Three weeks ago, the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness held its 50th annual Mr. Olympia competition. Similar to the electoral college in the U.S., the winner of the race is chosen by representatives instead of through popular vote. These judges are expected to be able to critique contestants better than the average person could, while still doing a good job at representing popular opinion.
However, the judges' scoreboards this year were far from popular opinion. Phil Heath, the three-time winner of the Mr. Olympia competition, was the judges' favorite this year and took home the grand prize of $275,000. On the other hand, a survey by bodybuilding.com indicates that the people wanted Kai Greene to win. Kai Greene won second place in the official competition, even though he had a majority (61%) of the people's votes in the survey above. Phil Heath only had 16% of the popular vote, and was expected to win second place.
This is similar to the presidential election of 2000, when G. W. Bush won in the electoral college against Al Gore, despite Gore winning more votes among the population. The representatives in the 2014 Mr. Olympia competition chose a candidate who was very far from a plurality, meanwhile the electoral college in 2000 chose a candidate who had a half of a million less votes among the population's voters. This makes me wonder if the benefit of having voter representatives really does exceed the cost.
No comments:
Post a Comment