Do you think the US should get rid of the electoral college?
Do you think the US should get rid of the electoral college?
(had to remove the poll. Someone with a dynamic IP got to it, too lazy to edit the poll script)
It seems like the purpose of the electoral college doesn't really do anything. I mean everyone should have one vote. It's not about states. I mean sure in 1776 where each state had a lot of power and new states were jumping into the mix it made sense, but at this point in time it seems like using a popular vote election makes a lot more sense.
Not to mention the members of the electoral college can vote for whoever they want or something right? That doesn't sound logical at all when the citizens should have the say.
Anyone have any opinions? (I know there's a few people I've talked to on this before that agreed with me and thought it was a waste of time in the election process).
[Edited by - Sirisian on October 30, 2008 9:13:01 AM]
The Electoral College members are supposed to give their votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote in their state.
This system doesn't help someone like me who is a democrat but lives in a overwhelmingly red state, which is why I don't currently vote.
This system doesn't help someone like me who is a democrat but lives in a overwhelmingly red state, which is why I don't currently vote.
Quote:Original post by Maega
The Electoral College members are supposed to give their votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote in their state.
This system doesn't help someone like me who is a democrat but lives in a overwhelmingly red state, which is why I don't currently vote.
Ditto, but the opposite. Although I vote, and usually the candidate that most closely aligns with my ideals is Republican, MD is a democratic state, which means my vote is just about meaningless. That's not how it should be and makes absolutely no sense.
Although I'm not American, I did think somewhat about that one...
I think electoral college is truly horrible idea. It does not anyhow count popularity or unpopularity in specific state, right? All votes from state go to the winner in that state, regardless by how much that winner won. That is wrong. Essentially, votes in different states get very different weights, and votes in states which are near indifferent have much bigger weight than in states which are affected by something, e.g. by proposed policy, and consequently are more active. That is just crazy, its the inverse of what would be reasonable. Additionally, knowledge of this affects the voters. Votes of large groups of people do not even count, i suppose too few people are attending the voting at all.
Example:
Suppose I propose something that gives benefits to 2/3 of states (well, states that have approximately 2/3 of electoral college votes), at expense of 1/3. Given that it is different states, I can conceivably win by slight majority in 2/3 states (say, 51%), but lose really badly in 1/3 (say, get only 5%). The end result is I still win, even though the proposal is generally disapproved, I don't get true majority of votes, and the thing I'm proposing even could be negative-sum for nation as a whole, all doesn't matter as long as it gives enough carrot to those 2/3 states.
Essentially, electoral college is much worsening the inherent problem present in democracy - possibility for majority to elect to repress minority. It makes that scenario possible even if 'majority' is near indifferent, and even if 'minority' is as large as one third. If we go with idea that nationwide majority vote is flawed, then electoral college is flawed much more so, as it is only worsening the issues.
[Edited by - Dmytry on October 30, 2008 8:19:15 AM]
I think electoral college is truly horrible idea. It does not anyhow count popularity or unpopularity in specific state, right? All votes from state go to the winner in that state, regardless by how much that winner won. That is wrong. Essentially, votes in different states get very different weights, and votes in states which are near indifferent have much bigger weight than in states which are affected by something, e.g. by proposed policy, and consequently are more active. That is just crazy, its the inverse of what would be reasonable. Additionally, knowledge of this affects the voters. Votes of large groups of people do not even count, i suppose too few people are attending the voting at all.
Example:
Suppose I propose something that gives benefits to 2/3 of states (well, states that have approximately 2/3 of electoral college votes), at expense of 1/3. Given that it is different states, I can conceivably win by slight majority in 2/3 states (say, 51%), but lose really badly in 1/3 (say, get only 5%). The end result is I still win, even though the proposal is generally disapproved, I don't get true majority of votes, and the thing I'm proposing even could be negative-sum for nation as a whole, all doesn't matter as long as it gives enough carrot to those 2/3 states.
Essentially, electoral college is much worsening the inherent problem present in democracy - possibility for majority to elect to repress minority. It makes that scenario possible even if 'majority' is near indifferent, and even if 'minority' is as large as one third. If we go with idea that nationwide majority vote is flawed, then electoral college is flawed much more so, as it is only worsening the issues.
[Edited by - Dmytry on October 30, 2008 8:19:15 AM]
Quote:The Electoral College members are supposed to give their votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote in their state.
This system doesn't help someone like me who is a democrat but lives in a overwhelmingly red state, which is why I don't currently vote.
I think this is a good point. Because in America you can choose not to vote, then if the perception is that a particular state is one side or the other, then this discourages people from voting because they feel that their vote is meaningless.
This creates a self fulfilling prophecy where by a person decides not to vote because they think their vote is meaningless, and this then plays out to be true as the second guy won the vote because no one voted for the first guy.
So in effect, the vote does not actually represent the will of the people, but of the spin doctors.
The only solution I can see is for people to vote, even if they think their vote does not count, or to make voting mandatory (as it is here in Australia) - or just change the voting system completely (but changing the whole system completely in one step might be too much change at once).
Yeah. One of the changes I was going to say would be to make voting results public. No one has anything to hide right? Just throw the whole database up online for people to view. Then right after you vote you can go and check if everything is correct. This would solve a lot of problems. You can't slip one past anyone if everyone can look at the results.
Would candidates still visit the smaller states when the electoral college is done away with? Gore/Kerry won California by more than one million votes. Ditto for New York. Bush twice won Texas by more than a million votes. Total votes cast were less than a million in about 20 different states.
This works both ways, though. Some may choose not to vote because they believe their candidate will lose anyway, others may choose not to vote because they believe their candidate will win anyway.
Quote:Original post by Edtharan
I think this is a good point. Because in America you can choose not to vote, then if the perception is that a particular state is one side or the other, then this discourages people from voting because they feel that their vote is meaningless.
This works both ways, though. Some may choose not to vote because they believe their candidate will lose anyway, others may choose not to vote because they believe their candidate will win anyway.
Quote:Original post by Sirisian
Yeah. One of the changes I was going to say would be to make voting results public. No one has anything to hide right? Just throw the whole database up online for people to view. Then right after you vote you can go and check if everything is correct. This would solve a lot of problems. You can't slip one past anyone if everyone can look at the results.
Things actually used to work that way (minus the database, of course.) omg im lessbreading
Quote:Original post by Sirisian
Yeah. One of the changes I was going to say would be to make voting results public. No one has anything to hide right? Just throw the whole database up online for people to view. Then right after you vote you can go and check if everything is correct. This would solve a lot of problems. You can't slip one past anyone if everyone can look at the results.
This is generally a bad idea, It makes it a lot easier to buy votes or to pressure people into voting a certain way.
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