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The Electoral College

Connecticutter said:
I don't know exactly how the targeting will change, but my guess is that you'd see less money going in to campaign ads for Ohio and Florida, and more money going into campaign ads in New York, California, and Texas. Not that that's a bad thing.

You might be right....they would want to appeal to the most people a one time....they would go to the populacice centers, like new york or california, they would not want to spend much time in back-water ohio or wisconsin....oh well....it is a very very small loss if that is the worst thing to happen with a new system...


connecticutter said:
They do this in many countries - France for example (not that we should emulate them ). It actually makes sense if you are looking for the candidate which would beat every other candidate in a two-way race.

No we can't emulate France....ever.....

In this new system, that I invented:cool: ,(sarcasm) you wouldn't have to worry about whether or not a candidate wins in one lonesome state, all of the votes would compile and even if it is down to the wire a winner would get chosen....
 
galenrox said:
Are you joking? Had 51,000 Ohioans voted the other way, and Bush had won the popular vote yet lost the election, are you dead seriously claiming conservatives would've just let it slide?
Not a chance in hell brother!
Nixon did it in his first bid. He had the same scenario and did not want to put the country through what Gore did.
 
goligoth said:
I skimmed over your paper so I may have missed it but do the electoral people have to vote the way that the majority of their states votes go? I'm not sure that the above sentence made sense but I am not sure how to put it. I guess what I'm getting at is can the electoral college simply disregard the states votes and vote whichever way they want? If so then voting has absolutly no point what-so-ever because the electoral college will simply over-rule me and i hate being a :monkey

Here is a link to "faithless electors", electors who don't vote the way of their constituency.
http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/faithless.htm

The electoral college is a joke. Tell me how it helps out small population states. Do Alaska and Hawaii really have a voice? No.
 
galenrox said:
Are you joking? Had 51,000 Ohioans voted the other way, and Bush had won the popular vote yet lost the election, are you dead seriously claiming conservatives would've just let it slide?
Not a chance in hell brother!

Amen, brother! Just like the call by some conservatives to abandon the qualification of being a naturalized citizen so the Governator could be president. If dems wanted to do that it would be called a treasonous idea!
 
independent_thinker2002 said:
Here is a link to "faithless electors", electors who don't vote the way of their constituency.
http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/faithless.htm

The electoral college is a joke. Tell me how it helps out small population states. Do Alaska and Hawaii really have a voice? No.

Dam I thought I was wrong....so basically if you put 30 or 40 hardcore liberals in the electoral college they can vote liberally even if 97% of their state voted conservitively.....of course the same goes the other way around.....Dam that sucks..........we are all just :monkey then.....we can vote if we like but....why bother, if we are just going to get overruled.....argg...
 
goligoth said:
Dam I thought I was wrong....so basically if you put 30 or 40 hardcore liberals in the electoral college they can vote liberally even if 97% of their state voted conservitively.....of course the same goes the other way around.....Dam that sucks..........we are all just :monkey then.....we can vote if we like but....why bother, if we are just going to get overruled.....argg...


That's not how it works, when you vote for a person, you're actually voting for a slate of electors. Each party has X number of electors, so for example, if Bush wins OH, his 20 electors that the GOP picked get to go vote. If Kerry wins, his 20 electors go to pick. There are very, very few instances of faithless electors, and none that have mattered.

Aside from that issue, the Electoral College, no matter its flaws, will never be revoked or even changed. In order to do so, you have to amend the Constitution, which would require approval of 3/4 of the states. Try getting 3/4 of the states to act against their own interests.

And aside from that, there's a reason why we don't have direct election of the president: Because people are stupid. I thank god every day for the fact that I live in a Republic and not a Democracy.
 
RightatNYU said:
That's not how it works, when you vote for a person, you're actually voting for a slate of electors. Each party has X number of electors, so for example, if Bush wins OH, his 20 electors that the GOP picked get to go vote. If Kerry wins, his 20 electors go to pick. There are very, very few instances of faithless electors, and none that have mattered.

Aside from that issue, the Electoral College, no matter its flaws, will never be revoked or even changed. In order to do so, you have to amend the Constitution, which would require approval of 3/4 of the states. Try getting 3/4 of the states to act against their own interests.

And aside from that, there's a reason why we don't have direct election of the president: Because people are stupid. I thank god every day for the fact that I live in a Republic and not a Democracy.

I agree that people are stupid, as well as corrupt. The electors are people though. Hmmmmm. We are still screwed!
 
independent_thinker2002 said:
I agree that people are stupid, as well as corrupt. The electors are people though. Hmmmmm. We are still screwed!

It's the one place where I think it's great to have fanatics who are told what to do with actual authority.
 
independent_thinker2002 said:
I am not so sure about that "authority". Did you check out this link?

http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/faithless.htm


Excuse me, I phrased that incorrectly. I meant:

It's the one place where I think it's great to give fanatics actual authority, when they are told what to do.
 
I think I just had a brilliant idea!!! Some years the BCS (college football) is disputed as to whether the two best teams are really playing for the championship. We get the same thing for presidential candidates. People want a playoff system in college football, which I am for. I would also like to see this with the presidential race. Then perhaps we would have better candidates. I don't think that primaries work very well. I would like to see a field of 16 candidates battle head to head until two are left. Is this crazy? Or is it crazy like a fox?
 
independent_thinker2002 said:
I think I just had a brilliant idea!!! Some years the BCS (college football) is disputed as to whether the two best teams are really playing for the championship. We get the same thing for presidential candidates. People want a playoff system in college football, which I am for. I would also like to see this with the presidential race. Then perhaps we would have better candidates. I don't think that primaries work very well. I would like to see a field of 16 candidates battle head to head until two are left. Is this crazy? Or is it crazy like a fox?

nice idea. Then we can all get together in a bar and watch the political superbowl.

I think that the primary/presidential-playoffs should be run like some crazy reality show. Like for example, Fear Factor. They all compete to see who can eat the most cockroaches and then the 2 that eat the most battle it out to the death. They each have lifelines as well. The republicans have rich CEO attack and religious fanatic exorcism and the democrats have violent labor unions and the people
 
RightatNYU said:
That's not how it works, when you vote for a person, you're actually voting for a slate of electors. Each party has X number of electors, so for example, if Bush wins OH, his 20 electors that the GOP picked get to go vote. If Kerry wins, his 20 electors go to pick. There are very, very few instances of faithless electors, and none that have mattered.

Aside from that issue, the Electoral College, no matter its flaws, will never be revoked or even changed. In order to do so, you have to amend the Constitution, which would require approval of 3/4 of the states. Try getting 3/4 of the states to act against their own interests.

And aside from that, there's a reason why we don't have direct election of the president: Because people are stupid. I thank god every day for the fact that I live in a Republic and not a Democracy.

I really don't care about faithless electors....that is just another small flaw in the great folly that is the electoral college.....I just don't like it because an entire state goes one way or the other...the state should be divided up or something....anything....this current idea means that the losing side gets completely ignored and has no say in the matter....this is wrong....

You are right though it won't get changed until this government is no longer as corrupt as it is now....3/4 of the states will never vote to get rid of it...

that doesn't change the fact that we are all monkies....
 
Che said:
Not so sure about that. Gore won by some 500,000 votes.

Gore had ~500k more votes than Bush, but still less than 50% of the total. He had a plurality, not a majority.

And in 1992, Clinton had a mere 43% of the popular vote.

If the argument is that 'a system where someone without a majority of the votes can win is bad', then clearly simply eliminating the EC won't solve the problem.
 
M14 Shooter said:
Gore had ~500k more votes than Bush, but still less than 50% of the total. He had a plurality, not a majority.

And in 1992, Clinton had a mere 43% of the popular vote.

If the argument is that 'a system where someone without a majority of the votes can win is bad', then clearly simply eliminating the EC won't solve the problem.

See that is weird in my opinion....how can you have 500k more votes than your oponent and not have the majority????if they have less votes then you then they lose.....or at least that is how democracy is supposed to work....

it isn't democracy if we vote and then people who are higher up appoint whoever the hell they want.....it isn't democracy if you can get half of a million more votes than your opponent and still lose.....THIS IS IDIOCY.....
 
goligoth said:
See that is weird in my opinion....how can you have 500k more votes than your oponent and not have the majority????if they have less votes then you then they lose.....or at least that is how democracy is supposed to work....

Why is that so hard to envision?
In a democracy, as argued here, its what the majority of the people want, not what a plurality of the people want.

100 votes.
You get 49
I get 48
You got more than me, but you didnt get a majority.

You may have gotten more votes than me, but more people voted against you than for you -- if the majority of the people voted against you, how can you be the winner?

As I said - eliminating the EC does not eliminate the "problem" of the EC not always representing the will of the majority.



it isn't democracy if we vote and then people who are higher up appoint whoever the hell they want
The US isnt a democracy, its a representative republic.
 
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M14 Shooter said:
The US isnt a democracy, its a representative republic.

And thank god for that.

People go on and on nowadays about how the founding fathers gave us freedom and democracy - uh, nope.

The founding fathers designed our government so as to best protect it from the will of the people. Mob rule was the biggest fear they faced.

Think about it...do you really want a Congress that is TRULY representative of the people? No.
 
M14 Shooter said:
100 votes.
You get 49
I get 48
You got more than me, but you didnt get a majority.

Yes, but in the past two elections the candidate who got 3 votes had close political ideals to that of the 49.

If you got 48 than why did you win, anyhow?
 
Che said:
Yes, but in the past two elections the candidate who got 3 votes had close political ideals to that of the 49.
And...?

If you got 48 than why did you win, anyhow?
Because the popular vote doesnt determine the election.
 
Che said:
Yes, but in the past two elections the candidate who got 3 votes had close political ideals to that of the 49.

That may be true in 2000, but in 2004, George W. Bush actually won a majority. He got more votes than all other candidates put together.

If you think Perot was closer to the Republican position, then your hypothesis fails in 1992 and 1996. However, I don't know if I can say that about Perot.
 
M14 Shooter said:
Why is that so hard to envision?
In a democracy, as argued here, its what the majority of the people want, not what a plurality of the people want.

100 votes.
You get 49
I get 48
You got more than me, but you didnt get a majority.

You may have gotten more votes than me, but more people voted against you than for you -- if the majority of the people voted against you, how can you be the winner?

As I said - eliminating the EC does not eliminate the "problem" of the EC not always representing the will of the majority.

That is a really stupid train of thought.....because even though more people voted against me than for me even more people voted against you than for you....it shouldn't matter that more than 50% voted for one candidate because if 49% vote one way and that is the highest then logically more people want that candidate over the others, he/she should win....
 
goligoth said:
That is a really stupid train of thought.....because even though more people voted against me than for me even more people voted against you than for you....it shouldn't matter that more than 50% voted for one candidate because if 49% vote one way and that is the highest then logically more people want that candidate over the others, he/she should win....

You're missing the point.
The argument is that "In a democracy, our election results should reflect the will of the majority".

In the 48/49/3 scenario, the majority of the people don't want any of the candidates. How, if the standard is 'the will of the majority', could any of them be declared the winner?

The point is that simply eliminating the electoral college under the argument that "election results should reflect the will of the majority" will not solve the "problem" we had in the 2000 election.
 
goligoth said:
That is a really stupid train of thought.....because even though more people voted against me than for me even more people voted against you than for you....it shouldn't matter that more than 50% voted for one candidate because if 49% vote one way and that is the highest then logically more people want that candidate over the others, he/she should win....

I agree, but I guess the electoral college makes sense in the fact that the spread of people like you better. You are more popular in more states than he is. He can be ultra popular in New York but hated in the rest of the nation.
 
M14 Shooter said:
You're missing the point.
The argument is that "In a democracy, our election results should reflect the will of the majority".

In the 48/49/3 scenario, the majority of the people don't want any of the candidates. How, if the standard is 'the will of the majority', could any of them be declared the winner?

the only way to make sure that a majority is acheived is to hold a second election....in that election the candidates who got the fewest votes would be eliminated....leaving only two

of course this idea is fairly impractical and I don't recommend it, but why do we need a majority.....


The point is that simply eliminating the electoral college under the argument that "election results should reflect the will of the majority" will not solve the "problem" we had in the 2000 election.

it might have solved the problem...it might not have...if we didn't have the electoral college then florida wouldn't have had to be recounted a couple thousand times like it was.....
 
goligoth said:
the only way to make sure that a majority is acheived is to hold a second election....in that election the candidates who got the fewest votes would be eliminated....leaving only two
How do you determine who runs in the run-off?
And dont you still run the risk of the majoroty not voting for one of the candidates?


it might have solved the problem...it might not have...if we didn't have the electoral college then florida wouldn't have had to be recounted a couple thousand times like it was.....
No... all 50 states would have been recounted, as both candidates would have been looking to squeeze out every last vote.
 
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