballot splitting is supposed to be on the decline. It’s an odd one.
I shall retell a story I have told before on pb. I was once tasked with disposing with postal ballots received after election day. Probably a couple of thousand. The head of electoral services at the council was not happy for them to be put in the secure bin as they had arrived and instead insisted that I shred them all individually. As you can imagine this took some time and involved a lot of noise. Eventually there was a change of plan and I stopped shredding them but I always wondered why she was insistent that I do that anyway.
Comments
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1315750198942011394
I wish more people (in the media especially) understood this, its a pretty simple and powerful concept.
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1315751659646128128
If we had it any other way, we wouldn’t have democratic government.
Sadly, at this moment we have a very shite one.
Boris has gone too far <-> Boris hasn't gone far enough.
Yes it's an unholy mess and he's not very good but at least he's not listened to the cassandra voices of the Allison Pearson tendancy too much.
Struck because Cassandra was right. Pearson ain't.
We would then come out of it, infections up, calls for another, government bashed for flip flopping, etc etc etc.
The only real plan is one that is consistent measures across the country for 6 months.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/12/roberta-mccain-john-dies-429025
Age 108.
They should have shown a hairdresser - "Trevor" say - with a caption that although he doesn't know it yet his next job might be in renewables.
To me, we need to restrict unnecessary travel and stop household mixing across the country...and make it cleae no you aren't going on your ski holiday in Morzine in Feb or Dubai for Christmas.
People who were asymptomatic, but develop symptoms during the break don't infect the people they would otherwise have done.
For example, here in Seattle in addition to Presidential race, there is race for US House, total of NINE statewide elected officials starting with Governor and ending with Insurance Commissioner, then two separate positions for state House of Reps (in some districts also race for state Senate), then four races for state Supreme Court Justice, then number of other judicial races.
Oh, and forgot to mention that candidate races are (mostly) proceeded by number of ballot measures, including one statewide referendum, one statewide constitutional amendment, four statewide advisory votes, followed by seven King County Charter amendments, one countywide bond measure, and (last but not least) City of Seattle proposition for sales tax to help finance local bus service,
Does this help answer your question?
Pubs open at lunch time only, only allowed meetings outdoors, etc.
But there are questions about whether it has been achieved. Too early to tell, I think.
Here in Cardiff we've had a couple blocks of student flats go up in the city centre. Presumably they needed to make sure all the kids were in attendance before moving studies online.
Many places just opening for lunch isn't going to be economical.
But I'm wondering how the Congress is shaping up. I believe a goodly number of Republican senators are up this time.
If both houses would be Democratic maybe they could undo some of the damage. The Dems might try the catchphrase
"MAKE AMERICA WHOLE AGAIN".
Thus in September 2020 Massachusetts Democratic Primary, the media called the (not close) US Senate result on PNight BUT did not call the (very close) result in Joe Kennedy's old congressional district until Thursday IIRC.
AND in the New York Democratic primary, the results was so close and voting counting so slow, that media did NOT declare winners in two US House primaries until TWO WEEKS after PDay.
Since the 15th of September we have seen two doublings as of the 5th of October, so approximately a doubling ever 10 days rather than 7.
Given people were trying to claim there was no exponential increase at all Whitty and Valence have done alright with their not a projection.
A few very strong brands will survive as traditional unis. Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial, LSE in the UK. Harvard, MIT, Yale in the USA, etc. And others elsewhere
But any universities weaker than that will collapse due to the competition from good cheaper online teaching. Why not?
In many places you could rent a whole house for the cost of a room in halls.
A few hours before images of thronged streets festooned Twitter.
I would close the pubs entirely and provide Government support, if that was required.
CAN ANYONE CONFIRM?
This was before universities became fully fledged businesses.
One or two own no student accommodation at all.
The large private sector investment in student accommodation over the last few years was seen as relatively low risk, predictable return. That is not going to turn out well.
It says that multiple things should be done and here are some to consider. Its all been considered and multiple have been done.
Again this is the Swiss Cheese model. You don't need a single perfect defence, nor do you need every possible defence. You need a few defences layered together and they work in combination to only let a few problems through.
None of which were predicted by the graph.
Not to mention fact that under our (almost) all vote-by-mail system, returned ballots are valid IF they are postmarked by EDay or (in absence on pm) dated on or before EDay by the voter. Note that EVERY voter signature for EVERY returned ballot is checked. Thus no way to have anything but partial count on ENight.
PLEASE keep in mind that 99.46% of Americans, regardless of political or other persuasion, do NOT give a blink fiddler's final feck IF a pack of Brits loose their shirts betting on our elections. OR if you have to wait a wee while to find out IF you won or lost filthy lucre.
It is the new Sub Prime Scandal, and will be quite a problem for some government when the music stops.
My idea would be for the government to give everyone a 'lifetime learning' allowance for reskilling purposes.
That should help the smaller, local institutions.
Baah.
For one thing, millions of voters actively WANT to split their votes in order to validate (to themselves) that they are true independent voters.
AND trying to predict ticket-splitting patterns with any precision (esp in close races) is a chumps game.
Personally have sat in plenty of WA county canvassing board meetings where ballots were reviewed for voter intent. AND witnessed MANY instances where voters split their tickets in VERY creative ways that would try the incredulity of a hardened politico, let alone a political science professor.
The other point about a circuit breaker. Which has to be enacted and finished in without knowing whether it has worked or not, is that it inevitably leads to a massive surge in infectious contact just before it is introduced ("one last hurrah"/stocking up) and additional social contact the moment is lifted.
The graph predicted 45k today, we had under 14k - about 30%.
Now if Vallance and Whitty had used a sensible R such as 1.5 the graph would have looked accurate and scary.
PLUS would NOT solve the "problem" that millions of valid votes will be received by election authorities AFTER Election NIght.
But if the election is close, it might on occasion persuade candidates to concede when they should not. (And could conceivably give Trump excuses to attempt to sabotage the result this time.)
In reality, all that counts constitutionally is the electoral college votes formally cast in each state in December, and ratified by Congress in January.
There is no reason to rush the count, and indeed constitutional originalists, as the Republicans claim to be, ought to deprecate any such thing.
In the last Survey USA poll he was up by 7 points , he’s increased that to 10 points leading Tillis 49 to 39 !
Would be interesting to know, how many PBers have actually observed their (or any) election process (as opposed to analyzing polling & results) at all closely.
About the one one I can recall on here (besides yours truly) was John Looney. Though am sure they are a few other PBers out there with some face time observing the election process.