US Presidential Election

[Fey]

I'm glad the Illusive Man didn't become the president -.-b

[bokiz333]

Another thing that has always filled me with wonder, is the US system of electors. Why not simply count all the votes in the country? Right now, if more than half of the people in some very big state vote for one party, then all the electors for that state will be assigned to that one party. From there on it's irrelevant what all the other people in that state voted. So basically, the votes of a few million people in one state are irrelevant, while the votes of a few thousand people in another state may be crucial. Why is Mary in Ohio more important than Lena in Florida?
Especially when an election is as close as this one, it shouldn't just be the "swing states" that determine who is the winner... it should be the entire American population.

Well why did it come around? Because back when it was insituted majority of the population was illiterate and uneducated so they devised a system where each states gets X amount of electoral votes. I believe they dont HAVE to be cast the way the majority votes iirc. Also, the argument was made that because the majority of people live in cities and in certain areas, those ares will become focused on and other areas will get ignored, so now Mary is ignored while Lena is paid attention too.

Anyway, those are just the reasons why the sytem is in place and why some people still defend it. Imo, it is laughably outdated and has no place in the US election. Popular vote only.

[Lucread]

There are only a handful of states that don't have it within their own laws that electoral votes must be made according to the state's results (some even have it to the point where the electoral votes will be split according to the closest percentage approximation available to the number of votes cast and the electoral votes they've been granted, making it so that there is no clear red or blue result)... that said, there are some that, as you mentioned don't require electoral votes to be cast in accordance with the populace vote... and that's a big problem.

The electoral college has more than a few flaws, but one thing is useful for is identifying a winner, and its those problems that make it so. For example, look at last night. Obama won with 265 electoral votes versus Romney's 200... but the popular vote was actually in Romney's favor by about 200,000 votes... where the electoral college not present, and we simply counted the popular votes, Romney would have technically won, but the percentile difference is so minimal that there would be a great number of problems that arose from it... the most simplistic being the demand for recounts, and the most complex being the teetering balance of possible revolt.

For all its faults, the electoral serves a purpose to declare a winner when no clear winner could otherwise be deemed, and in truth, the popular vote is rarely different that the electoral outcome, and when it is, it is always by a very small amount (such as was seen here and back in 2000)... bottom line, the electoral college may be outdated in terms of the reasons it was set forth in the first place, however its function has essentially changed to be something our country likely could not live without given the minimal split.

If it were to be removed, we would have to create similar rules that govern it to govern the popular vote, mosst notably being the number of votes over the opponent that it takes to achieve a victory... given the population of the country, if everyone were to vote, a 1% placement ahead would be just under 3.5 million votes, so you can see how the situation would run into problems. We need a clear winner, and the electoral college gives us that.

[Stonesolid]

There are only a handful of states that don't have it within their own laws that electoral votes must be made according to the state's results (some even have it to the point where the electoral votes will be split according to the closest percentage approximation available to the number of votes cast and the electoral votes they've been granted, making it so that there is no clear red or blue result)... that said, there are some that, as you mentioned don't require electoral votes to be cast in accordance with the populace vote... and that's a big problem.

The electoral college has more than a few flaws, but one thing is useful for is identifying a winner, and its those problems that make it so. For example, look at last night. Obama won with 265 electoral votes versus Romney's 200... but the popular vote was actually in Romney's favor by about 200,000 votes... where the electoral college not present, and we simply counted the popular votes, Romney would have technically won, but the percentile difference is so minimal that there would be a great number of problems that arose from it... the most simplistic being the demand for recounts, and the most complex being the teetering balance of possible revolt.

For all its faults, the electoral serves a purpose to declare a winner when no clear winner could otherwise be deemed, and in truth, the popular vote is rarely different that the electoral outcome, and when it is, it is always by a very small amount (such as was seen here and back in 2000)... bottom line, the electoral college may be outdated in terms of the reasons it was set forth in the first place, however its function has essentially changed to be something our country likely could not live without given the minimal split.

If it were to be removed, we would have to create similar rules that govern it to govern the popular vote, mosst notably being the number of votes over the opponent that it takes to achieve a victory... given the population of the country, if everyone were to vote, a 1% placement ahead would be just under 3.5 million votes, so you can see how the situation would run into problems. We need a clear winner, and the electoral college gives us that.

Sure, if we stopped counting the rest of the votes when he was ahead. I thought it was going to be another 2000 last night, also.

Also, yay Florida: where your vote doesn't matter.

[Toc]

Another thing that has always filled me with wonder, is the US system of electors. Why not simply count all the votes in the country? Right now, if more than half of the people in some very big state vote for one party, then all the electors for that state will be assigned to that one party. From there on it's irrelevant what all the other people in that state voted. So basically, the votes of a few million people in one state are irrelevant, while the votes of a few thousand people in another state may be crucial. Why is Mary in Ohio more important than Lena in Florida?

Especially when an election is as close as this one, it shouldn't just be the "swing states" that determine who is the winner... it should be the entire American population.

Because, if you just have a standard election then only the big cities matter. Presidential candidates will only campaign in the large cities, politicans will only pass laws that are beneficial to ppl in large cities. You very quickly create a system where one small area with a mass of ppl decide for a very large area. All tax money will go to the small area with the large population and all candidates will care about is pleasing the small area with the big population.

It's putting all your sheeple in one basket...

Also, we are the United STATES of America not the Republic of America and originally ppl only voted on their local and state officials letting the ppl they elect choose the federal positions. We have moved farther and farther away from that, one of the last bastions of this system is our use of electors.

[Toc]

Well why did it come around? Because back when it was insituted majority of the population was illiterate and uneducated

What? It has nothing to do with the education of ppl, and if it did then we should keep it because our educational system is getting worse every year and we will soon be back to that.

so they devised a system where each states gets X amount of electoral votes. I believe they dont HAVE to be cast the way the majority votes iirc. Also, the argument was made that because the majority of people live in cities and in certain areas, those ares will become focused on and other areas will get ignored, so now Mary is ignored while Lena is paid attention too.

Each state gets so many votes so that some states are not ignored on a Federal level. No person's vote is "more important" it just appears that way because some states are so evenly split that no one is sure who will get their votes. They are called "swing" states because they can go either way. Some states always vote for one side, therefore candidates don't campaign there as much as they see it as wasted time, but they don't inact policies that hurt those states because they are their backers, they also don't overtly hurt the smaller pop states because of wanting/needing their electorats...

Anyway, those are just the reasons why the sytem is in place and why some people still defend it. Imo, it is laughably outdated and has no place in the US election. Popular vote only.

It is far from a perfect system, but it is anything but "laughably outdated" that would be the idea of a "popular vote only"... that system has been in play since the Athenians... Once the city-states of Greece united they understood the need for representatives from each city-state so that one did not dominate with a win-by-numbers vote.

Like I said above, we are the UNITED STATES of America not the REPUBLIC of America, we are supposed to be individual states that work together, not one mass of ppl. It's all about choices, you can choose the state that best fits your beliefs/ideals.

[Lucread]

Sure, if we stopped counting the rest of the votes when he was ahead. I thought it was going to be another 2000 last night, also.

Also, yay Florida: where your vote doesn't matter.

Oh, nice! I hadn't looked at the numbers since I finally logged on to Guild Wars 2 last night, lol... well that just reaffirms how rare it is to happen. And hey, vote may not matter in Florida, but I live in Utah and have voted for Obama twice now... its purely an exercise in futility here, but I still went out and did it!

[bokiz333]

What? It has nothing to do with the education of ppl, and if it did then we should keep it because our educational system is getting worse every year and we will soon be back to that.
.

That was the one of the many different reasons for it...at least I've run across that rationale in several pieces of literature about this topic. I'm only as uninformed as my sources so maybe it's wrong but certainly not something I made up.

And no, literacy is almost universal in the US right now, and not like it was when the electoral system was put into place. There was also no internet, TV, etc to make the populace as educated or vested in the voting system. So I think it MAY have made sense back then; I wont say one was or the other since I didnt live back then, but it no longer makes sense now.

[Bell]

You say that as though it's a good thing. All it really does is ensure that lots of legislation is passed against the wishes of the voters, often with support from both parties.

Actual vital legislation will pass regardless because... you know... it's vital. The rest shouldn't have been passed in the first place.

Well, if you think "vital" legislation will be passed multipartisanly anyway, you don't seem to follow politics on a regular basis. Politicians sacrificing the greater good of the country for their own petty goals or those of the lobbies they're funded by are sadly not an exception, but the rule.

Also by your logic all legislation which is passed is passed agains the wish of the voters, unless all passing parties amount to 100% of the seats in parliament, which will hardly be the case. there will always be voters whose decision for one party will lead to nothing because this party lost. That's the way democracy works.

And yes, I think it's a good thing to get legislation through parliament. Otherwise nothing gets done. And with the foul compromise that's been riddling the legislative body in Austria over the last few years I'm really longing for some majority census system like the US have or like Britain has on a less drastic scale.

the relative census system (every party gets as many seats in the parliament as their percentage of the vote says(well, roughly at least)) most continental European countries have tends to create lots of unstable coalition between parties that don't fit together ideologically. We are currently governed by a coalition of social democrats(which is of course a left wing party much like British Labour or even more left wing, probably) and the people's party(which is a mixture of right wing neocons, farmers and catholics); Every idiot would see that this is a poor combination for a coalition, but with the outcome of the polls no other coalition was possible because obviously nobody wanted to work together with the third strongest party, which is a xenophobic ultra right wing party that's consisting of Neonazis and poorly educated young males.

This leads me to the conclusion that a clear government that can actually pass the legislation their voters would want them to pass is better than a vague government that passes legislation that's based on a compromise nobody really wants. Not to say that compromise is all bad; but there are topics, like education for instance, where the factions are so divided that they will never reach an agreement on how to reform the sector properly while our country's teenagers get increasingly worse at reading and maths.

[Toc]

That was the one of the many different reasons for it...at least I've run across that rationale in several pieces of literature about this topic. I'm only as uninformed as my sources so maybe it's wrong but certainly not something I made up.

I have never heard of/read anyone stating that the education level of our people was the reason for the electoral college.

It was put into place so that the STATES elect the POTUS and not the largest group of people. They were avoiding the Roman and British empire problems of disenfranchised populations that had no effect on national issues/representatives. We had just faught a war for our independence based mostly on the fact that we were being ruled by an entity that we had no representation to. "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" was the slogan. Each state sending Reps and Senators ALONG with our electoral college are our means of insuring every STATE has a say in the the direction of our nation. When you vote it is to decide what your STATE will do with it's votes. The amount of votes each state gets is the sum total of their representaion in the federal government, this in turn is decided by population.

You saying that this was put into place because of our educational system is factually wrong.

You saying that this is an old system and we need to go to one that is older is ironic.

The only rational reason for leaving this system is if we are wanting to do away with states and just have one national system. This is slowly happening and if it continues then we will, in time, leave the system we currently use and go back to the popular vote method.

I believe this is a bad idea and that the more diverse and free each state is the stronger and more free we will be as a people.

You, obviously, feel different and that is fine, but do not try and state that the founding fathers created this form of state driven election because of educational levels. It discredits them and the people that made this nation (of whom I would give more credit to for the ability to elect a person than the people of today).