Official Rules for "Retrospective History of the United States" Challenge
The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to make the results of the Retrospective US Presidential Elections into a plausible timeline. Post your timelines here. For your reference, the dedicated Results Thread is here.
The overarching focus of your ATL should be on plausibility, despite the unnatural convergence inherent in the project. Make it as realistic as you can within the limitations below. You should strive to be politically neutral. (The TL should also be well-written and organized, but that should go without saying.) The format of the TL is up to you -- e.g., date-by-date timeline, history book style, etc. Your POD should be either during or before the 1788-89 election, since John Jay was elected VP instead of John Adams. To fulfill the challenge, your TL should cover the whole period from your POD to the present (in however much depth you wish).
The most fundamental difference between the ATL and OTL (besides the different election results of course) is the political opinion of the average American voter. Throughout history, this will obviously be very similar to the political opinion of the average voter here on AH.com. As such, parties and candidates considered "leftist" in OTL may be considered "centrist" in the ATL (and "centrists" can be considered "rightists," etc.) without needing to change the OTL political stances of those parties and their candidates.
Presidential and vice presidential candidates must act in character; that is, they should have the same personal politics as in OTL (with few exceptions*) even if faced with different issues than in OTL. If this weren't the case, then AH.commers who participated in the project would have voted for candidates who were not the same people as the participants thought they were voting for. The periods of service for presidents and vice presidents should be the same as in the Master List. (* For example, if Eugene Debs actually was not willing to serve as president in OTL, he would have to be willing to do so in the ATL, since he was elected three times.)
The poll results of for each election represent the popular vote results for that election in the ATL. Therefore, national popular vote percentages in each ATL election must be the same as in the percentages the candidates receive in polls here. Note that in the pre-Civil War South, you may assume that most if not all of the slave states did not hold popular elections for president but instead just had their electors choose candidates. (This helps account for the huge popular vote percentages received by Fremont and Lincoln.)
The number of electoral votes a candidate receives need not exactly align with the numbers shown in the Wikiboxes (except for 1789-1800*), nor do they need to have the same geographic distribution as shown on the map in the Wikibox. However, the candidates with the plurality or majority of the popular vote should still win the election, and the other candidates should place roughly in the same order in the EC as they did in the original poll. (* Since we simulated the EC vote for the four elections from 1789-1800, the percentage of EVs each candidate receives must be the same as in the Wikibox, although the geographic distribution of each candidate's votes may differ from the map in the Wikibox.)
Each participant can post his/her TL in chunks as s/he writes it, and at the end they can be compiled into one big post which contains the whole timeline. There is no specific time limit (yet) on getting your TLs done. Once all the entries are in and complete, I'll post a poll wherein AH.com can vote for the best TL.
Good luck, and have fun.
The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to make the results of the Retrospective US Presidential Elections into a plausible timeline. Post your timelines here. For your reference, the dedicated Results Thread is here.
The overarching focus of your ATL should be on plausibility, despite the unnatural convergence inherent in the project. Make it as realistic as you can within the limitations below. You should strive to be politically neutral. (The TL should also be well-written and organized, but that should go without saying.) The format of the TL is up to you -- e.g., date-by-date timeline, history book style, etc. Your POD should be either during or before the 1788-89 election, since John Jay was elected VP instead of John Adams. To fulfill the challenge, your TL should cover the whole period from your POD to the present (in however much depth you wish).
The most fundamental difference between the ATL and OTL (besides the different election results of course) is the political opinion of the average American voter. Throughout history, this will obviously be very similar to the political opinion of the average voter here on AH.com. As such, parties and candidates considered "leftist" in OTL may be considered "centrist" in the ATL (and "centrists" can be considered "rightists," etc.) without needing to change the OTL political stances of those parties and their candidates.
Presidential and vice presidential candidates must act in character; that is, they should have the same personal politics as in OTL (with few exceptions*) even if faced with different issues than in OTL. If this weren't the case, then AH.commers who participated in the project would have voted for candidates who were not the same people as the participants thought they were voting for. The periods of service for presidents and vice presidents should be the same as in the Master List. (* For example, if Eugene Debs actually was not willing to serve as president in OTL, he would have to be willing to do so in the ATL, since he was elected three times.)
The poll results of for each election represent the popular vote results for that election in the ATL. Therefore, national popular vote percentages in each ATL election must be the same as in the percentages the candidates receive in polls here. Note that in the pre-Civil War South, you may assume that most if not all of the slave states did not hold popular elections for president but instead just had their electors choose candidates. (This helps account for the huge popular vote percentages received by Fremont and Lincoln.)
The number of electoral votes a candidate receives need not exactly align with the numbers shown in the Wikiboxes (except for 1789-1800*), nor do they need to have the same geographic distribution as shown on the map in the Wikibox. However, the candidates with the plurality or majority of the popular vote should still win the election, and the other candidates should place roughly in the same order in the EC as they did in the original poll. (* Since we simulated the EC vote for the four elections from 1789-1800, the percentage of EVs each candidate receives must be the same as in the Wikibox, although the geographic distribution of each candidate's votes may differ from the map in the Wikibox.)
Each participant can post his/her TL in chunks as s/he writes it, and at the end they can be compiled into one big post which contains the whole timeline. There is no specific time limit (yet) on getting your TLs done. Once all the entries are in and complete, I'll post a poll wherein AH.com can vote for the best TL.
Good luck, and have fun.
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