Horse 3095 - Three Easy Election Pieces

1st - Rs and Ds:

As I write this late on Thursday afternoon, the United States mid-term elections for the whole of the House of Representative and one-third of the Senate has left the following scores in the number of seats as thus:

Senate R/D:

48 / 48

House R/D:

207 / 184

I follow American politics in the same way that a horrified sports viewer watches a sporting match except that it isn't one team versus another, it's one team which I don't particularly don't like, versus the stadium which is on fire and where people are actively pouring petrol on it.

The expected "Red Wave" as was being cheered along by right-wing nutter butter trashmedia and self-confessed non-news outlet Fox News, and in Australia by equally right-wing nutter butter trashmedia and self-confessed not-Australian propaganda network Sky News Australia, and their respective cabals of talking heads, has simply not materialised. For reasons which probably include the fact that legacy media which isn't even trying to deliver news any more, has lost its allure, and the fact that the Republican Party has already fulfilled its 20-year mission of stacking the Supreme Court for a generation, there's little if anything other than yelling magic words at each other which would entice people to really want to put anything in the R or D column. Instead what we have is a period of protracted political pause, with residual whoops and hoots and hollers of the football teams. 

The states which still have not resolved their final counts tend to be in the west of America; which also includes California which likely has a lot of Ds to put in the House. I can not predict who will control either house as the quality of data simply isn't good enough or centralised enough; such is this American carnage which tries to pass itself off as democracy.

2nd - Run-Off Voting:

When it comes to a race for a House seat in Georgia, something interesting has arisen. It is likely that the Georgia seat will eventually fall to the point where neither Democrat Raphael Warnock or Republican Herschel Walker has a majority of votes and therefore state rules say that this will go to a run-off election. What a top idea. Let's devise a system so broken from the outset that people who have just gone to the polls need to go back to the polls to mostly pick the same person that they picked last time and left the 4% have a second crack at making their choice.

If only there was some method of holding all possible run-off votes instantly and transferring people's votes if their first choice didn't make it. If only, we could have their choices and number them 1-5 and then move the votes from the smallest pile according to the voters' wishes (which are numbered) until we got the 50%. If we could do that instantly we'd have Instant Run-Off voting and Georgia would use a system which had already been in use in Australia since 1921. If only.

3rd - Slavery:

I know that this seems like something which should have been cleared up in the wake of the US Civil War which was fought on this very issue (yeah, don't @ me. This was never a 'states rights' issue because if you read through the Constitution of the Confederate States of America it is as obvious as the day is long that that's all it was ever over), but in 2022 four more states have actually abolished slavery.

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution sort of bans slavery but then leaves the issue open as one giant loophole which could be walked through, as the result of being found guilty of committing a crime. In 2022 the biggest owners of slaves in the United States are the states themselves; who often use private corporations to administer and run prisons for them (quite often at a profit).

Slavery was properly abolished for the various colonies in Australia in 1873. The Australian Government then reconfirmed out commitment to the abolition of slavery in 1926 and then again 1953 which as second ratification to various slavery conventions. The United States on the other hand, has had this loophole sine 1865 and it was only in Colorado in 2018, Nevada and Utah in 2020, and now Ohio, Vermont, Tennessee and Alabama which have decided to completely outlaw slavery for any purpose in 2022. Slavery is still legal, usually as the result of punishment for a crime in 43 states of the union. It still needs to be ratified by another 27 states in the Union for this to be considered for the 13th Amendment to be altered.