A new column at the Prospect today defending odd-shaped House districts, and arguing that gerrymandering in general isn't that big a deal. Note that you don't have to believe the latter in order to believe the former. One important point I didn't make in the column: compact, "pretty," districts have a predictable bias in any jurisdiction, and the people who fight over how the lines will be drawn (or at least the smart and informed ones) know what they bias is and who it helps.
Also...there's news on the ACA/Obamacare front, with a bit more reporting confirming my view that people won't realize that the exchanges are "Obamacare." Remember -- there also a number of less visible things that people already haven't realized are part of Obamacare. Anyway, I had some fun with it over at PP.
And some other recent posts:
The real choice coming for House mainstream conservatives
Newt’s party, Newt’s world
Is health insurance a good deal for ‘young healthies’?
(Pretend to) Run, Joe, run!
Showing posts with label redistricting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label redistricting. Show all posts
Friday, August 23, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Planet of the Bride of the Son of the Return of Cranky Blogging
You know what? Gerrymandering is real and has real consequences, but I suspect that despite that most news outlets would be better off just ignoring it. People love to blame everything on gerrymandering, and (although again it is real and has real consequences) it's just not that big a deal.
Which gets to the NYT Sunday Review piece by Sam Wang, which examines the strange results of the 2012 House elections -- Republicans retained a very solid majority of seats despite Democrats winning more votes -- and more or less attributes it all to gerrymandering.
I suspect my real complaint here is with the New York Times even more than Wang, but this just won't do. Since the election, we've had a steady stream of pieces by political scientists showing that neither the 2012 gerrymander nor gerrymanders in general are responsible for the bulk of the 2012 results. Instead, it's mostly about the "natural" effects of districting. Basically, over time Democrats have come to live in more and more compact areas. It's not true what you sometimes might read that districting can't overturn the effects of where people live, but it is true that to do so districting would have to violate other things that people care about, things such as other political boundaries and communities of interest. As John Sides sums it up, "Across a very wide range of counterfactual scenarios, the geographic concentration of Democrats will produce votes-seats discrepancies without deliberate partisan gerrymandering."
What really annoyed me about Wang's case against gerrymandering is that he makes a point of bashing "ugly" districts -- you know, the ones that have odd shapes, such as the one that gave gerrymanders their name in the first place. The piece is illustrated with some of them. What's wrong with that? If districts are going to be "fair" to Democrats (that is, get the same ratio of seats as votes), then because of where Democrats and Republicans live it's precisely the value of having "pretty" (compact, regular-shaped) districts that's going to be violated. Under current conditions, compact, regular districts strongly tend to favor Republicans. One can argue for them anyway, but anyone who cares more about partisan "fairness" shouldn't also be playing up the importance of "pretty" districts. Well, to my tastes no one should care about compactness; there's simply no reason, in my view, to care about the shape of districts, all else equal. But at the very least, anyone complaining about ugly districts should know the very predictable effects of compactness.
Which gets to a larger point about Wang's piece. He says that "[g]errymandering is not hard." On a technical level, it's true that drawing lines to achieve a specific goal is a lot easier than it was thirty or even ten years ago (although it's worth pointing out this mainly applies to immediate effects; population shifts and political changes over ten years can be large and unpredictable, so we don't really know how the lines drawn for 2012 will affect the 2018 and 2020 elections).
But it's still true that gerrymandering is difficult because there are so many competing, and contradictory, goals in redistricting. The best explanation of this I've seen is in Bruce Cain's The Reapportionment Puzzle. In particular, in addition to what I mentioned above, are the natural enemies of redistricting: parties who want the most efficient use of their votes in order to maximize seats, and politicians from those parties who want the largest possible majorities, even if it "wastes" votes for the party. But beyond that, there are simply a lot of competing goals, and it's rare for state legislators to be able to ignore them and focus only on a simple partisan goal.
But back to the 2012 redistricting: there's plenty of information out there about this, and the Times should do better.
Which gets to the NYT Sunday Review piece by Sam Wang, which examines the strange results of the 2012 House elections -- Republicans retained a very solid majority of seats despite Democrats winning more votes -- and more or less attributes it all to gerrymandering.
I suspect my real complaint here is with the New York Times even more than Wang, but this just won't do. Since the election, we've had a steady stream of pieces by political scientists showing that neither the 2012 gerrymander nor gerrymanders in general are responsible for the bulk of the 2012 results. Instead, it's mostly about the "natural" effects of districting. Basically, over time Democrats have come to live in more and more compact areas. It's not true what you sometimes might read that districting can't overturn the effects of where people live, but it is true that to do so districting would have to violate other things that people care about, things such as other political boundaries and communities of interest. As John Sides sums it up, "Across a very wide range of counterfactual scenarios, the geographic concentration of Democrats will produce votes-seats discrepancies without deliberate partisan gerrymandering."
What really annoyed me about Wang's case against gerrymandering is that he makes a point of bashing "ugly" districts -- you know, the ones that have odd shapes, such as the one that gave gerrymanders their name in the first place. The piece is illustrated with some of them. What's wrong with that? If districts are going to be "fair" to Democrats (that is, get the same ratio of seats as votes), then because of where Democrats and Republicans live it's precisely the value of having "pretty" (compact, regular-shaped) districts that's going to be violated. Under current conditions, compact, regular districts strongly tend to favor Republicans. One can argue for them anyway, but anyone who cares more about partisan "fairness" shouldn't also be playing up the importance of "pretty" districts. Well, to my tastes no one should care about compactness; there's simply no reason, in my view, to care about the shape of districts, all else equal. But at the very least, anyone complaining about ugly districts should know the very predictable effects of compactness.
Which gets to a larger point about Wang's piece. He says that "[g]errymandering is not hard." On a technical level, it's true that drawing lines to achieve a specific goal is a lot easier than it was thirty or even ten years ago (although it's worth pointing out this mainly applies to immediate effects; population shifts and political changes over ten years can be large and unpredictable, so we don't really know how the lines drawn for 2012 will affect the 2018 and 2020 elections).
But it's still true that gerrymandering is difficult because there are so many competing, and contradictory, goals in redistricting. The best explanation of this I've seen is in Bruce Cain's The Reapportionment Puzzle. In particular, in addition to what I mentioned above, are the natural enemies of redistricting: parties who want the most efficient use of their votes in order to maximize seats, and politicians from those parties who want the largest possible majorities, even if it "wastes" votes for the party. But beyond that, there are simply a lot of competing goals, and it's rare for state legislators to be able to ignore them and focus only on a simple partisan goal.
But back to the 2012 redistricting: there's plenty of information out there about this, and the Times should do better.
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to John Schuck, 73. C'mon: he's been a friend of Mary and Rhoda; a Cardassian and a Klingon; he was in Roots; he's been in Woody Allen and Warren Beatty movies; and that's not to mention that he was one of Altman's regulars. OK, I liked him best on McMillan, but he's one of my real favorites.
I did find some of the good stuff despite being a bit behind, what with the Super Bowl and all (I liked the desert Coke ad quite a bit).
1. Josh Ryan on how Senate reform will affect, or not affect, conference committees.
2. Gerrymandering does not cause polarization. Really. John Sides tries to convince everyone.
3. Sarah Posner on the new policy for religious exemptions on contraception.
4. Ann Friedman, on haters.
5. And the (National Journal) Hotline's Last Call, RIP. It's been a while since I had Hotline access, but as I've said before, I'm a huge fan. Fortunately, it looks like they'll be retaining some of the spirit of Last Call elsewhere.
I did find some of the good stuff despite being a bit behind, what with the Super Bowl and all (I liked the desert Coke ad quite a bit).
1. Josh Ryan on how Senate reform will affect, or not affect, conference committees.
2. Gerrymandering does not cause polarization. Really. John Sides tries to convince everyone.
3. Sarah Posner on the new policy for religious exemptions on contraception.
4. Ann Friedman, on haters.
5. And the (National Journal) Hotline's Last Call, RIP. It's been a while since I had Hotline access, but as I've said before, I'm a huge fan. Fortunately, it looks like they'll be retaining some of the spirit of Last Call elsewhere.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Jodie Foster, 50.
And a bit of good stuff:
1. More on districting, incumbency, and bias, from Eric McGhee. Big point remains the same: the GOP edge this time was in part incumbency, in part gerrymanders, and in part a natural advantage in the House for Republicans.
2. Good point from David Kamin on why cutting discretionary spending seems so easy.
3. Dylan Matthews explains the Mark Begich Social Security bill.
4. And Amanda Terkel looks at legislative ideas to fix the mechanics of elections.
And a bit of good stuff:
1. More on districting, incumbency, and bias, from Eric McGhee. Big point remains the same: the GOP edge this time was in part incumbency, in part gerrymanders, and in part a natural advantage in the House for Republicans.
2. Good point from David Kamin on why cutting discretionary spending seems so easy.
3. Dylan Matthews explains the Mark Begich Social Security bill.
4. And Amanda Terkel looks at legislative ideas to fix the mechanics of elections.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Questions About House Elections 2012
I don't have the answers to these, but I'm sure someone will after a while, and I'm very interested to hear them. By the way, this reminds me that I need to plug Brendan Nyhan's excellent column about what reporters could do better with election results, including the key point that reporters aren't well-situated to immediately offer causal explanations for relationships which scholars will tease out (and often fight over) for years. At any rate, here are the questions I'm wondering about in House elections 2012:
1. What effect to redistricting and gerrymanders actually play? This one is getting a lot of early emphasis from upset Democrats, but that doesn't mean that it actually mattered, or if so how much it mattered. (For what it's worth: my experience is that people are really fond of gerrymandering as an explanation for things, whether or not it's actually true). There's certainly some evidence, but nothing conclusive yet.
2. What effect, if any, did big outside money have? The emerging conventional wisdom is that most of the outside money on the presidential race was wasted (which many of us had anticipated), and that a lot of outside money on Senate races was wasted, too -- that one I'm not sure of, although certainly a lot of it went to losers. But what about House contests? That's where $1M or more coming in unopposed surely might have made a difference. Did it? If so, how much, and in how many districts?
(See, by the way, Matt Glassman's general comments about SuperPACs and wasted money).
3. What was the effect of candidate recruitment in this cycle? In particular: in Senate races, Democrats appear to have had a massive advantage in recruitment. Was that not true of House contests? If not, why not? I've been arguing that there's a systematic reason to expect GOP recruiting difficulties, and the Senate campaigns appeared to be evidence that the effect was real; what about the House?
1. What effect to redistricting and gerrymanders actually play? This one is getting a lot of early emphasis from upset Democrats, but that doesn't mean that it actually mattered, or if so how much it mattered. (For what it's worth: my experience is that people are really fond of gerrymandering as an explanation for things, whether or not it's actually true). There's certainly some evidence, but nothing conclusive yet.
2. What effect, if any, did big outside money have? The emerging conventional wisdom is that most of the outside money on the presidential race was wasted (which many of us had anticipated), and that a lot of outside money on Senate races was wasted, too -- that one I'm not sure of, although certainly a lot of it went to losers. But what about House contests? That's where $1M or more coming in unopposed surely might have made a difference. Did it? If so, how much, and in how many districts?
(See, by the way, Matt Glassman's general comments about SuperPACs and wasted money).
3. What was the effect of candidate recruitment in this cycle? In particular: in Senate races, Democrats appear to have had a massive advantage in recruitment. Was that not true of House contests? If not, why not? I've been arguing that there's a systematic reason to expect GOP recruiting difficulties, and the Senate campaigns appeared to be evidence that the effect was real; what about the House?
Monday, October 29, 2012
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Jose Mijares, 28, of your World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. Picked up on a waiver claim!
I promise I'll lay off the Giants talk soon; meanwhile, I'll make up for it with some good stuff:
1. More on momentum: Great Brendan Nyhan column on why the press loves it.
2. Solid example, from Philip Klein, of how to make the strongest reality-based case for a candidate behind in the polls (in this case, Romney in Ohio) having a chance. The way to do it? Begin with an honest acceptance of what the polls say; embrace the uncertainty inherent in polls; mention as possibilities -- not certainty -- any plausible reasons that least-favorable polls could be off. Truth is there are always plausible reasons the polls might be off; the problem is that there are always plausible reasons in both directions, and so in reality most of the time the polls are correct. But not always, and as long as it's within a plausible range I see nothing wrong with an optimistic read. Key is to not ignore the basic numbers, and to not invent entirely bogus reasons to ignore reality. See also, by the way, Nate Cohn on Ohio.
3. Wait, Dan Senor is being floated for National Security Advisor? Really? Good Marc Tracy item on Senor.
4. Dan Hopkins brings some nice election notes. The main one I care about, as you might guess, is the point about attention to Senate races.
5. I should note that I disagree with his eventual conclusion about districting, but regardless: Nolan McCarty explains why gerrymandering is not a significant source of partisan polarization.
6. John Sides on how Sandy could affect the elections (and be sure to check the comments for more).
7. And Alyssa Rosenberg: "I feel like in the zombie apocalypse, Bain Capital would probably survive to restructure the remaining human sanctuaries." She's reacting, of course, to the great Joss Whedon endorsement.
I promise I'll lay off the Giants talk soon; meanwhile, I'll make up for it with some good stuff:
1. More on momentum: Great Brendan Nyhan column on why the press loves it.
2. Solid example, from Philip Klein, of how to make the strongest reality-based case for a candidate behind in the polls (in this case, Romney in Ohio) having a chance. The way to do it? Begin with an honest acceptance of what the polls say; embrace the uncertainty inherent in polls; mention as possibilities -- not certainty -- any plausible reasons that least-favorable polls could be off. Truth is there are always plausible reasons the polls might be off; the problem is that there are always plausible reasons in both directions, and so in reality most of the time the polls are correct. But not always, and as long as it's within a plausible range I see nothing wrong with an optimistic read. Key is to not ignore the basic numbers, and to not invent entirely bogus reasons to ignore reality. See also, by the way, Nate Cohn on Ohio.
3. Wait, Dan Senor is being floated for National Security Advisor? Really? Good Marc Tracy item on Senor.
4. Dan Hopkins brings some nice election notes. The main one I care about, as you might guess, is the point about attention to Senate races.
5. I should note that I disagree with his eventual conclusion about districting, but regardless: Nolan McCarty explains why gerrymandering is not a significant source of partisan polarization.
6. John Sides on how Sandy could affect the elections (and be sure to check the comments for more).
7. And Alyssa Rosenberg: "I feel like in the zombie apocalypse, Bain Capital would probably survive to restructure the remaining human sanctuaries." She's reacting, of course, to the great Joss Whedon endorsement.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Q Day 2: Gerrymandering
Jacob H. asks:
But if you stick to single-member districts...if gerrymandering is simply drawing district lines for political reasons, then yes, we're stuck with some sort of gerrymandering. The main point that I'd make (following Bruce Cain) which I think people don't adequately realize is that even neutral-sounding rules generally have very predictable political outcomes, and in a world in which political operatives know that, a fight over whether or not to have neutral rules will almost always be a disguised political fight.
I should explain that, perhaps...we all know that voters are not randomly distributed, correct? It's not only possible, but certain that any particular set of criteria -- say, that districts should be "compact" and that they should respect county lines when possible -- will have a predictable partisan effect. Since both parties have experts, they'll both have run simulations and will know whether those criteria help or hurt them, and then (generally) choose their position based on what will help them.
That said: most gerrymanders are not partisan gerrymanders (which maximize seats for one party), but bipartisan gerrymanders, which protect incumbents from both parties. And most estimates of the total effects of redistricting tend to be relatively low, at least compared to any plausible geography-based districting; claims that gerrymandering drives partisanship are knocked down by partisanship in the White House and the Senate.
On the whole, I'm in favor of more competitive districts than fewer. Partisan gerrymandering tends to be better for that than bipartisan gerrymandering (because incumbent politicians are happy to have 90% districts that "waste" lots of votes for their party. And yes, I know the argument that bipartisan gerrymandering has the benefit of making most voters very happy with their representative -- since everyone lives in very partisan districts -- but I think it's outweighed by voter interest in having at least a fair number of representatives who have to worry about re-election). Still, a large part of the answer is that it's less of a problem than many suppose it is.
(Updated for word-level typos, whatever the word for that is)
Are there any alternatives to gerrymandering? Making political geography the domain of elected state legislatures seems like a recipe for trouble...Are there alternatives? Sure. The big one would be to get away from single-member districts. It's certainly possible for states to elect all Members of the House, for example, at-large, the way that Senators are elected. Sure, that would be goofy in a state the size of California, but you could do it. Or you could have a proportional representation scheme.
But if you stick to single-member districts...if gerrymandering is simply drawing district lines for political reasons, then yes, we're stuck with some sort of gerrymandering. The main point that I'd make (following Bruce Cain) which I think people don't adequately realize is that even neutral-sounding rules generally have very predictable political outcomes, and in a world in which political operatives know that, a fight over whether or not to have neutral rules will almost always be a disguised political fight.
I should explain that, perhaps...we all know that voters are not randomly distributed, correct? It's not only possible, but certain that any particular set of criteria -- say, that districts should be "compact" and that they should respect county lines when possible -- will have a predictable partisan effect. Since both parties have experts, they'll both have run simulations and will know whether those criteria help or hurt them, and then (generally) choose their position based on what will help them.
That said: most gerrymanders are not partisan gerrymanders (which maximize seats for one party), but bipartisan gerrymanders, which protect incumbents from both parties. And most estimates of the total effects of redistricting tend to be relatively low, at least compared to any plausible geography-based districting; claims that gerrymandering drives partisanship are knocked down by partisanship in the White House and the Senate.
On the whole, I'm in favor of more competitive districts than fewer. Partisan gerrymandering tends to be better for that than bipartisan gerrymandering (because incumbent politicians are happy to have 90% districts that "waste" lots of votes for their party. And yes, I know the argument that bipartisan gerrymandering has the benefit of making most voters very happy with their representative -- since everyone lives in very partisan districts -- but I think it's outweighed by voter interest in having at least a fair number of representatives who have to worry about re-election). Still, a large part of the answer is that it's less of a problem than many suppose it is.
(Updated for word-level typos, whatever the word for that is)
Monday, October 1, 2012
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Matt Cain, 28. His baseball-ref most similar going in to the season was John Smoltz, and Cain had a better age-27 year than Smoltz did...but Smoltz then took a big step forward and had five excellent years after that. Still, I'm curious about what Cain's most-similar list will look like after this season.
In the meantime, the good stuff:
1. I know I'm going to write a pre-debate post sometime this week, but alas for me Seth Masket already has it all covered. Short, to the point, covers it all.
2. More on the party ID/polling question, from Mark Blumenthal; see also Simon Jackman's estimates of "house effects." Once again, they're pretty small.
3. Ezra Klein talks to Lynn Vavreck about undecided voters.
4. Nate Silver on economic data and politics.
5. Eric McGhee on redistricting -- the apparent effects of the 2010 round.
6. I have no idea whether Laura Helmuth is correct or not about Lyme Disease, but I don't think the Romney/Ryan campaign has received nearly enough ridicule for sending out a flyer on the topic in which the first action they're promising is to "IMPROVE SYNERGY." I suppose if it worked for Liz Lemon sort of...
7. And I really enjoyed this interview with Chris Weuve about aircraft carriers in space and other issues between real-life naval warfare and science fiction, especially in film and TV, but I'm still left wondering: why would Khan automatically, through inexperience, fail to understand three-dimensional warfare? It's such a great movie, but I've always had a problem with that.
In the meantime, the good stuff:
1. I know I'm going to write a pre-debate post sometime this week, but alas for me Seth Masket already has it all covered. Short, to the point, covers it all.
2. More on the party ID/polling question, from Mark Blumenthal; see also Simon Jackman's estimates of "house effects." Once again, they're pretty small.
3. Ezra Klein talks to Lynn Vavreck about undecided voters.
4. Nate Silver on economic data and politics.
5. Eric McGhee on redistricting -- the apparent effects of the 2010 round.
6. I have no idea whether Laura Helmuth is correct or not about Lyme Disease, but I don't think the Romney/Ryan campaign has received nearly enough ridicule for sending out a flyer on the topic in which the first action they're promising is to "IMPROVE SYNERGY." I suppose if it worked for Liz Lemon sort of...
7. And I really enjoyed this interview with Chris Weuve about aircraft carriers in space and other issues between real-life naval warfare and science fiction, especially in film and TV, but I'm still left wondering: why would Khan automatically, through inexperience, fail to understand three-dimensional warfare? It's such a great movie, but I've always had a problem with that.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Uglies
Roll Call has pictures of what it considers the five ugliest House districts coming out of the current round of redistricting.
What makes a district "ugly"? Mainly, that it's not compact; to a lesser extent, the specific complaint that one or more sections of the district are connected by only a thin bridge. Districts must be contiguous (in fact, that, and rigorously equal populations are about the only strict rules out there), but in one Ohio district along Lake Erie, Democrats are arguing that "when Crane Creek State Park beach is covered during high water" the district doesn't even achieve that.
My feeling? I'm all for ugly districts. Compactness is, to be blunt, a stupid criterion for drawing district lines. Communities of interest, sure; other political jurisdictions, okay; and as far as I'm concerned, whatever political goals the majority has in mind are fine by me. Note that there's a real limit on partisan gerrymandering because while parties collectively want to win as many seats as possible, individual party politicians want very safe districts -- and safe districts require "wasting" votes won in landslides that could have been used to make some other district better for the party. Since politicians are the ones who pass redistricting maps in most cases, the most likely results are bipartisan gerrymanders, which maximize safety for incumbents of both parties at the expense of maximizing partisan gains. That doesn't always happen, but it happens quite often, even when one party controls the entire process.
At any rate, the question of district shape is really separable from the question of whether political goals should be used to write districts, although in practice reformers use the prejudice against "ugly" districts as a constraint against political motivations that they can't get the courts to knock out. Purely on their own merits, however, I see nothing at all wrong with ugly districts.
What makes a district "ugly"? Mainly, that it's not compact; to a lesser extent, the specific complaint that one or more sections of the district are connected by only a thin bridge. Districts must be contiguous (in fact, that, and rigorously equal populations are about the only strict rules out there), but in one Ohio district along Lake Erie, Democrats are arguing that "when Crane Creek State Park beach is covered during high water" the district doesn't even achieve that.
My feeling? I'm all for ugly districts. Compactness is, to be blunt, a stupid criterion for drawing district lines. Communities of interest, sure; other political jurisdictions, okay; and as far as I'm concerned, whatever political goals the majority has in mind are fine by me. Note that there's a real limit on partisan gerrymandering because while parties collectively want to win as many seats as possible, individual party politicians want very safe districts -- and safe districts require "wasting" votes won in landslides that could have been used to make some other district better for the party. Since politicians are the ones who pass redistricting maps in most cases, the most likely results are bipartisan gerrymanders, which maximize safety for incumbents of both parties at the expense of maximizing partisan gains. That doesn't always happen, but it happens quite often, even when one party controls the entire process.
At any rate, the question of district shape is really separable from the question of whether political goals should be used to write districts, although in practice reformers use the prejudice against "ugly" districts as a constraint against political motivations that they can't get the courts to knock out. Purely on their own merits, however, I see nothing at all wrong with ugly districts.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Nightmare
The latest from my native Grand Canyon State: Arizona went through a spasm of Good Government redesign a while ago, passing campaign finance and redistricting measures designed to take the politics out of politics, or something like that. Regular readers will know that I'm not generally a fan. But that's not the story here. The story is about their newish redistricting independent commission. It reported back a plan that failed to help Republicans, and the Republican Governor and the Republican State Senate responded by...sacking the (independent) chair of the commission. As Greg Sargent puts it, it's a "Scott Walker style power grab."
This gets back to the issue of "Constitutional hardball" -- efforts to exploit loopholes or ambiguities in the rules of the game in order to win short-term partisan gains. Constitutional hardball has simply become the norm for Republicans these days. Sometimes it's relatively harmless, such as the recall election of Gray Davis in California. But it can also be high stakes and have major consequences. The current major example, other than the AZ redistricting thing, are the efforts to rig the electoral college for Republicans by changing Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to a districted electoral vote scheme instead of the traditional winner-take-all. That's a big deal and quite outrageous, in my view.
But the one I'm really worried about is what would happen if the Democrats narrowly defeat a Republican candidate in the presidential election. Could Republicans accept it It seems unlikely, doesn't it? The nightmare scenario is that Democrats win the presidential election by a handful of Electoral Votes; Republicans allege fraud, but fail in attempts to overturn it in the courts; and then in one or more states that voted for the Democrat but have Republican state governments, the legislature nullifies the states' election and installs a slate of GOP electors.
That could happen either in a state where fraud was alleged (as was threatened in Florida in 2000, although in that case it was a threat to overturn state judicial rulings, not about fraud in the voting per se), or it could happen in a completely unrelated state acting in sympathy with the supposed victims of corruption in a Dem-run state. Either way, it's hard to imagine the effects on US democracy. It's one thing to have an election turn on regular, if unusual, judicial proceedings; it would be quite another for the current incumbent party to essentially nullify an election.
Could it happen? I'd have to say that at this point I'd almost expect it to, if the conditions allow it. Let's see...if there's a very close race, it's virtually certain that there will be accusations of fraud in one or more very close states, and that solid partisans will mostly believe those accusations (remember, many on the left believed, and probably still believe, that the 2004 election was stolen in Ohio, although the evidence does not support those claims). The question is what the losers would do about it. Take it to court? Of course; that's what Al Gore and George W. Bush did in 2000, and Richard Nixon did in 1960. But would they take the extra step to legislative nullification? That's the harder question. I believe it's likely, but there's no hard evidence one way or another.
Now, whether the opportunity would ever arise is another question. Elections that are close enough that a handful of electoral votes could make the difference are rare. And of course generally one would expect states with solid partisan legislatures to go the same way in presidential elections. Since you need enough electoral votes in the nullifying states to successfully flip the election, that narrows it further (depending, that is, on how close the national vote is); usually a New Hampshire isn't going to do the job.
But if it did happen? Yeah, it's a nightmare, alright. And the more we see things such as the Arizona redistricting thing, the more likely it seems to me that the current crop of Republicans would do exactly that if the opportunity ever occurs.
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