Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 November 11

= November 11 =

Election result with the Wyoming Rule
If the Wyoming Rule were in effect, with all else being equal, who would have won the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and by what margin? (Assume D.C. still has 3 electoral votes.) -happy5214 00:10, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Clinton's electoral vote total would increase by 47, while Trump's would increase by 63 and thus still win. If you want another source of inequity, look at the 2 electoral votes that every state gets automatically. Trump got 60 electoral votes for carrying 30 states, while Clinton got only 40 for carrying 20 states. Though if you eliminated that portion of the electoral college, Trump would still win. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:08, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Hutchison family of Australia and Hawaii
I'm trying to find more information on the Hutchsion family of Hawaii and Australia in relation to two articles I recently created Ambrose K. Hutchison and Ferdinand William Hutchison. This family descended from the latter, a British immigrant to Hawaii in the 1850s who later moved to Australia. He apparently married three times, had three children by his first wife, and took his daughter Christina Hutchison with him to Australia in 1875. The name is often misspelled as Hutchinson. I suspect there are things out there about Ferdinand's other children and spouse and maybe Christina and William (the other child by the first wife). If someone could help me find more stuff about this family that would be great. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:38, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump in the Republican Party primaries
Hi. I struggle with comprehending the American political system, so forgive me if this sounds a daft question.

Neither our article on Trump nor the one on his campaign explain how he came to get into the primaries process. Even Republican Party presidential candidates, 2016 is silent on the subject. They just say that he "announced" he was going to run and then magically, he was running.

Can any American citizen just decide to run in the party primaries, without the need for some sort of committee nomination or backing? If so, I'm surprised there were so few candidates.

(Factual answers, preferably with references please. No polemic, I beg you.) --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:25, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * It's controlled by state law. In California, for instance, taking part in the Democratic Primary is governed by the California Elections Code Article 3 Section 6340: "The Secretary of State shall place the name of a candidate upon the Republican presidential primary ballot when the Secretary of State has determined that the candidate is generally recognized throughout the United States or California as a candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States." I couldn't tell you if the process is more or less complicated in other states, but they're fairly easy to look up: Just google " elections code". Someguy1221 (talk) 08:46, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I have no idea which state code to Google for, because our articles give no hint of Trump having been selected by a particular state. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:50, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess I didn't explain far enough. He has to qualify for the primary in every state, independently. So someone on his staff would have to figure out each state's election code, and what he has to do. This is actually how we occasionally get candidates that are on the ballot in only some states. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:06, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think we pretty much always get candidates that are on the ballot in only some states. They're rarely if ever Democrats or Republicans, of course.
 * I think Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were on the ballot in all fifty states plus DC, but Evan McMullin, who made a brief splash over the possibility that he might win Utah's electoral votes, was not. --Trovatore (talk) 09:30, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Minor nit: Per Jill Stein presidential campaign, 2016, Jill Stein was on the ballot in 44 states plus in DC, and had official write-in access in three other states (GA, IN, NC), missing out altogether in the remaining three (NV, OK, TN). -- ToE 14:27, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This is sort of beginning to make sense. Ish. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:41, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

The message posted above from California basically seems to say that the local official will recognise someone as a candidate when they're recognised as a candidate. Is that right? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:41, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, the California Secretary of State isn't what you'd usually describe as a "local" official, but yeah, looks that way. News to me, and seems very strange.  That's an awful lot of discretion.  But, well, party primaries are a strange idea anyway, a government election to decide an internal party matter, so maybe I shouldn't expect the rest of it to make sense either.
 * It seems that there are specific separate codes for five of California's six qualified parties (in alphabetical order, the six parties are American Independent, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Peace & Freedom, and Republican). The Libertarians are the only ones without a special code.
 * So it would take some time to look through all of them, but if you want to run as a Republican in California and the Sec'y of State doesn't think you're recognized, you have the opportunity to get on the ballot anyway, if you can get signatures from 1% of the registered Republicans in the state. See http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&group=06001-07000&file=6340-6343. --Trovatore (talk) 09:54, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * OK. So now I understand why there aren't more candidates - the process is opaque and subjective. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:58, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Delegates to the Libertarian nominating convention are chosen by Party conventions in each state, independent of the state's primary election process. But I was a Libertarian candidate for California's lower house in 1992 and 1994, and if I remember right we had to gather signatures to put me on the primary ballot, though I had no rivals for the nomination.  (The number of signatures required for us was smaller than for the Major Parties; on the other hand, many of our members were temporarily registered in the Major Parties so as to vote in a contested primary, and so could not sign for us.) —Tamfang (talk) 01:50, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I think the way it works is if you are a registered Republican (or Democrat as the case may be), you can simply unilaterally inform the state Republican (or Democratic) party that you want the nomination, by filing some papers before a certain date. They then poll the state delegates or some such body (i.e. a thousand or so party functionaries, depending on the state) and if you get over 85% support, you are automatically the nominee; if you get less than 15%, they say "nope, sorry"; and if you get between 15% and 85% then there is a primary election with you as a candidate.  Or something like that.  I probably have some of the particulars messed up but it's along those lines.  Of course if you are serious (enough to make even the 15% cut) you do the whole thing by hiring political hacks consultants who know their way around the processes and pull the ropes for you. 50.0.136.56 (talk) 04:18, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

For a bit of perspective, Lawrence Lessig announced that he was seeking the Democratic nomination. However, unlike when politicians announced their intent to seek the Presidency, the Democratic National Committee refused to welcome his involvement in the race (essentially concluding that he was a non-serious protest candidate). Because the DNC chose not to recognize his involvement, many states similarly chose not to place his name on the ballot for party primaries. In that sense, the decision by the DNC whether or not to recognize a candidate as serious had a large impact on his ability to participate in the primary. Dragons flight (talk) 11:56, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

NH and MI still not called?
For some reason many news outlet are still not calling MI and NH for the electoral college, even though they also report 100% of votes counted. Is that just that, now we know who won, they can't be bothered to update their site? Any other reason?

e.g. ,

--Lgriot (talk) 13:00, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * As I read it, "100% reporting" (as shown at NYT) does not mean 100% counted and verified. A precinct could "report" an unofficial tally. Anyway I think it would be difficult to get more than personal knowledge (and guesses like mine) on this question, and that's not what we're supposed to do at the RD. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  13:12, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Maybe because it doesn't matter? Trump wins regardless of how those states go. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:44, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * If a civilian Michigander or New Hampshirite in the mountains of Syria, Somalia or a country with very slow mail gets his ballot postmarked at the last moment how long could it take to get counted? Does anywhere still use yaks for mail delivery? Or mules, walkers, water buffalos etc.? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:32, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * There are two issues here. Firstly, "100% reporting" refers to the official counts of each voting precinct; that is an actual location where people go and fill out a ballot.  However, since not all votes are made at a precinct (including absentee ballots) that doesn't mean that every vote has counted.  For example, as of now, the election for Governor of North Carolina is still being tallied because there's about 22,000 absentee and provisional ballots that have yet to be counted; Roy Cooper is leading Pat McCrory by less than 5,000 votes, so they would not "call" it until those votes are counted.  The election has not been called though every voting precinct reported, because there are still ballots which need to be counted that were not counted at the precinct level.  Secondly, many states have provisions for an "automatic recount" should the election be closer than some threshold (see the same source for info on North Carolina's recount provisions).  States would refuse to announce a winner until after that recount occurred.  Even after such a time, many states ALSO have a provision that allows candidates to demand a full hand recount of all ballots even beyond that.  The Florida election recount dragged on into December, and as a result the winner of the United States presidential election, 2000 was not known until a month after the election.  In the case of Michigan and New Hampshire, it probably wouldn't carry on much further than that, since the election does not depend on their votes as of now. -- Jayron 32 17:13, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * FYI, New Hampshire was recently called for Clinton: . -- Jayron 32 09:39, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

California, which is notoriously slow, gives each county up to 30 days to finalize their results for mail-in, provisional, write-in, and problem ballots. For mail-in and provisional ballots this requires verifying that the sender is someone who properly appears on voter registration rolls. By law in CA, the signature on the mailed/provisional ballot must be compared to the signature on the voter registration form, which takes a long time. Write-ins are manually reviewed and coded, as are any ballots that the automatic scanners rejected as partially unreadable (e.g. bubbles incompletely filled, multiple bubbles marked, unexpected stray marks, etc.). In the latter case, multiple officials review each problem ballot and make a decision on whether the intent of the voter is clear despite the unexpected marks. Altogether, these processes take a long time. On any election items where the result is close, it can take weeks to resolve the final outcome. What's more the increasing popularity of mail voting means that millions of ballots from CA alone can fall into one of those slower categories. I don't know the specific situation in MI or NH, but if they have a slow conclusion, it is probably for similar reasons. Incidentally, the slow review in CA is one of the reasons that Clinton's popular vote margin is expected to continue to grow by the time the final tally is recorded. Dragons flight (talk) 12:12, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Technical nitpicking.
Watching the reports on yesterday's meeting in the White House, President Obama referred to "President-Elect Trump". I was just wondering if this is technically correct before, what is it, the Monday after the Second Wednesday in December, when the Electoral College formally elects the next president, or is he still officially just "Mr Trump"? -- Arwel Parry (talk) 13:55, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Our articles: Office of the President-Elect & President-elect of the United States. From the latter: "Since the election for U.S. president is an indirect election, the title is used for the apparent winner and is finalized when votes of the Electoral College, cast in December, are counted by a joint session of Congress in early January." -- ToE 14:30, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * In effect, he's the "presumed" president-elect. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:08, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * This has been discussed numerous times in the talk pages of various articles:
 * Talk:President-elect of the United States
 * Talk:Donald Trump
 * Talk:Donald Trump
 * Talk:Donald Trump
 * Talk:Donald Trump
 * Talk:United States presidential election, 2016
 * ... and presumably elsewhere. The conclusion is that it is appropriate to use the term president-elect even before the electors cast their votes on December 19. -- ToE 18:03, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

US post election protests
In American history, has there ever been post election protests the scale of what we are currently seeing in the US. Granted, there could be even larger protests tonight and over the weekend.--208.54.37.241 (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Ummmm, the United States presidential election, 1860!--KAVEBEAR (talk) 16:56, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * well yes, I know about that, but I am speaking of large scale protests, not states seceding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.37.241 (talk) 20:01, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd call that pretty large scale. —Tamfang (talk) 01:53, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * CNN found parallels in anti-Obama protests on election day 2012 and anti-Bush demonstrations on Inauguration Day 2001, but these seem to lack the scale of the current events.  Alansplodge (talk) 10:50, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

US Election
What would have happened in the US election if the result had been tied, or we saw the need for a supreme court ruling to make a decision as in the 2000 election, given that the Supreme Court may well have been deadlocked because of the vacant position? Seems that if such a situation had arisen the Supreme Court would have been impotent as both parties have four justices each? --Andrew 15:10, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The possibility of an electoral vote tie has been discussed here or possibly on the misc desk pretty recently. It may still be visible. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:07, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As I understand it though, that's only the scenario in the event of neither candidates gaining a majority. If it were the same as 2000 where there was a disputed majority that required the intervention of the Supreme Court, surely it would be deadlocked, a 4-4 split? --Andrew 16:15, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * A deadlocked court means the lower court ruling stands. --Golbez (talk) 16:16, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess, in this instance, the lower court would be whichever states electoral college votes are being contested? --Andrew 16:24, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * A 269–269 tie is the same as a multi-way split with no majority, except for one detail I'll say below. If you want to be elected by the electoral votes, you have to get to 270.  It doesn't matter whether it's a tie or not.
 * If no one gets to 270 for president, then the president is chosen by the House of Representatives, with each state delegation getting one vote.
 * If no one gets to 270 for vice-president (note that in principle there could be a presidential candidate with 270 but no VP candidate with 270, or vice versa), then the vice-president is chosen by the Senate, with each senator getting one vote.
 * Here's the detail: The House can choose only between the top three electoral-vote getters for president.  So that's the only difference in the case of a 269–269 tie; in that case, the House has no third choice, whereas in other cases, it does.
 * (The Senate would choose the vice-president from only the top two electoral-vote getters. I have no idea why these are different.) --Trovatore (talk) 19:18, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The place where these rules are set out is the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Note incidentally that there is no provision for the possibility that there no one has a majority and there is a tie for 3rd place. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 21:12, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I had noticed that, yes. The text says "not exceeding three", so I suppose you could argue, in a literalist view, that in that case you would fall back to voting between the top two.  But there could be a four-way tie for first.... --Trovatore (talk) 23:17, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Brit observer here. If the Supreme Court were split 4:4, does this imply that the Justices rule on party lines, rather than on matters of law? Doesn't seem very independent. Widneymanor (talk) 07:25, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. It's along their philosophical lines, their view of the Constitution. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:05, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, that's what they're "supposed" to do, whatever that means. In fact justices are rarely described as belonging to a political party; usually, one speaks of the party of the president that appointed them.
 * It's probably more or less true for ordinary policy issues. Lots of justices have shown themselves to have very different philosophies from the party of the president that appointed them.  But when it comes down to matters of central importance to a party per se, the record is less encouraging.  In the US Presidential election, 2000, the Florida Supreme Court issued rulings that broke along party lines to maximize Gore's chances, until the national Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore, again along party lines, in favor of Bush, and using reasoning that many observers have found at variance with the prevailing justices' stated legal principles.
 * It was not that badly partisan. The Florida court was almost all Dems (6 1/2 of 7 IIRC), while on the US court, two of the seven Republican Justices, Stevens & Souter, voted for Gore. The deciding vote was cast by Anthony Kennedy, who had been wavering back and forth, earning his nickname "Flipper". Also, on the OP's question, a major point of the minority was that the US Supreme Court does not have any electoral responsibility placed on it by the US Constitution. The involvement of the State Court was was more logical and inescapable, as the US Presidential electoral system is based on the individual states.John Z (talk) 01:05, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * See also United States presidential election, 1876, where the tiebreaking vote was cast by the Chief Justice. --Trovatore (talk) 05:14, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia's article on this subject is Ideological leanings of U.S. Supreme Court justices. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 02:01, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Trump and Malay Singaporean studying in American university
If a Malay Singaporean studying in an American university cannot complete his course due to Trump (restrictive immigration policies and hate crimes), can he get compensation from the university (for example, refunding course fees paid so far)? Would the insurance (included when starting the course) cover such situations? What else could he do to get help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Takut Kena Dipukul (talk • contribs) 16:49, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * If Trump (the US government actually) is the culprit, how would the university be forced to pay the fees back?
 * Regarding the question whether colleges should be hold responsible for crimes committed against students by other students, is a trickier question. They must take steps to enhance student security, but they cannot be automatically liable for third-party misconduct. --Llaanngg (talk) 17:11, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * One thing that may not be obvious to those outside the US is that Trump's hate speech was designed to get votes from what Hillary called the "basket of deplorables". That is, racists, sexists, etc.  But, like any politician, he appears to have lied his ass off to get elected, and doesn't actually intend to do anything he promised.  So, as extreme as Trump's rhetoric is, deporting people with valid student visas seems unlikely.  Slightly more likely is denying entry if they go home and try to come back.  More likely still would be if future students were denied visas. StuRat (talk) 15:03, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Or he might have reason(s) to do this. Frankly if I were Trump and wanted fascism I'd make myself look good by not making the Dow crash by saying crazy things from Day 1 and make sure I don't get a few of my Electors to fear nuclear winter then slowly soften America up to living in semi-facism to make sure I keep the rest of the government from turning against me but I don't know how loony narcissists think. Even if he were literally Nazi incarnate he might do that cause even the Nazis did it. They didn't make those miscegenation laws till over a year after gaining absolute power. We can't know what's the most racist Trump will make things for quite awhile. Maybe his foreign policy will be the seeds of war or terrorism so bad that the GOP Congress gives him more and more power and that's when he'll do all the fascistoid things. If he's a psychopath it won't matter if he has Jewish friends and daughter, he'd kill them in some alternative universe where genocide somehow wouldn't get him in trouble or reduce popularity. I think he'd be removed if he tried going full fascist but anything could happen. A pandemic could start in the Islamic World and kill enough Americans that they'd let him. Or it could start in Mexico. As for lying Trump has already lied more than any other US politician, if he doesn't try to do his promises that'd only increase his lead, not show him to be as lie-y as any politician. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:19, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Here we have an unusual situation where we actually hope he was lying, as the things he promised to do are downright crazy. StuRat (talk) 00:08, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The irony. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:21, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * There's another factor that makes deportation of those with a student visa less likely. Since such students are likely to get jobs in the US after graduation, this will be good for rich business owners, as the more potential employees they have, the lower they can drive salaries. Republicans often claim they are for the little guy, as they did in this election, and want to deport immigrants to remove the competition, but this is all just an act to get votes, and when it really comes down to it, it remains the party of rich businessmen, like Trump, and will always side with other rich businessmen over the little guy. StuRat (talk) 15:54, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't know why working class Republican voters keep falling for it. Amazing that we now hope he wants $5/hr hard workers scared of deportation to remain a thing. I wonder if he'd rather lose popularity, midterms, and second term to do that. I'm reminded of the scene in Gladiator when Commodus gets his first Emperor briefing and is bored as hell (keeping his sword tip on the stone floor with a light touch on the pommel and spinning it like top). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:42, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Remember, his businesses employ lots of illegal immigrants, and to keep profits up he must ensure that they remain here, and remain illegal. StuRat (talk) 22:08, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * If this is a personal question, I recommend getting in contact with your university department that deals with foreign students and preferably with your course coordinator. If you already know an immigration lawyer, you might want to contact them too. Blythwood (talk) 21:58, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Blythwood, the OP could certainly do the first bit if concerned. Contacting an immigration lawyer over hypothetical future laws, on the other hand, seems pointless? We have no idea what changes will be made, and a lawyer is unlikely to know more. Eliyohub (talk) 08:27, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Roe v. Wade and Obergefell
I am curious to know whether it technically easy, if not theoretically impossible, to override Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges?


 * According to this, it is unlikely the court would reverse the judgements.


 * According to this, "the institution of the Supreme Court gives a lot of weight to precedent and to something called stare decisis. And that means that when the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution and issued an opinion, that opinion is supposed to remain in place unless there are very, very, very, very good reasons for revisiting it." What is that good reason? How does the court choose a good reason? Does public opinion count as a good reason?
 * --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 16:50, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * It may not be possible to override it in terms of a direct reversal. It may well be possible to render it moot by the court accepting contemporary laws that render the service of abortion to all intent and purpose impossible to provide. That seems to be the current line of attack - so far unsuccessful, but one fears the decisions of more partial line-up of justices. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:56, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I think it has been successful, in red states. For example, one law requires that doctors have admitting privileges at local hospitals and have extensive medical equipment in abortion clinics, allegedly to improve patient safety, but the result is that it's not financially viable to run an abortion clinic and the women go back to using coat hangers. StuRat (talk) 02:36, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * As our article describes, the Roe v. Wade decision was substantially modified in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The decision as it is now depends on fetal viability, which is to say, anyone wishing to destroy Roe v. Wade altogether need merely invent an artificial womb, which seems cheaper than the amount of money spent so far on the politics.  (I doubt such a womb would be a safe or satisfactory substitute for a mother, but if it preserves life, that is sufficient to satisfy the court AFAIK) Wnt (talk) 18:41, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * You could read up on Brown v Board of Education, which undid the precedent of Plessy v Ferguson, and whatever undid Lochner, for examples of reasons that were deemed good enough. —Tamfang (talk) 01:56, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
 * West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, incidentally. Tevildo (talk) 21:29, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * It is technically not all that difficult to circumvent abortion legislation; I refer to the Jane Collective, which seems to have been almost forgotten. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Lawrence v. Texas flat-out overruled Bowers v. Hardwick which was more recent than Roe. So yeah there could be something like that, at least in principle.  50.0.136.56 (talk) 04:34, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Are there any examples of the Supreme Court overruling a previous decision and reducing, as opposed to expanding, 14th Amendment protections? --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 05:59, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Eisenhower and Civil Rights
What was Dwight Eisenhowers position on Jim Crowism and Racial Segregation? Did he care personally about these issues, or was he just passing legislation to avoid Cold War criticism? --PolicyJak (talk) 18:07, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Try Why don’t we remember Ike as a civil rights hero?. Alansplodge (talk) 20:22, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Eisenhower was instrumental in defending the Little Rock Nine, first trying to negotiate with the Arkansas governor, then sending in the Army to escort them to school during desegregation. He was instrumental in pushing through Congress not one but two voting rights acts: the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.  Dwight D. Eisenhower covers more of his efforts as well.  -- Jayron 32 02:40, 13 November 2016 (UTC)