Candidates have to tailor their messages to
small numbers of voters in the early primaries, so a few thousand people in New Hampshire and a handful of other states have a disproportionate influence on the direction of the presidential race.
Whereas in marginal seats with two or three parties very close to each other, the behaviour of
small numbers of voters could change the result and so every vote counts.
And since we're talking about relatively
small numbers of voters on both sides (via back - of - the - envelope calculation, a VA state legislative district should hold about 60,000 people), a few dozen ballots here and there might matter.
From the perspective of our findings, either option seems plausible, and depends on winning the values argument with a relatively
small number of voters.
In some circumstances, such as when one party is totally dominant, it makes sense to tally
the small number of voters from the minority party first, because it's quick.
A slightly
smaller number of voters (16 %) favour a mostly elected chamber with a small number of appointed members — the position adopted by the Tories in their 2010 general election manifesto.
Results, they say, increasingly hinge on the preferences of
a small number of voters in a handful of swing constituencies which is undemocratic.
A small number of voters (5 %) favour a mostly appointed chamber with a small number of elected members.
The race to be the city's chief fiscal officer has, like the public advocate contest, been a sleepy one, with the incumbent Democrat holding major financial and other advantages, and heavily favored, as the higher profile mayoral race has sucked up the attention of most of whatever
small number of voters is paying attention to the municipal elections.
It means that, for instance, election battles become concentrated on
a smaller number of voters.
The drawn - out primary cycle, scheduled to begin in February 2016 and lasting until June, affords a great deal of influence to
a small number of voters in early primary states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
One wonders, then, whether the relatively
small number of voters who show up on election day share the general views of other district residents.
After all, the early primaries can be decided by a relatively
small number of voters, and mobilizing particular groups can have a decisive effect.
Not exact matches
For the Republicans,
voters back the plan to provide sweeping tax cuts and credits to
small businesses and a 46 percent approval rating
of the chamber where they hold a narrow 32 - 29 majority — an unusually high
number given the Legislature's historically awful reputation with New Yorkers.
Only a very
small number of districts, mostly urban districts packed with African - American
voters, vote Democrat in the south.
Int he US, in the
small number of states that use Open primaries, all
voters that register to support your party and those that have not registered to support a different party get to vote in the selection.
Gibraltar and the Isles
of Scilly are due in soon, but their
small voter numbers won't shed much light on the national picture.
The impression a dispassionate observer would have from the failure
of security and law enforcement during the Bayelsa election (which was conducted in Nigeria's
smallest state with the lowest
number of registered
voters) would be that the federal government permitted or condoned the strong - arm tactics
of the ruling party's candidate in his ultimately vain effort to secure that state's rulership by force.
«A
smaller number, 44 percent
of these likely
voters, say they haven't seen a Teachout commercial or been contacted by the Teachout campaign.
Perez Williams said the DCCC supplied a
small number of paid canvassers to help her gather signatures from Democratic
voters in the 24th Congressional District that are required to make it onto the primary ballot.
Barbara Bartoletti, with the League
of Women
Voters, says many politicians believe it's safer for their chances to be reelected under the present system, when only a
small number of their core supporters come to the polls.
But Hochul now also faces a primary challenge from Columbia University professor and tech expert Tim Wu, and her views may not be very palatable to the
small number of progressive minded
voters expected to turn out for Tuesday's vote.
The plaintiffs claimed that the commission placed a disproportionately large
number of non-minority
voters in districts dominated by Republicans; meanwhile, the commission allegedly placed many minority
voters in
smaller districts that tended to vote Democratic.
That said, I could see this happenning in multi-seat constituencies in
small populations; the need to present a minimum
number of candidates even for marginal parties makes for some
of the
smaller ones including «fillers» (people who agree to be in the list so the list can be approved but who are not
voters / supporters
of the party)
For example, an absolute threshold in the
number of votes (e.g. requiring a certain proportion
of the whole population or
of registered
voters to be elected rather than a plurality
of the vote) can seem intuitively appealing but has never, to my knowledge, been implemented for a national election, precisely because leaving an important office unfilled is a problem (unless,
of course, you subscribe to radical
small - government ideas, in which case the question seems moot and you might just as well do away with elections or democracy itself).
Labour targets Corby, Croydon Central, Plymouth Moor View, Morley and Outwood, Derby North, Gower, Thurrock and Telford all have
smaller Conservative majorities than the additional
number of voters since 2015 - although in these seats, with much
smaller student populations and in some cases many elderly
voters, other factors are likely to play a far bigger role in determining the outcome.
Jowell is also better like than her rivals among the
smaller number of Lib Dem and Ukip
voters.
So, by my reckoning there will probably be around 15 re-selection battles where a sitting Labour MP faces up against another sitting Labour MP on the provisional boundaries, though remember that these are subject to change (and it only takes a
small adjustment by the boundary commission to shift the
number of voters from an old seat above or below 40 %).
This means that whichever party can attract more participants in their primary will have a huge advantage, as the
number of swayable
voters will be far
smaller than normal.
As the loss
of safe seats is rare, parties target resources on a
small number of floating
voters in marginal seats.
With primaries usually only turning out a
small number of registered party
voters, the game comes down to a candidate getting his or her people out to the polls.
Next, we'll assume that a
small number of floating
voters switch directly from blue to red, which is not unreasonable given the painful decisions the Coalition has had to make.
This is a
small improvement on our current system
of first past the post, since it allows
voters to rank candidates and reduces the need to vote tactically, but it does not address the crucial unfairness at the heart
of our democracy which is that a party's share
of seats in parliament does reflect the
number of votes it receives across the country - a situation which leads to millions
of wasted votes and a shameful system
of «safe seats» where a donkey could be elected so long as they were wearing the right coloured rosette.
«To use this «momentum effect,» candidates will spend a lot
of time in the coming months trying to persuade
voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, even though the
number of delegates distributed in these contests is actually very
small.»