The Electoral College and boxing scorecards (op-ed)
Whenever there is a controversial decision in professional boxing, fight fans that disagree with the scorecards check the punch stats.
Sometimes the losing fighter lands more punches than the winner.
If that’s the case, fans of the loser call the bout fixed. They refuse to believe that a fighter can land more punches and lose the decision. So the controversy is created by the fan’s refusal to accept the decision and not necessarily a problem in scoring.
The official rules of professional boxing score a fight on: Ring generalship, effective aggressiveness, and clean punching.
Notice, the rules don’t mention the highest total of landed punches.
Until recent changes, amateur boxing counted one point per-landed-punch, and after three rounds, whoever had the most points won.
Problem. The total punch count doesn’t distinguish between per round activity.
Example. Fighter A lands 50 punches and Fighter B lands zero in round one, but in rounds two and three Fighter B lands 20 punches and Fighter A lands zero. The total is Fighter A 50 and Fighter B 40 making Fighter A the winner, but fighter A won based off of the activity of just round one. (And he got beat up in rounds two and three.)
Is that fair? If the bout was scored by rounds Fighter B wins 2 to 1.
Now professional boxing doesn’t ignore activity per round. It’s judged by a combination of activity during each round.
And the rounds are scored by a ten-point-must system.
That means the winner of the round gets 10 points and the loser gets 9, unless there’s a knockdown or a foul than one point is deducted from the fighter that was knocked down or committed the foul. (Making it a 10-8 round)
In this system a fighter can lose a round because of a point deduction even though he landed more punches. Rounds like that create the discrepancy in which the loser of the fight landed more punches than the winner.
But the winner has the highest total on the scorecards because the winner won the majority of the rounds.
Now, you probably already made the political connections.
The presidential election is the 12 round boxing match, the candidates are the fighters, the states are the rounds, the Electoral College is the per-round-point system, and the national popular vote is the total of landed punches like in an amateur fight.
Demands have been made to abolish the Electoral College after the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections.
Here are the scorecards.
2000, Bush gained 271 electoral votes by winning 30 states (or thirty popular votes in each state). Gore had 266 electoral votes and he won 20 states plus DC, but the national popular vote had Gore ahead by over a half of million votes.
In 2016 the state results were the same. Trump won a different combination of 30 states giving him 306 electoral votes. Clinton picked up what was left, giving her only 232 electoral votes, but this time the national popular vote had Clinton ahead by over a million.
In both 2000 and 2016 the winner won the majority of the states no different than how a fighter wins the most rounds. But those that believe Gore and Clinton won the election based on the national popular vote are like boxing fans that ignore the activity of each round in favor of the total landed punches.
Neither the national popular vote nor the total of landed punches factors into the official scoring.
More importantly, the phrase national popular vote is misleading.
It implies the presidency is decided in a single nationwide election, but its 50 state elections plus DC that determines the outcome.
Actually the national popular vote is a collection of votes from every state plus DC. So Clinton’s total adds together the number of votes from the 20 states she won with the 30 states she lost. This count is unofficial because in reality if a political party ignored the established rules and attempted to shift ex-amount of votes from one state to another it would be fraud.
Now this boxing analogy has flaws, you can figure them out yourself, but it’s not as flawed as the arguments made to abolish the Electoral College solely based off of defeat.
First published in New Pittsburgh Courier 11/ 23/16
Sometimes the losing fighter lands more punches than the winner.
If that’s the case, fans of the loser call the bout fixed. They refuse to believe that a fighter can land more punches and lose the decision. So the controversy is created by the fan’s refusal to accept the decision and not necessarily a problem in scoring.
The official rules of professional boxing score a fight on: Ring generalship, effective aggressiveness, and clean punching.
Notice, the rules don’t mention the highest total of landed punches.
Until recent changes, amateur boxing counted one point per-landed-punch, and after three rounds, whoever had the most points won.
Problem. The total punch count doesn’t distinguish between per round activity.
Example. Fighter A lands 50 punches and Fighter B lands zero in round one, but in rounds two and three Fighter B lands 20 punches and Fighter A lands zero. The total is Fighter A 50 and Fighter B 40 making Fighter A the winner, but fighter A won based off of the activity of just round one. (And he got beat up in rounds two and three.)
Is that fair? If the bout was scored by rounds Fighter B wins 2 to 1.
Now professional boxing doesn’t ignore activity per round. It’s judged by a combination of activity during each round.
And the rounds are scored by a ten-point-must system.
That means the winner of the round gets 10 points and the loser gets 9, unless there’s a knockdown or a foul than one point is deducted from the fighter that was knocked down or committed the foul. (Making it a 10-8 round)
In this system a fighter can lose a round because of a point deduction even though he landed more punches. Rounds like that create the discrepancy in which the loser of the fight landed more punches than the winner.
But the winner has the highest total on the scorecards because the winner won the majority of the rounds.
Now, you probably already made the political connections.
The presidential election is the 12 round boxing match, the candidates are the fighters, the states are the rounds, the Electoral College is the per-round-point system, and the national popular vote is the total of landed punches like in an amateur fight.
Demands have been made to abolish the Electoral College after the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections.
Here are the scorecards.
2000, Bush gained 271 electoral votes by winning 30 states (or thirty popular votes in each state). Gore had 266 electoral votes and he won 20 states plus DC, but the national popular vote had Gore ahead by over a half of million votes.
In 2016 the state results were the same. Trump won a different combination of 30 states giving him 306 electoral votes. Clinton picked up what was left, giving her only 232 electoral votes, but this time the national popular vote had Clinton ahead by over a million.
In both 2000 and 2016 the winner won the majority of the states no different than how a fighter wins the most rounds. But those that believe Gore and Clinton won the election based on the national popular vote are like boxing fans that ignore the activity of each round in favor of the total landed punches.
Neither the national popular vote nor the total of landed punches factors into the official scoring.
More importantly, the phrase national popular vote is misleading.
It implies the presidency is decided in a single nationwide election, but its 50 state elections plus DC that determines the outcome.
Actually the national popular vote is a collection of votes from every state plus DC. So Clinton’s total adds together the number of votes from the 20 states she won with the 30 states she lost. This count is unofficial because in reality if a political party ignored the established rules and attempted to shift ex-amount of votes from one state to another it would be fraud.
Now this boxing analogy has flaws, you can figure them out yourself, but it’s not as flawed as the arguments made to abolish the Electoral College solely based off of defeat.
First published in New Pittsburgh Courier 11/ 23/16
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