abolish the electoral college

[ntdz]

no, i like the electoral college.

 

[Darkhawk28]

I believe the Electoral College needs to be modified so that each person's vote is equal across state lines.

Somebody's vote in Wyoming should not be worth four times more than someone's in California. That's just plain wrong.

 

[wiin]

Washington ballots sent out of state

Alaska's elections director said yesterday she has 98 uncounted ballots from Washington's Nov. 2 election and would like to send them back here.

"I actually had a number of calls from election directors from around the country that said, 'Why am I getting provisional ballots from Washington?' " Handy said.


And that's another way to win an election.

 

[artikk]

The best solution to an outdated Electoral Collge is to use both repesentative elite vote like EC and popular vote in determining the presidency. Popular vote by itself would be too unstable and the elite EC would not fully express the will of the people(like the Senate that was elected by state legislaturesa long time ago)
This is best way is to express the wishes of both corporate and average Joe worlds. This would resolve the tensions between the two social classes and continue the legacy of democracy(both direct and representative.The Founding fathers had the future in mind when they wrote the Consituiton in 1780-1781 and it served us well in these modern times though requirung 27 amendments. .:disgust:

 

[artikk]

Originally posted by: wchou
with electoral college, our votes are pointless. Just let them decide who should be our next president because they are god? they are perfect? electoral represent majority of the people? clueless aren't we?
Again why bother voting? Waste of our time and effort to even bother. Nothing more then a pawned game.
It's pitiful at best..:thumbsdown:

The Electoral College people are elected by us/people. So voting does count. Also the particular people in EC that you helped elect, sometimes not always vote on the candidate of presidency of your choice. So there.

:roll::shocked:

 

[PizzaYummy]

Whenever I see Dianne Feinstein she reminds of that Popeye character the Seahag.

 

[realsup]

I think we should just abolish the Federal government. Have each state become a nation or nations if they want to split up.

 

[artikk]

We could have done that a long time ago during the Civil War

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
This is a TERRIBLE idea and only shows your IGNORANCE of the purpose and function of the Electoral College. The EC works to ensure that the large, populated states with more people do not always dominate elections. Without the electoral college, 80% of the states would have, in effect, NO VOICE in electing the President of the United States.

SHAME on you for trying to cash in on people's ignorance of this GREAT and well thought out system adn trying to destroy it.

Jason

OK, no. The presidential election has absolutely jack s**t to do with states, it is what we call a National election. In other words its where the nation chooses the president, the electoral college in effect makes it the states choosing the president. Without it, a man in Alabama and a man in California have absolutely equal votes, whereas now that is simply not true, especially if the Alabamian is a Democrat in which case their vote has zero to nil chance of mattering.

The real reason we have an electoral college is for purely logistical reasons, it is a lot easier to count 400-500 state representatives than it is to tally all of the votes from each state together, especially with the transportation and communication available during the writing of the constitution.

So, write your senators, try to get this abolished.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: oldman420
Washington, DC ? Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today announced that she will introduce legislation to abolish the Electoral College and provide for direct popular election of the President and Vice President when the Senate convenes for the 109 th Congress in January.

?The Electoral College is an anachronism and the time has come to bring our democracy into the 21st Century,? Senator Feinstein said. ?During the founding years of the Republic, the Electoral College may have been a suitable system, but today it is flawed and amounts to national elections being decided in several battleground states.

?We need to have a serious, comprehensive debate on reforming the Electoral College. I will press for hearings in the Judiciary Committee on which I sit and ultimately a vote on the Senate floor, as occurred 25 years ago on this subject. My goal is simply to allow the popular will of the American people to be expressed every four years when we elect our President. Right now, that is not happening.?

Under the current system for electing the President of the United States:

Candidates focus only on a handful of contested states and ignore the concerns of tens of millions of Americans living in other states;
A candidate can lose in 39 states, but still win the Presidency;
A candidate can lose the popular vote by more than 10 million votes, but still win the Presidency;
A candidate can win 20 million votes in the general election, but win zero electoral votes, as happened to Ross Perot in 1992;
In most states, the candidate who wins a state?s election, wins all of that state?s electoral votes, no matter the winning margin, which can disenfranchise those who supported the losing candidate;
A candidate can win a state?s vote, but an elector can refuse to represent the will of a majority of the voters in that state by voting arbitrarily for the losing candidate (this has reportedly happened 9 times since 1820);
Smaller states have a disproportionate advantage over larger states because of the two ?constant? or ?senatorial? electors assigned to each state;
A tie in the Electoral College is decided by a single vote from each state?s delegation in the House of Representatives, which would unfairly grant California?s 36 million residents equal status with Wyoming?s 500,000 residents; and
In case of such a tie, House members are not bound to support the candidate who won their state?s election, which has the potential to further distort the will of the majority.
?Sooner or later we will have a situation where there is a great disparity between the electoral vote winner and the popular vote winner. If the President and Vice President are elected by a direct popular vote of the American people, then every American?s vote will count the same regardless of whether they live in California, Maine, Ohio or Florida,? Senator Feinstein said.

In the history of the country, there have been four instances of disputed elections where the President who was elected won the electoral vote, but lost the popular vote ? John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000. According to some estimates there have been at least 22 instances where a similar scenario could have occurred in close elections.

?Our system is not undemocratic, but it is imperfect, and we have the power to do something about it,? Senator Feinstein said. ?It is no small feat to amend the Constitution as it has only been done only 27 times in the history of our great nation.?


I have never before supported a constitutional amendment but she does have a point

Yeah, this would work great. You know the red, producing states just want to give up any balance of power to the city breeders. The system wasn't designed to be democratic as our forefathers did see the danger in that. You can't just have immense power by controlling a bloc of voters under the electorial college and that really upsets our Democratic leaders. They thought they had the route to power all figured out until this last election.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: TheBDB
Argh, I sure hope people understand how much better a popular vote would be. I think it would increase voter turnout because EVERY VOTE WOULD MATTER. I also think it is funny that people think it would help the Democrats. If nationwide polls had Bush ahead of Kerry, and everyone voted, BUSH WOULD STILL WIN. All a popular vote would do would make the minority party in each state vote more, but it goes both ways. Democrats in Wyoming, Texas, etc. would vote more, and so would Republicans in Massachusetts, New York. In the end the candidate who could muster up the most votes out of all 50 states would win, not the one that could get a slim majority in a couple swing states.

If there is ONE lesson and one lesson ONLY that you should learn from the GREEKS, it is that DIRECT DEMOCRACY IS A BAD THING.

Majority Rule is NOT consistent with the idea that all men are created equal and that EACH man has inalienable rights.

Jason

Great string of postings. Best I have heard it stated.

 

[miketheidiot]

the system as it is favors the republicans (most rural states vote red) and rural states outnumber the urban states.

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: TheBDB
Argh, I sure hope people understand how much better a popular vote would be. I think it would increase voter turnout because EVERY VOTE WOULD MATTER. I also think it is funny that people think it would help the Democrats. If nationwide polls had Bush ahead of Kerry, and everyone voted, BUSH WOULD STILL WIN. All a popular vote would do would make the minority party in each state vote more, but it goes both ways. Democrats in Wyoming, Texas, etc. would vote more, and so would Republicans in Massachusetts, New York. In the end the candidate who could muster up the most votes out of all 50 states would win, not the one that could get a slim majority in a couple swing states.

If there is ONE lesson and one lesson ONLY that you should learn from the GREEKS, it is that DIRECT DEMOCRACY IS A BAD THING.

Majority Rule is NOT consistent with the idea that all men are created equal and that EACH man has inalienable rights.

Jason

Great string of postings. Best I have heard it stated.

Of course, that happens to be what our system is based on, a mix of direct and representative democracy. And as I pointed out earlier the reason we have an EC has nothing to do with big vs small states, it was all logistical. Besides I think there is a mixup here with direct democracy equaling majority rule, as while that would be true in a full scale direct democracy system that is not what anyone would want or try to have here. Its pure and simple, the senate represents the people of the states, the house the people of districts, and the president the people of the nation. So... just as a district chooses its House rep without an EC, and a state chooses its Senators without an EC, so should the president be chosen without an EC. I mean seriously if your state tried to impose a system where the governor was elected by a few voters from each county you would look at it and say "Whats the point?". There is none, and likewise the point of the national EC (to ease communication for the election) has passed and it has no more purpose.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

son and one lesson ONLY that you should learn from the GREEKS, it is that DIRECT DEMOCRACY IS A BAD THING.

Majority Rule is NOT consistent with the idea that all men are created equal and that EACH man has inalienable rights.

Jason

lol your silly

The interesting thing i learned from the greeks is that an empire based sooly on oppression and military force pisses lots of people off. what was the thing machieveli said? It is better to be feared than loved, but better to be loved than despised? Anyways thats the general drift of it.

Who is elected has little to do with "majority rule" and the "tyranny of the mjority" that I think you are trying to get at. What does matter is what those elected people are allowed to do.

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
the system as it is favors the republicans (most rural states vote red) and rural states outnumber the urban states.

Not exactly, as urban states often have way more electoral votes than rural ones.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: oldman420

Yeah, this would work great. You know the red, producing states just want to give up any balance of power to the city breeders. The system wasn't designed to be democratic as our forefathers did see the danger in that. You can't just have immense power by controlling a bloc of voters under the electorial college and that really upsets our Democratic leaders. They thought they had the route to power all figured out until this last election.

the red "producing" states. hah.

The electoral college was instituted for 2 reasons, Logistical and economic. Logistical because in 1790 transposrtation and communication were slow to say the least, and second to protect themselves from the peoples wish for economic equality.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
the system as it is favors the republicans (most rural states vote red) and rural states outnumber the urban states.

Not exactly, as urban states often have way more electoral votes than rural ones.

the red rural states have more "votes" per capita. If it were changes, these red leaning states would have fewer votes per capita, and blue leaning states have more votes per capita. On top of that, you need 34 states to pass an amendment. Good luck with that.

for example, north and south dakota, wyoming etc, would only get 1 vote each if electoral votes were distributed purely by population, as opposed to 3 each in the current system.

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
the system as it is favors the republicans (most rural states vote red) and rural states outnumber the urban states.

Not exactly, as urban states often have way more electoral votes than rural ones.

the red rural states have more "votes" per capita. If it were changes, these red leaning states would have fewer votes per capita, and blue leaning states have more votes per capita. On top of that, you need 34 states to pass an amendment. Good luck with that.

for example, north and south dakota, wyoming etc, would only get 1 vote each if electoral votes were distributed purely by population, as opposed to 3 each in the current system.

True, thus one citizen of the US has more of a voice in the nations choice of a leader than another citizen... hardly seems fair to me. Yet another reason to get off the electoral college.

 

[villageidiot111]

The electoral college is mainly unfair due to vote distribution. Take California for example. Even if a candidate only gets 51% of the votes there, he still gets the entirety of California's electoral votes. Thats nearly double the votes the candidate actually earned there. The electoral college weakens the average man's votes, and it has outlived its original purpose. It was originally meant to be a failsafe for if the average man elected a bad president. Think about it, in 1790 the average man was an uneducated farmer. They had no time for politics, and so they would vote for whomever they had actually heard of before. And so the electoral college was created to override a bad election.

 

[Scorpius]

I want anarchy....just kidding...

theis dian elady has a point ...for someone that has been watching the last five elctions close...I actually was surpised that bush won again...despite of loosing the polupar vote...

it should be one wote for one person regardless of state and party...

this makes sense...sooner or later the country will be devided...then how do you work things out??? ........."civil war II"...who knows....

anyhow

merry xmas and that yot...

 

[Scorpius]

what a mess...
i would say count in a "boader population scheme"...instead of one way the state can go...blue or red...isntead tally everything acording to votes per each side...
does that make sense???

 

[kage69]

They should all split'em like they do in Maine. :thumbsup:

 

[MidasKnight]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Destroy the system that determines the house of reps + presidency?

Why not just abolish the entire legislative branch?

I trust our founding fathers on this one over some dimwit senator from California.

:thumbsup:

 

[wchou]

Originally posted by: dragonmasteralex
How the EC works

Try speaking from some knowledge rather than the blind, IGNORANT common opinion of your fellow retards.

Jason

Yea right. OMG 5 post in one reply. What a spammer!

btw, i smell a big lie in that link of yours. Do you take word for words taught you in history class?.
So you can be fed anything, including lies and even fictions like lunar: the silver star?
dragonmasteralex = play too much video games?

You know, instead of making numerous post to different replies, how about condense it to one post? I would much appreciate that. I'm offended that you think most people are retarded, most are average or above average.
Gifted, retarded = rare. next time use common sense!!!


:disgust:

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: MidasKnight

Originally posted by: Genx87
Destroy the system that determines the house of reps + presidency?

Why not just abolish the entire legislative branch?

I trust our founding fathers on this one over some dimwit senator from California.

:thumbsup:

Ok, the guys you gave a thumbs up to isn't correct. The Electoral College has absolutely nothing to do with determining the house of reps, or the senate for that matter, all of that was switched to direct election quite a while ago. Well House reps have always been done by popular vote amongst a county, where Senators were once determined by state legislatures, but like I said it has been changed.

As for trusting our founding fathers, the reason they had it was for logistical reasons, as has been said (by me and others) several times. With this in mind, the very reason we have an EC is no longer relevent.