Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 May 24

= May 24 =

Election systems other than the US Electoral College where the candidate with the most votes can theoretically lose
Apart from the US Electoral College, what other electoral systems could theoretically have a candidate with the most votes in an electoral round (in the case of two-round elections) or an election (in the case of one-round elections) could still lose? I think this scenario could happen in some kinds of instant-runoff systems, but are there other examples? And as a side-question, what are prominent non-US examples of a candidate with the most votes losing an election? The only non-US case that comes to mind right now was the first round of the New Zealand flag referendum, where the winning design was only 2nd in terms of first-choice votes but had the most overall ranked votes. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 05:17, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you're conflating different things. The candidate with the most or more first choice not winning is a key part any instant runoff or STV system. (STV has multiple winners, but one of the "winners" could have gotten less votes in one of the iterations than one of the "losers".) Such systems are effectively multi round but with all the voting taking place in a single instance. Unless I've misunderstood you, there is basically no way you can have an IRV or STV system without this intentional possible feature, there is no "some kind". (Even if you define Contingent vote as IRV, it still has the same feature.) Arguably all other forms of Ranked voting are the same, but these also further highlight why your definitions seem problematic. With the Borda count for example, someone could obviously be the first preference of more people but in such a case it's even more obvious that this doesn't define the winner, only how many points they receive does. As for examples, I suggest you take a look at basically anything in Instant-runoff voting or Single transferable vote. It's quite likely anywhere these systems are used with a number of different elections (both over time and different places of positions), for example both the House of Representatives and Senate in Australia, most elections in Ireland, certain elections in New Zealand; that this would have happened at least once since that's one of the key reasons the system is used.  The US EC system is a fairly different thing. It's actually not that different from other systems where majoritarianism is used with multiple different voting districtions. Except in most other cases, you are explicitly voting for someone to represent your district in some way. Therefore it's less of a surprise for example, that BN in Malaysia may have fewer people voting for it, but still have a majority of representatives (and therefore be the ones forming the government). Of course, in a parliamentary system, these representatives are supposed to do a fair few different things and aren't only involved in deciding who gets to govern. Gerrymandering and unequal representation obviously don't help, but they're not actually required for such an outcome. (Also you don't actually require majoritarianism, any system which isn't completely proportional could have this outcome.) In the US, you are nominally voting for a candidate but you're actually basically selecting someone to represent you in a very limited way (basically electing the president and VP) and trying to tell them what you want them to do, so you have a similar outcome.  Nil Einne (talk) 07:06, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The way I like to say it is that in America, the people don't elect the president, the states do. Something I'm a little unclear on, let's say the British parliament. The members are chosen by the people, and the members choose the Prime Minister, right? So are the British parliamentary districts laid out in roughly equal proportions, or are they gerrymandered as with some US congressional districts? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:35, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies has a full list of all the UK constituencies and their sizes. You'll see that, to a first glance, they're about the same.  The aim of the Boundary commission is to keep the constituencies approximately the same size.  More information here.--Phil Holmes (talk) 07:48, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The party leaders are chosen by the party members, a small proportion of whom are Members of Parliament.  I believe the trade unions have a say in the election of the Labour Party leader.   If a party has a majority in the House of Commons the Queen will likely appoint its leader as her Prime Minister and invite her to form a government.   There are periodic reviews of constituency boundaries by the Boundary Commission - you can see an overview of how the system works here: . 79.73.128.130 (talk) 10:02, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Remember however that Gerrymandering does not simply refer to unequal constituency sizes, in fact it often doesn't. As our article explains gerrymandering can often be easily carried out simply by drawing the boundaries in such a way as to disadvantage one or more parties, and advantage one or more other parties while keeping the constituency sizes fair. And modern data science can make it even easier. Having a independent and respected body to draw boundaries can help, but even if gerrymandering is eliminated, as I indicated above there's ultimately no way to guarantee proportionality under a majoritarianism system simply because people of where people live and shifting political views. John Oliver IMO did a decent video on this . Nil Einne (talk) 10:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * BTW, if you're having trouble understanding how well gerrymandering can work, imagine a simplified system where there's no need for contiguous boundaries, everyone will vote precisely as you predict and only two parties. Assuming 1 million voters, exactly 100k voters per district and you know which 699994 people support party A and which 300006 people support party B; you can easily make 4 districts with 100k party A voters, and 6 districts with 50001 party B voters and 49999 party A voters leading to a 6 to 4 majority for party B despite them having less than half of party A's support among voters. Real world limits don't generally allow that extreme, but it shows why you don't need unequal voter count constituencies. Nil Einne (talk) 10:42, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a good point, at some level, that the EC's role in electing the US president is not that different from Parliament's role in picking the PM.
 * A couple important differences, though:
 * A US elector has one job. Well, two, if picking the president and picking the vice-president are different jobs, which constitutionally is true, though in practice they usually go together.  A member of Parliament does lots of things besides picking the PM, and you might well vote for someone to represent you in Parliament for reasons other than who you want to be PM.
 * If the PM loses the confidence of Parliament, s/he's gone. Electors can't do anything about the president after January 6 or whenever it is.
 * So voters in the Westminster system probably don't feel the discrepancy as keenly as US voters for a popular-winner-electoral-loser do; they understood from the beginning that they weren't voting for the PM per se, but for an MP. --Trovatore (talk) 10:25, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Some examples of the candidate with the most votes losing the election are Pierre Trudeau in the Canadian federal election, 1979 and Louis St. Laurent in the 1957 election (although of course as a parliamentary system we're not voting directly for the Prime Minister etc etc...) Adam Bishop (talk) 10:50, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, that's the thing, Trudeau won his election in 1979, he won Mount Royal with 85% of the votes. That's the only election he stood for.  His party did not win the most seats in Parliament, and thus the opposition was invited to form a government. -- Jayron 32 11:07, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Right! We can also have the weird situation where the Prime Minister is not even a member of Parliament, like John Turner. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:48, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Because the PM in the Westminster system is appointed, not elected. There are conventions and traditions over who gets the job, but the only rule is that they are invited by the Monarch (or GG) to form a government.  -- Jayron 32 15:34, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Although, the way that the system has evolved, it would be unthinkable for a PM not to be a member of an elected chamber. At Westminster itself, it was common in the 18th and 19th centuries for a PM to be a member of the House of Lords, the last being Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. Nowadays, the PM has to account for him or herself in the chamber at Prime Minister's Questions. Alansplodge (talk) 07:14, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Note also that the PM in some Westminster system governments does explicitly have to be a member of an elected chamber. Prime Minister of Malaysia is one. (See also Constitution of Malaysia.) And it's perhaps worth remembering that the Head of State can be a President (outside of the Commonwealth realm), Politics of India is one such case. There arguably the PM has to be a member of one of the legislative bodies within six months of becoming PM, but not necessarily elected. These requirements arise from the fact that they're part of the Union Council of Ministers. That said, I'm not sure if the wording [//en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_India/Part_V#Article_75_.7BOther_provisions_as_to_Ministers.7D] (or anything else) legally stops someone being re-appointed as PM every six month, so I guess you could say even there it's more a case of conventions, traditions and what people will accept.  The Australian case seems clearer Chapter II of the Constitution of Australia although I wouldn't be surprised if the argument is made that a PM who gets reappointed hasn't actually held office for 3 months but only since their new appointment. Especially if there was a 1 minute appointed PM in between.  P.S. I should mention that the PM of Malaysia can be a former member of the Dewan Rakyat if parliament  has been dissolved. Also I guess some may try and argue the discretion given to the Agong allows him (the Agong can't currently be female) to go against the explicit requirement the PM is a currrent or former member off the Dewan Rakyat, but I'm not convinced this legal argument would be widely accepted unless perhaps it's impossible to fulfill the constitutional requirement i.e. everyone who does is dead or otherwise unable to become PM. Anyway I guess this is fairly OT, the point that it isn't simply convention stands.  Nil Einne (talk) 12:48, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This is similar to the point I made above comparing the two. As I mentioned above, the perhaps unusual thing about the US system is while the person's name is what you nominally vote for, what you're actually doing is voting for a person to represent you and telling them this is who I want to be president and vice president; whereas with most other systems it's clear that you're voting for something else (even if people don't always think of it that way). One thing I didn't mention that if we don't only think of people but of parties as candidates, under a mixed-member proportional system, and other proportional systems with a party vote, it's possible for a party to explicitly get the most votes but for one or more other parties to be the one to form the government, in opposition to the party with the most votes. This would generally be when the party with the most votes only won a plurality and not a majority although depending on the system it may theoretically be possible for a party with the majority of votes to lack a majority of representatives and therefore possibly unable to form the government.  Nil Einne (talk) 11:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)


 * In the Australian federal election, 1998, more votes were cast for the Labor Party, led by the Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, than for the incumbent Liberal-National parties, led by Prime Minister John Howard. But the Lib/Nats gained more seats, and hence retained government. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:58, 24 May 2017 (UTC)


 * In the United_Kingdom_general_election,_February_1974, Labour won more seats than the Conservatives, but the Conservatives won more votes. However, neither party actually "won" the election in the sense of winning a majority of seats because several minor parties won seats too. In the United_Kingdom_general_election,_1951, the Conservatives actually won an outright majority despite Labour winning more votes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.23.25.64 (talk) 01:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you mean "but the Conservatives won more votes". Alansplodge (talk) 07:17, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for catching that!211.23.25.64 (talk) 09:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * How could Alansplodge forget Sir Alec Douglas-Home?  Per our article,

"He is notable for being the last Prime Minister to hold office while being a member of the House of Lords ..."


 * I stand corrected. Home renounced his title four days after appointment and then "For twenty days Douglas-Home was Prime Minister while a member of neither house of Parliament", while he contested a safe by-election, although Parliament didn't actually sit during that period. It still makes Salisbury the last British PM to run his administration from the Lords. Alansplodge (talk) 16:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)


 * We had an analogous case in Australia in 1968 with John Gorton. He was appointed PM while a Senator, then continued as PM in the period between resignation from the Senate and being elected to the House of Reps (in a by-election for his predecessor Harold Holt's seat occasioned by the presumed death of that predecessor). The section of the Constitution linked by Nil Einne above allows a person who is not in the parliament to be appointed (or remain) a minister, but with a sunset clause of 3 months, by which time they must either become a member of the parliament or forfeit their appointment.  This was necessary because, while the first federal ministry operated from 1 January 1901, the first federal parliamentary election was not held until late March 1901.  Whenever a minister loses their seat, this provision allows them to continue in their portfolio for a short time until their successor is appointed. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Olive tree history
I have this question in the Olive talk page, but it looks like no one is active there.

The map in the info box of the Olive article does not show the olive tree in Egypt except for a single marker "Introduced and naturalized (synanthropic)."

This seems to contradict the statements of the text of the article : "Leafy branches of the olive tree were found in Tutankhamun's tomb." and "It is assumed[by whom?] that Olea europaea may have arisen from O. chrysophylla in northern tropical Africa and that it was introduced into the countries of the Mediterranean Basin via Egypt, ..."

I am unclear about several things:

1- What does that map represent? Current cultivation, current natural occurrence, occurrence at a certain point in the past?

2- If the map represents current cultivation, why "introduced in Egypt"? Did it die out there, and was later reintroduced? Anyone knows the tree's history in Egypt?

--Lgriot (talk) 20:08, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This has some information. -- Jayron 32 20:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * That link says: "Other trees were grown for oil before the introduction of the olive", which must have been at an early date. Alansplodge (talk) 21:05, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

US warships port calls in China
I was surprised to find out that US warships actually made port calls in China: "An early example of the open-door policy occurred on 5 November 1984, when three United States Naval vessels visited Qingdao. This was the first US port call in more than 37 years to China." Qingdao

I'm pretty sure with all the tension going on that no longer happens. When did this practice end? I'm guessing in 1989 due to the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Scala Cats (talk) 21:35, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I should add that US port calls in Hongkong is still a on-going thing. My question is only about US port calls in mainland China. Scala Cats (talk) 21:46, 24 May 2017 (UTC)


 * A US aircraft carrier docked in Shanghai in May 2016 and another ship docked there in November 2015. So it has happened fairly recently.  -- Jayron 32 22:52, 24 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Quite surprising, considering all the supposed Sino-US tension that the mass media likes to trump up.
 * Did US ever suspend port visits over the Tiananmen Square Massacre though? I'm guessing they did (there was a general arms embargo), but am not sure.Scala Cats (talk) 23:06, 24 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Understanding the different Chinese reactions, like allowing US warships in port while crashing into US surveillance planes, makes me think there are different factions at work. In this case, perhaps the Chinese air force has more conservative/anti-American elements than those who control port access. StuRat (talk) 23:09, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * In general, it is relatively rare for countries who are formally on friendly terms to refuse permission for each other's naval ships to call at its ports, which is why the 2016 refusal by China over the South China Sea issue was such big news., as you noted military cooperation between China and the US stopped after Tiananmen Square in 1989. I found this article which says a port call in 1995 was the first since 1989. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:55, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * United States ships don't visit New Zealand nuclear-free zone's ports and they aren't welcomed. Sleigh (talk) 10:05, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Neither of these are true anymore  . Although I believe as it turned out the USS Sampson (DDG-102) didn't actually end up visiting a port when it first arrived, it only did so later   . Note that some have questioned whether there was any real intention to deny a US ship in the first place or if it was a victim of circumstance resulting in an unintentional hardening of positions . In any case, arguably non nuclear powered, non nuclear armed US ships (without official confirmation) have been welcomed by the NZ government for a while, it's just that the US wasn't willing to send them.  Nil Einne (talk) 13:13, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Much obliged, PalaceGuard008. Scala Cats (talk) 18:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)