Shoehorn!

It isn't by majority vote of the people, it is decided by the Electoral College. Please take 5 minutes and read what the Electoral College does and why your vote doesn't make a difference.

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Shoehorn!

Here, I'll even do most of the work for you - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...ctoral_College .

Now all you have to do is read the first sentence. If you're interested in politics, read the entire page. You might learn something.

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Chio

You are dumb! That makes no sense! You are a traitor to say such things!

/end deluded American

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Chio

Ps Gbp/jpy!

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Shoehorn!

Calling you.

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hollinator

Yep - that's gov. 101. I've known that since high school. It's really depressing if you think about it.

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kane

I have been saying for years that the electoral college is outdated and needs to be thrown out. The presidential election should be like all the other elections, the person that gets the most votes wins.

AlienQ - BANNED FOR LIFE

The electoral college system, like the national convention, is an indirect element in the process of electing the president. The Constitution does not require the electors to vote as pledged, but many states have enacted laws that do require their electors to vote as pledged.

At any rate...
Yeah Al Gore lost becuase of the Electoral College. He go the popular vote needed.

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baddog

Yeah, eliminate the Electoral College then we can stop worrying about what people in flyover states think.

Chio

Nothing like quoting wikipedia to sound smart

Then following with your own sentence that has misspellings.

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Shoehorn!

Same here, its one of the things that I actually remember and at the time thought it was stupid and still think its stupid.

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kane

I disagree. Every person in the country should get one vote for president. You cast your vote then they add up all the votes and the person with the most votes wins. How is that ignoring the flyover states?

munki

I'm ok with anything that eliminates power for the fly-overs...

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AlienQ - BANNED FOR LIFE

Oh ya caught me there smart guy.
Next time I will put quoates or something.
That OK for you?

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spunkmister

I believe he meant that if it was done the way you suggest then Candidates would only bother campaigning in states with the largest population, and skip the smaller less populated states.

StuartD

It was discussed a lot on this and many other message boards when Bush was elected despite not having the majority vote.

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spunkmister

Honestly after the whole Al Gore incident I believe more people are aware of the Electoral College than you think. They may not fully understand the reasons but I think they know what it means.

SweetT

Basically if we went to an entirely Popular vote, all a candidate would have to do is go to California, Texas, and Florida (and maybe throw in NY for good measure) and promise everyone there the moon and the stars to get their vote. Forsaking any other states and their own needs would make the other 46 or so states go hungry while the most populous states got rich. It would guarantee them a victory while ignoring the majority of the states needs.

Remember that the US is not really a dominance government, we are made up of a group of states that all have their own input into the way our country is to be run. Everything in our history was designed to keep it that way. If not we end up like other single government countries like China and India.

Just my $.02


--T

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notoldschool

who really cares what someone in the middle of the woods thinks?

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kane

They basically already do. Most of the candidates know where the battleground states are and where they need to focus. In the states where they know they are going to win big they rarely visit and the states that are close they spend a lot of time there. I would argue that having them visit really doesn't mean much. Most people know they are full of shit. They come in promise you things they won't actually follow through with and leave and the only people that really show up to listen are their supporters. With the internet, radio, TV and all kinds of print media there is plenty of ways for people to find out what the candidate stands for so there is really very little reason for them to actually show up in your state.

SweetT

I bet Ron Paul does ;)

I happen to have a ton of respect for Ron Paul...I agree with most all of his views on government...and as I recall he is originally from Pennsylvania so I would think that he and his family would really hate it if all of the decisions the government made only concentrated on a few states.


--T

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baddog

Because if the Electoral College was abolished candidates would not have to give a damn about the concerns of the residents of Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District Of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and a host of other states.

Win CA, PA, NY, FL, TX, IL, GA, MI and you skate in.

baddog

Thank you. I would have thought Kane would be able to figure that one out.

okok

This statement over-simplifies the issue and is an unfair summary of the Electoral College's role.

Wikipedia has a nice summary of perceived pros and cons for the system:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Arguments_for_and_ against_the_current_system

baddog

Make it an even $1. You are correct.

Does it hurt when you think?

mozadek

wow, thank you for the 8th grade civics lesson.

kane

Well, I guess I disgree. This seems to be the common argument for the electoral college but look at it this way. There are many states where one candidate has a huge lead over the other. For example in the last election Bush won about 65% of the vote in a handful of southern and midwest states. How much time do you think Kerry spent there knowing he had no chance? On the other side of the coin Kerry won 3-4 stats by the same margin. I doubt Bush spent much time in those states. However in California and Florida it was pretty close as it was in many states so I don't think any one candidate could go to either place and win all the votes.

Now imagine this. Say I am a democrat and I happen to live in Texas. Why should I even bother voting for president? I know Kerry has no shot in hell of winning the state so my vote doesn't matter or count. If it were a popular election my vote would actually count. I wonder how many people stay home on election day for that exact reason? With a popular election Kerry could have gone into Texas and rallied some of his supporters. Maybe he could have rounded up some extra support in other southern states from people who feel disenfranchised and don't vote because they know their state is going one way or the other. The same could have been for Bush. He could go places like New York and Vermont and maybe get more support. The modern electoral system alienates voters who's ideals are not the same as the majority of their state.

Another thought. Eliminating it could help to curb tampering. As it is right now we end up going red state, blue state then we have a couple of states that end up deciding it. Every election you hear about things that went on that were underhanded in that state. These things could be somewhat eliminated because it wouldn't matter who got the most votes in one state. Instead of having to do whatever you could to get every last little vote in one state where a few votes could win the whole thing, you would focus on the country as a whole. If there were tampering in one state and that caused the loss or gain of a few hundred votes, the impact that would have would be greatly diminished. Think of Florida in 2000. After all the recounts were finally done and chads were dealt with, Bush won by around 1500 votes. Those 1500 votes won him the election so they were worth their price in gold. In general election he would still have gotten those 1500 votes, but still lost by 500,000 so the those 1500 votes would not have been worth much at all. . . for that matter they would have been worth what every other vote was which is one vote.

kane

The same can be said about the electoral college system. Win the big states, even if you just win them by 1 vote each and you win. If you win CA, PA, NY, FL, TX, IL, GA, MI you get 206 electoral votes you only need a few more to win. Throw in OH, NJ, WA, AZ, and GA (or mix and match several others in that list) and you win it with over 270 votes. So you pulled off the win and only won 13 states.

It is possible for one candidate to win 37 states, get twice the popular vote and still lose.

Do you really think that a candidate is going to go into CA, FL, NY or any state for that matter and win 100% of the vote? It would never happen.

kane

I did read my reply. I'm reasonably confident they have TV and the internet in the midwest so they too can learn about candidates.

baddog

They are too busy watching the weather channel.

SweetT

Your points are well made and I am not saying that they have no merit. I just do not like giving that much power to such a small geographical section of our entire country. Remember that our country is founded on the principal that states govern the country not the individuals within the states. If that were the case, we would simply call ourselves America...not The United States of America.

Again, I am not bashing your points...they are well thought out and have merit. I, personally, just think that when you give that much power to such a small part of the country that you are opening yourself up to HUGE abuses of power. If you think that the "hanging chad" debacle was bad, wait until you see what could happen under a popular vote system. Imagine a President campaigning on platforms such as raising the minimum wage in Calfornia and Texas to $35/hour while decreasing the rest of the states to $1.95. I know that I am using an absurdity to make a point, but the point is still the same. ;)


--T

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baddog

I thought I was the only one making absurd examples to make a point.

kane

I guess we just disagree on which system actually gives too much power to too small a group. You can look at the last election and see a state like Texas as a great example. Bush is from Texas and still lives there. He was governor there and still Kerry got 38% of the vote. Even in the most conservative of the conservative states Kerry got around 30-35% of the vote and the opposite can be said of Bush even in the most liberal states he got 35% or higher. I can't imagine there will ever be a day where any one candidate could possible win 100% of the vote in any state. I think with the availability of the media to everywhere in the country it would be very hard for any candidate to promise one state too much and not enough to another. If a candidate promised minimum wage increases to a couple of states but not the other states, it would take about 20 minutes before that information was everywhere.

Our population is large enough and diverse enough that I think under a popular election any candidate would have to focus on just about every state in order to get enough votes to win. As it is now you just focus on your stronghold states and the battleground states and ignore the states you don't have a chance in.

pocketkangaroo

In the same sense, many states that are solid red or solid blue don't get any notice either. Illinois has been blue for as long as I can remember, and that makes our state completely irrelevant in a general election. Same can be said for Mass., NY, and California. Those are probably four of the biggest and most influential states in the country in terms of business. Their votes literally mean nothing in November.

So what it comes down to is 5-10 swing states that get all the attention while the other 40 get nothing. John McCain will not step foot in Illinois, and won't give two shits about my state. Barack Obama won't step foot in Texas for that matter.

That leaves us with a vote in Florida being worth much more than a vote in Illinois. At least with a nationwide popular vote, everyone's vote counts as one. Right now, my vote counts as almost nothing while Florida's vote will impact the entire country.