Your opinion on the Electoral College system

[GaijinPunch]

For you Euro and other people that don't know, America has a system of voting which means that even if a presidential candidate receives more votes than the other, he may still not win. For the record, Bush actually won the popular vote and obviously more states for his 2nd term... making an entire mockery of democracy as a whole.

EDIT: I can only legally vote in either Texas (max red) or Hawaii (max blue) so I feel a bit useless either way.

[antron]

if you lose by winning a little less than half the electoral votes, getting 100% of the votes in those states you won,

and the winner gets a little more than half the electoral votes, getting 51% of the votes in those states he/she won,

then you loose the election when 74% of the country voted for you.

[ED-057]

The idea of having each State as an individual entity vote for the president via their electors doesn't appear at first glance to be entirely without merit. But since, in practice, each state assigns their electors to vote for whoever won the popular vote in that state, it seems to be nothing but pointless obfuscation.

[t0yrobo]

I really don't know if it's especially good or bad, but it definitely has it's merits. My take on it is that without the electoral college then the views of highly populated states would far outweigh states with really small populations like South Dakota.
Keeping with the same example states, things that are important to one state, say illegal immigrants for California, is practically a non-factor in a place like North Dakota.

[Dremark]

I always hated the system, as it should be popular vote that decides who wins.

I'm sure it will never change though.

[I'm Alec]

My vote means less than someone living on the east coast (or basically any non-california state) so I think its some bull ass shit. Add that to whats mentioned in the first post, and yeah, its some garbage. I'll still be voting tomorrow, for what its worth.

[BulletMagnet]

My take on it is that without the electoral college then the views of highly populated states would far outweigh states with really small populations like South Dakota.

How much would that change if the popular vote was installed instead? The amount of electoral votes a state gets is based on its population as it is.

Personally, I'd probably prefer a popular vote - as GP alluded, if you live in a place where most people vote in a certain way (like I do), your individual vote is pretty much guaranteed to be completely worthless (in a very literal sense) under most circumstances. Under a popular vote system you'd at least know that you'd be tallied into a number that matters at some point - the current "winner-take-all" setup puts the potential voting power of far too many people completely at the mercy of where they happen to live, not to mention opens the door to nasty redistricting and other garbage.

Of course, I consider shifting Election Day from midweek to a weekend or national holiday to be just as important, but who (actually) wants more voter turnout anyway?

[GaijinPunch]

My take on it is that without the electoral college then the views of highly populated states would far outweigh states with really small populations like South Dakota.

To quote Al Franken. "Why would you want large populations of people making decisions?"

How much would that change if the popular vote was installed instead? The amount of electoral votes a state gets is based on its population as it is.

But it's skewed. A state like Montana has like 8 people, and 4 electroal votes. Without looking up any statistics, places like Cali and Texas have most like 20x the population, and only 5x the electoral votes.

EDIT: Okay, I was a bit off, but still:
http://www.fairvote.org/?page=985

Montana's population is just under 1 million, w/ 3 votes. Texas is 22.5 million but w/ 25 votes. It's roughly 22.5x the population size, but with only 7.5x the votes. In this particular case it's good that it doesn't since Texas is shamelessly red, but that means my (absentee) vote there means shit.

[Neon]

My take on it is that without the electoral college then the views of highly populated states would far outweigh states with really small populations like South Dakota.

How much would that change if the popular vote was installed instead? The amount of electoral votes a state gets is based on its population as it is.

Personally, I'd probably prefer a popular vote - as GP alluded, if you live in a place where most people vote in a certain way (like I do), your individual vote is pretty much guaranteed to be completely worthless (in a very literal sense) under most circumstances. Under a popular vote system you'd at least know that you'd be tallied into a number that matters at some point - the current "winner-take-all" setup puts the potential voting power of far too many people completely at the mercy of where they happen to live, not to mention opens the door to nasty redistricting and other garbage.

Of course, I consider shifting Election Day from midweek to a weekend or national holiday to be just as important, but who (actually) wants more voter turnout anyway?

Amen

What's the argument for keeping the electoral college anyway? The ghosts of the founding fathers want us to keep everything the same yada yada?

[t0yrobo]

My take on it is that without the electoral college then the views of highly populated states would far outweigh states with really small populations like South Dakota.

How much would that change if the popular vote was installed instead? The amount of electoral votes a state gets is based on its population as it is.

Personally, I'd probably prefer a popular vote - as GP alluded, if you live in a place where most people vote in a certain way (like I do), your individual vote is pretty much guaranteed to be completely worthless (in a very literal sense) under most circumstances. Under a popular vote system you'd at least know that you'd be tallied into a number that matters at some point - the current "winner-take-all" setup puts the potential voting power of far too many people completely at the mercy of where they happen to live, not to mention opens the door to nasty redistricting and other garbage.

Of course, I consider shifting Election Day from midweek to a weekend or national holiday to be just as important, but who (actually) wants more voter turnout anyway?

Amen

What's the argument for keeping the electoral college anyway? The ghosts of the founding fathers want us to keep everything the same yada yada?

The weird thing is that not all states do electoral votes the same way. In 48 states it's winner take all, but in the others it's tiered to go with the vote more closely.
But as for why we still have it, i have no clue. it was started because back in the day communication between the 13 states wasn't exactly fast. But we;ve had effective communication across the entire country for around 100 years so I don't see why they haven't addressed it yet.

[Acid King]

"Why would you want large populations of people making decisions?"

There's no justice like angry mob justice.

[Ganelon]

It all depends on how liberal/conservative you feel towards the government.
Liberal towards government power = We're all America and everybody has equal vote
Conservative towards government power = States rights over national rights

If you don't value the concept of a state's sovereignty beyond simply being a sub-level of government, then naturally you'd support national votes. If you have a strong belief in states' rights (based on the beliefs of the original Democratic-Republican party), then you'd prefer that each state have their own substantial say in the affairs of the entire country.

I have sympathies towards the latter myself. If we really wanted to promote democracy, we're at a point where technology has advanced enough to eliminate the need for a representational republic. However, you have to know/recall that the framers of the Constitution originally decided against having a pure democracy as the basis of government, decrying the "excesses of democracy" out of fear that the masses would be ignorant and not always decide in the best interests of the country. That's why the Electoral College and our other representatives still have final say.

This point isn't understood well by most Americans, much less foreigners, and thus the idea to base everything on the popular vote doesn't make as much sense as is apparent. It's pretty much fundamentally un-American when you really consider it. So the real question is: should we still trust the founding fathers in their core beliefs? If not, that's a huge and very dangerous precedent we'd be setting (not that Bush's illegal policies haven't done that already).

[Ex-Cyber]

Even taking the electoral college itself for granted, I never really understood the winner-take-all approach to allocating electors within each state. Why isn't it done on a per-district basis, with only the two "extra" (i.e. corresponding to Senate seats) votes going to the plurality winner? It would give more weight to the popular vote without any need to radically change the system. The only reason I can think of to keep winner-take-all over this system is that winner-take-all is better at shutting out third parties...

[seattlexc]

I makes for good TV and USA graphs, but besides that it's stupid.

However, being in a Blue state is nice for me because I can tell the few republicans I know that their vote for president isn't worth shit in the election.

[Stormwatch]

Don't they swap the colors every election?

[CMoon]

As far as statistics, yes, you can play some number games with populations versus electoral votes and you'll see that some states (most often the blue ones) are underrepresented in their number of electoral votes, while the states with low population (often red) have far more votes than they should. The end result is that Joe (both sixpack and the plumber)'s votes are probably worth more than mine.

But this misses the real problem (also eluded to above) that with most states being fairly close (42% McCain, 51% Obama), those states vote only for one candidate. Although I am in no way rooting for McCain, the electoral college is actually working against the republican candidate for once.

I've had the electoral college and 'justified' to me time and time again. I still think its BS. To use an old line, if every vote counts, then count every vote.

[sven666]

I got the whole voting process explained to me by an american colleague yesterday and all i can say is.. wow.. glad im not a US citizen

[Mortificator]

The only problem I have with a switch to direct popular vote is voting fraud. With the college its effect is usually negligible, since in most cases it's not going to be enough to swing a state from one candidate to the other (Florida 2000 exception). But if all the fraudalent votes nationwide matter, it could skew things a lot, turning the election into a competition of who can cheat more.

Which it practically is already, but if your reason for switching things is to make it more democratic there wouldn't be much point.

[FIL]

Is there a pro league for the electorate? seems strange to let the collegiate league decide the president, or is it like the olympics where only amateurs can compete in certain sports?

[captain ahar]

But since, in practice, each state assigns their electors to vote for whoever won the popular vote in that state, it seems to be nothing but pointless obfuscation.

they actually don't have to, which is the real bullshit part. a state could in theory be totally behind a candidate in the popular vote, and have its electorate vote against the majority.

[BulletMagnet]

If we really wanted to promote democracy, we're at a point where technology has advanced enough to eliminate the need for a representational republic.

I'm probably missing something, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this...why would technological advances make a "pure" democracy more viable?

However, you have to know/recall that the framers of the Constitution originally decided against having a pure democracy as the basis of government, decrying the "excesses of democracy" out of fear that the masses would be ignorant and not always decide in the best interests of the country. That's why the Electoral College and our other representatives still have final say.

This is true as far as it goes, but instead of simply throwing up one's hands and saying "people are always st00pid" I would prefer if there was more of an effort to get the population informed about and involved in what's going on - after all, even in an "impure" democracy like this one, an informed and involved population is still the key element that makes it function (and the lack of it is, in part, why things have gotten so bad). Granted, you're never going to get a nation completely full of rational, clear-thinking people, but regardless we could do a LOT better than we're doing now. As I've mentioned before, why not move election day to a more convenient day and ditch corporate media ownership, just for starters?

[Ganelon]

I'm probably missing something, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this...why would technological advances make a "pure" democracy more viable?

We're already at the point where people ought to be able to vote online. Set up booths everywhere for those without internet, send folks some code, have a few lawmakers write the groundwork, and give everyone referendums on any issues that come up at a consistent inverval (every week/month). What wasn't possible to do before in a timely manner is now very simple and has about as many security loopholes as the booths.

Anyway, I don't trust the majority in many respects. If 30% of Americans can't name the VP and 20% can't locate the US on a map, how can anybody possibly have faith that they're aware of anything? The fact is that everyone has overly abundant resources on learning more about the world; it's just that these ignorant folks don't bother or "have the time" to watch the news, go to a library, or brush up on their culture. And to that, I call bullshit; they simply prefer living in ignorance and taking comfort in their pleasures instead.

I certainly agree that elections really need to be done on a non-workday but from what I've heard at DC, today has gone very smoothly so far (which will likely mean a nightmare for this evening). I immediately got to vote without any waiting and left my polling station in under 5 minutes, which was quite refreshing.

[Acid King]

Anyway, I don't trust the majority in many respects. If 30% of Americans can't name the VP and 20% can't locate the US on a map, how can anybody possibly have faith that they're aware of anything? The fact is that everyone has overly abundant resources on learning more about the world; it's just that these ignorant folks don't bother or "have the time" to watch the news, go to a library, or brush up on their culture. And to that, I call bullshit; they simply prefer living in ignorance and taking comfort in their pleasures instead.

[BulletMagnet]

What wasn't possible to do before in a timely manner is now very simple and has about as many security loopholes as the booths.

Has anyone done any sort of study on this? It certainly sounds nice from here, but I must express some skepticism on the "loopholes" part of your statement...once you cross into the semi-abstract realm of "pure information" things can be messed with in a far less obvious way than would be the case with "physical" means of voting. Again, any links you might provide, if they exist, would be appreciated.

The fact is that everyone has overly abundant resources on learning more about the world

Actually, if memory serves, the USA is a ways behind many other countries when it comes to the percentage of its citizens with online access in particular...that said, your overall point still stands, but I do take issue with this:

And to that, I call bullshit; they simply prefer living in ignorance and taking comfort in their pleasures instead.

As I said earlier, there are always SOME people who are willfully like this, but I would maintain that there would be FAR fewer of them, to the point where the dead-ignorant minority would barely be a blip on the radar, if a concerted effort was made to change the overall mindset of the populace when it comes to matters like this. Think about it - for decades now, what has been the prevailing storyline, in the media and elsewhere, for political issues in general? "All politicians are the same, it doesn't matter who you vote for, it's all a big waste of time." "Any candidate who is willing to talk so long about hard, relevant facts and figures is an egghead, he's boring, he's weird." "You should just vote with your GUT." "Nothing you do really matters." "Leave everything to us, no questions asked - you just go shopping."

In an atmosphere like that, is it any wonder that people are so ill-informed and removed from issues that directly affect them? And frankly, seeing as such an atmosphere pretty much always plays to the establishment in power, do you doubt that this is at LEAST partially a purposeful, concerted effort from the top down? Finally, do you truly think that this is something that we should just accept as inevitable, or should we as a society fight it? Again, we'll never get rid of ignorance completely, but I find it a lazy response to just shrug your shoulders and turn up your nose at all those ignorant hicks out there, instead of attempting to change the way things are presented to them, offering them something different, more substantial, and seeing how they respond.

I immediately got to vote without any waiting and left my polling station in under 5 minutes, which was quite refreshing.

The same was the case with me, thankfully, though I live in a relatively well-off area, so I'm not particularly surprised. Most of the glitches and other problems tend to occur in the inner city, if memory serves.

[gameoverDude]

The Electoral College should be replaced by a raw vote count total - counted as one vote per person, rather than having so many electoral votes going to the winner of a state. As things are, your vote is shot down if your chosen candidate doesn't win in your state. Raw vote count would mean your vote isn't negated.

Early voting is a great thing. I went out to file an absentee ballot late in October- on a Sunday.

I think the people should get to vote on bills as well- with the House and Senate only being allowed to write the bills and submit them for a popular vote. Sure this would mean several trips to the voting booth per year, but if the popular vote can shoot bad potential laws down in a 19XX style flaming wreck- I'd be willing to vote several times a year. I'm sick of seeing corporate cocksuck legislation get through thanks to the lobbyists who whore their dollars out on politicians.

if you lose by winning a little less than half the electoral votes, getting 100% of the votes in those states you won,

and the winner gets a little more than half the electoral votes, getting 51% of the votes in those states he/she won,

then you loose the election when 74% of the country voted for you.

[t0yrobo]

I think the people should get to vote on bills as well- with the House and Senate only being allowed to write the bills and submit them for a popular vote. Sure this would mean several trips to the voting booth per year, but if the popular vote can shoot bad potential laws down in a 19XX style flaming wreck- I'd be willing to vote several times a year. I'm sick of seeing corporate cocksuck legislation get through thanks to the lobbyists who whore their dollars out on politicians

Send a message to your senator/representative then, it's unreasonable to have people voting constantly all the time especially when no one is entirely up to speed on the issues. Actually everyone hear should just skim over the sparknotes for the federalist papers, it explains why alot of things are how they are. Not everything really seems to be the best for today, but it was all very carefully thought out.

[Ganelon]

Has anyone done any sort of study on this? It certainly sounds nice from here, but I must express some skepticism on the "loopholes" part of your statement...once you cross into the semi-abstract realm of "pure information" things can be messed with in a far less obvious way than would be the case with "physical" means of voting. Again, any links you might provide, if they exist, would be appreciated.

Online submissions are already being done for shareholder proxy voting in many multi-billion dollar companies. Some specific companies that have used it include Lucent, Con Edison, and Royal Carribean. No big issues yet.

In an atmosphere like that, is it any wonder that people are so ill-informed and removed from issues that directly affect them? And frankly, seeing as such an atmosphere pretty much always plays to the establishment in power, do you doubt that this is at LEAST partially a purposeful, concerted effort from the top down? Finally, do you truly think that this is something that we should just accept as inevitable, or should we as a society fight it? Again, we'll never get rid of ignorance completely, but I find it a lazy response to just shrug your shoulders and turn up your nose at all those ignorant hicks out there, instead of attempting to change the way things are presented to them, offering them something different, more substantial, and seeing how they respond.

The problem is that this is America, where it's inappropriate to force onto others things they have no interest in. Many of these same people don't really care all that much about government anyway except where it affects them. I don't see a conspiracy effort, just a desire not to force knowledge down peoples' throats. If we lived in a tyranny, I'd be all for getting people involved but then, it would be a moot issue since they wouldn't have much say in the first place.

So that's the main dilemma: you have the mutually exclusive factors of freedom at the threat of ignorance and common knowledge at the threat of enforcement. And if you're proposing flashing flashing them with pamphlets or info, I don't particularly wish to spend any taxpayer money actively educating these people either. If you're thinking of something specific, go ahead and say it if you wish.

[Blade]

This term's ballot was a joke.

Only like ONE running nominee per position, and the majority were Democrats.

...Not that I support Republicans...just an observation.

I'm from WI by the way...

[BryanM]

For the record, Bush actually won the popular vote and obviously more states for his 2nd term... making an entire mockery of democracy as a whole.

I'm with the cooks over at Legitgov.org that that man never won the electoral or popular vote, ever.

Thank God a few states got rid of those electronic voting machines. Terrible, terrible systems. Completely open Access databases...

[BulletMagnet]

Online submissions are already being done for shareholder proxy voting in many multi-billion dollar companies. Some specific companies that have used it include Lucent, Con Edison, and Royal Carribean. No big issues yet.

If it's as promising as you say then it's certainly worth keeping an eye on, though the move from use by a handful of private corporations to a nationwide deployment is a whole other ball of wax, I'm sure...not to mention that far more people will be interested in screwing the results up than they would be now.

Many of these same people don't really care all that much about government anyway except where it affects them.

This is certainly true to an extent, but it certainly doesn't explain the apathy of many regarding the Presidency in particular, as the actions of that office affect everyone. There's something else at work here.

I don't see a conspiracy effort, just a desire not to force knowledge down peoples' throats.

I stopped short of calling this state of affairs a "conspiracy" in my last post, as I don't think the word quite applies - at the same time, though, I am increasingly tired of our leaders using the excuse of "respecting individual freedoms" to avoid taking responsible action that befits their office. In far too many cases I find it a flimsy cover to avoid doing one's job, or to ensure that one's wealth bracket gets to continue to swallow an undue portion of the tax breaks and other such perks. As an example, why can't we have universal health care? Because we'd be "infringing on people's freedom of choice!"...even as a huge chunk of the country doesn't have enough money to MAKE that choice, and most of those who DO are regularly fleeced out of benefits they've paid for. In short, I'm sick of hearing that old Reagan record warning us of "the first step towards Communism" - such warnings only ever seem to apply when wealth is set to shift towards the majority, rather than the top one percent (which is, of course, patriotic).

So that's the main dilemma: you have the mutually exclusive factors of freedom at the threat of ignorance and common knowledge at the threat of enforcement. And if you're proposing flashing flashing them with pamphlets or info, I don't particularly wish to spend any taxpayer money actively educating these people either. If you're thinking of something specific, go ahead and say it if you wish.

While "passing out pamphlets" isn't the main gist of what I'd suggest (though it might help in some small way), aren't efforts like this already in effect? There are plenty of "get the vote out" efforts already, not all of them sprung from private interests. In truth, I'd put far more responsibility on the media - as I said earlier, they're the ones most responsible for telling people, over and over again, that none of this stuff is really important, that you only ought to bother paying attention if it's entertaining. And as I said, I attribute at least a good amount of this to the fact that pretty much all the country's media is owned by wealthy corporate interests, who pay their "journalists" six, seven, or more figures a year, and all of which are best-served, in an economic sense, by an ignorant, detached voting public. If they started not only putting more focus on relevant facts, but stoking public interest in those facts (for starters, not calling people who present them "boring" or "wonkish"), by presenting quantifiable reality as important (as opposed to concerning themselves first and foremost with candidates' fashion choices), I truly think we'd see a sizable shift in public involvement and awareness of what's going on. Perfect? of course not - but still a far cry from the current state, where people are continually told, by people who are supposed to be far more informed and qualified on these matters than they are, to just zone out.