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lawrocket

Many States Trying to enact Law to Skirt the Electoral College

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In The World According To Don, it's one person, one vote; then you add them all up, without regard to what state the person lives in, and the person with the most votes wins.



No, what that means is that Los Angeles, New York and Chicago would be voting in the President every election, regardless of what the rest of the country might want.


Cities don't vote, people do. One person one vote regardless of where they live. It's VERY simple, all you have to do is think about it.


Unless you live in Chicago then you get to vote as many times as you can work your way through the line. But, to their credit, they do have some rules: If you're dead you only get 3 votes.
(How's that go? Vote Democrat and vote often?) :D

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One person, one vote. I don't give a damn WHERE they live. If you told Iraqis that Al Gore got the most votes, but GWB was made president, they would be even more confused than they are now.

What we have now is not democracy.

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

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You can not afford to totally neglect parts of the country during the campaign like you can with the current system.



Sure you can. It works the same way. Say Hillary Clinton is running for POTUS. You think she's gonna put any energy into campaigning in Lubbock Or Oklahoma City? No. What's the point?

Will she campaign in LA, SF, NY, Boston or Miami? No, not really. She will be in those places frequently, though - for fundraising.

She WILL be campaigning 500 miles east and west of the Mississippi River. She will be campaigning in Florida and Pennsylvania. That's where she'll get the bang-for-her-campaign bucks - the opportunity to gain the most votes.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

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What we have now is not democracy.



Pssst....the US was never founded as a democracy.
So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

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What we have now is not democracy.



Pssst....the US was never founded as a democracy.



Aw, fuck that. I've heard it before and it is utter bullshit. What the fuck are we spreading in Iraq (or trying to)? Republic?

No, we are spreading 'freedom and democracy'.

--------------------------
Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

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Cities don't vote, people do. One person one vote regardless of where they live. It's VERY simple, all you have to do is think about it.



Unless you live in Chicago then you get to vote as many times as you can work your way through the line. But, to their credit, they do have some rules: If you're dead you only get 3 votes.
(How's that go? Vote Democrat and vote often?) :D

Don't forget Florida, where little old Jewish ladies vote for Pat Buchanan and black people are denied the right to vote because someone else with the same name is a convicted felon in a different state.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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If America wants to switch to a popular vote method, fine, we have a process to do this. I don't think it should be done piecemeal by states.



I concur. The EC is set up by the US Constitution. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 states: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."

Then the 12th Amendment kicks in to describe the casting of votes for a POTUS and a VPOTUS.

Now, if the political will is there, then the Constitution can be amended to make the election by a popular vote. This is the way it SHOULD be done.

But - and here's an issue - what if a few states totaling 270 electoral votes decide to use this rule - as few as 11 states. To Amend the Constitution, you need to either have Congress propose it (via 2/3 vote in both houses) and submit it to the States for ratification by at least 3/4 of the states (38 states) or by having 2/3 of the states (34 states) apply to Congress to propose the Amendment.

And, it is not like Amending the Constitution to provide for the popular vote of elected officials has not been done before! Senators used to be elected by the state legislatures until the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913 - a little less than a year after being sent to the states.

So, we now have US Senators popularly elected.

Aside - My personal opinion is that the 17th Amendment sucks. It's done nothing more than make Senators no different from Representatives in being tied to DC Lobbies and opinion polls. Instead of being a check on the House by exercising independent judgment, we have Senators who are just as affected by special interests and polls - the same damned system as the house.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

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Aw, fuck that. I've heard it before and it is utter bullshit.



Do you mean you don't believe it's true? Or do you mean that you think it's a bad choice that should be changed?

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What the fuck are we spreading in Iraq (or trying to)? Republic?

No, we are spreading 'freedom and democracy'.



Oh. Are you one of those people who believe that? How cute.


First Class Citizen Twice Over

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What we have now is not democracy.



And it never has been. What we have is a representative republic.

and the EC works exactly has the founders intended. I works quite well actually
"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

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Aw, fuck that. I've heard it before and it is utter bullshit.



Do you mean you don't believe it's true? Or do you mean that you think it's a bad choice that should be changed?

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What the fuck are we spreading in Iraq (or trying to)? Republic?

No, we are spreading 'freedom and democracy'.



Oh. Are you one of those people who believe that? How cute.



Of course I don't believe that.

But when the Bush admin talks about Iraq, they say that it is our intent to spread democracy around the world. He doesn't say "we need to spread representative republic" to the repressed.

In modern usage, most understand Democracy to mean a government chosen by the people, which is what we have.

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

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A couple of hundred years ago it was decided that the US would be a tight-knit assembly of generally independent governments. Those governments chose the president. Those governments first asked the citizens for their opinion in the matter, but the citizens had no more than an advisory role.



That's what I was getting at. Thank you.
" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

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In The World According To Don, it's one person, one vote; then you add them all up, without regard to what state the person lives in, and the person with the most votes wins.



No, what that means is that Los Angeles, New York and Chicago would be voting in the President every election, regardless of what the rest of the country might want.



But with approximate proportional representation of the population via the number of electoral votes alloted by state, having an electoral college does nothing to stop the influence of large population centers.
" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

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>In modern usage, most understand Democracy to mean a
>government chosen by the people, which is what we have.

If that's true, most would be wrong. A true democracy is a system of government where people vote on everything directly. The closest we come to that are state ballot measures, where you can vote directly on propositions.

What we have instead is a hybrid of several forms of government. We are primarily a republic, which is a system of government based on popular representation and control. We vote for representatives and they decide laws.

We also have elements of a pure democracy (state ballot measures) socialism (the feds own and operate the interstates, ATC and the CDC) communism (we all own the national parks) and monarchy (we have one leader who doesn't have to listen to anyone.)

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You can not afford to totally neglect parts of the country during the campaign like you can with the current system.



Sure you can. It works the same way. Say Hillary Clinton is running for POTUS. You think she's gonna put any energy into campaigning in Lubbock Or Oklahoma City? No. What's the point?

Will she campaign in LA, SF, NY, Boston or Miami? No, not really. She will be in those places frequently, though - for fundraising.

She WILL be campaigning 500 miles east and west of the Mississippi River. She will be campaigning in Florida and Pennsylvania. That's where she'll get the bang-for-her-campaign bucks - the opportunity to gain the most votes.


And all the above, I believe, she will be doing anyway in the next 17 months. Or do you reckon she will be campaigning (not only fundraising) in LA, SF, NY, Boston or Miami in her current campaign? I think she would be more likely to do so if she had to fight for every vote.
On a tangent, I am not necessarily a big fan of the popular vote. But I believe that, in the case of the US, if the "EC" system is to be kept, states should be given more autonomy from the Fed than they currently have, so as to somewhat turn a state popular voting system into a meaningful vote.

"For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

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Aw, fuck that. I've heard it before and it is utter bullshit. What the fuck are we spreading in Iraq (or trying to)? Republic?

No, we are spreading 'freedom and democracy'.



We'd have even less luck trying that. A simple majority rules would be a disaster in Iraq where one ethnic faction would always win.

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Los Angeles is a population of 8,000,000. Omaha is roughly 390,000. If I win in LA, I don't care how the people in Omaha vote (in broad terms).


Unless you win a very tight race in LA, and lose by a lot in Omaha. What matters is not whether you win in LA, Omaha, NYC or Monkey's Eyebrow, KY (my favorite!), but whether you have one more vote than your opponent.



There are a lot more Omaha'ss then LA's. A 10% victory in LA is worth 20 5% victories in these smaller cities. So if you made it a popular vote, the astute candidate will target the biggest population centers where he or she is favored and maximize the gain. Smaller cities that are clusted along an easy transportation route will also be favored over ones that are more geographically remote.

Sure, Bush didn't win in LA, NY, or SF (btw, the city itself only has 750,000 people, San Jose is a bit more centric). I'm sure he won big in Houston and Dallas.

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So polarizing the areas of the country so one group gains at the expense of the other just for political gain is a good idea?


One would argue that looking at the current "political" map, it's already quite polarized...



Which I stated in the original note. This is simply one group trying to get advantage over the other. Simple enough. Trying to say it's 'right' or 'correct' is silly. It's game rules - therefore subjective. Right now, it's very balanced, to make the change would be a huge tip of the scales.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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So polarizing the areas of the country so one group gains at the expense of the other just for political gain is a good idea?


One would argue that looking at the current "political" map, it's already quite polarized...



Which I stated in the original note. This is simply one group trying to get advantage over the other. Simple enough. Trying to say it's 'right' or 'correct' is silly. It's game rules - therefore subjective. Right now, it's very balanced, to make the change would be a huge tip of the scales.



Well, the detailed analysis of voting power is a non trivial exercise in mathematics, and as in most such cases, what appears at first sight to be obvious turns out to be wrong. Those supporters of the Electoral College as it currently exists might be surprised by the actual results.

www.cs.unc.edu/~livingst/Banzhaf/ for description.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Let's say that 70 percent of New York voters vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 election. But New York has this law. John McCain, through his strength in the rest of the country, manages to eke out the popular vote by 50,000 votes. Despite the overwhelming desire of the New York voters, New York's votes go to McCain.

This means that the will of the voters of that state is set aside.



The will of those whose candidate lost is always set aside.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees here. If 270 electoral votes worth of states institute this policy, then we will have a de facto popular voting system. After all the ballots are cast and the count is in, the mechanism by which the popular vote resulted in a candidate being elected is irrelevant. You do, however, raise an excellent point in asking whether this is the proper way for a coalition of states to enact such a change to the election process.

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I didn't say "true democracy', I said the common understanding/usage of the term. Ask the man on the street if the USA is a democracy, and 95% will say yes. That's why Bush says 'spread democratic ideals' and not 'spread republican ideals'.

By definition, the USA is both a liberal democracy and a republic.

--------------------------
Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

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I didn't say "true democracy', I said the common understanding/usage of the term.



There's no point in language if you're going to operate in such a vague way. Many terms are commonly misdefined in speech. That's not an excuse to use in the written word.

Just in the prior post you showed a poor understanding of the word 'dictatorship.' We've seen nothing remotely like one in the US, as much as some whiny pacifists and leftists would like to believe.

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>Ask the man on the street if the USA is a democracy, and 95% will say yes.

Ask a man on the street if we should ban use of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide in schools and hospitals, and 95% of them will say yes as well. Doesn't mean that they know what it is.

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