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Whats with voteing?
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Author:  extremejon09 [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 12:51 am ]
Post subject:  Whats with voteing?
(Ok, maybe I'm right or wrong about this, but this is what I remember from school.)

Ok, for most of our young lives all adults (and MTV) tell us that the people cast there votes for president, and whichever gets the most wins. I found out last year in school that is a complete lie. Only certain people from "Electoral collages" votes count. All that our votes do is decide weather they all vote for a republican or democratic president. And all that I can tell is that the function of the The demo-repub parties is to assure that certain people always vote for a person of that party, and to pretty much block out any independant Canidates. Wow, that all sounds really corrupt to me. Why don't they do somthing that makes sense and allows THE PEOPLE to choose who they want. Like having the most votes win? I'm sure not everyone wants to have a small amount of people represent there votes, and rather have every voter represent themselves.

In short, whats the point?
Author:  Smorky [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:01 am ]
Post subject: 
That's not exactly what it means. Usually the person with the most votes wins, but that is not always true (like the 2000 election). What it means is that whoever gets the most votes in a state gets a certain number of points for each state, and whoever has the most points wins. (Or something like that. I don't exactly remember.)
Author:  Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:03 am ]
Post subject: 
i aggree with this, if we, the people, were allowed to vote for whosoever we want, it would only turn into a popularity contest, and so the electoral college decides to fix the vote so that whoever seems to be able to run the country best will win. so if we were allowed to vote for whoever we want, mickey mouse would be president by now.
Author:  The Tire [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:08 am ]
Post subject: 
Wikipedia wrote:
Election for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States is indirect, for which voting takes place every four years on Election Day. Although ballots typically list the names of the presidential candidates, voters within the 50 states and the District of Columbia actually choose electors when they vote for President and Vice President. These electors in turn cast the official votes for those two offices.


I think we still have a lot of power in picking Presidents. But the electoral college makes sure that it isn't a popularity contest like Choc-O-Lardiac Arrest said.
(I'm not sure about the specifics.)
Author:  Smorky [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:09 am ]
Post subject: 
Well, you can vote for whoever you want as a write in, but with this many people in the United States, I find it very unlikely that anyone would receive more votes than the two main runners.
Author:  ed 'lim' smilde [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:13 am ]
Post subject: 
In some countries, they don't use the electoral college, so it's easy to win with a popular vote of only 20% or so. With a two-party system, the President who wins usually gets a majority of all votes.
Author:  Didymus [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:17 am ]
Post subject: 
This is somewhat a misrepresentation of how our governmental system works. The electorial college bases its voting on the popular vote, but it is divided between the states. It's a hold-over from the days when the states were considered individual sovereignties and not one big collective nation. It was to insure a balance between the needs of the larger states and those of the smaller states. It was also supposed to make the voting process go smoother in a time when there was no electronic equipment to help them count.

Here's how it works: each state has a certain number of electorial votes. The popular vote in that state is used to determine how the state will allocate the electorial votes. However, the vast majority of states just give all their electorial votes to the candidate with the most popular votes within their state. For example, if Georgia had 75% Bush and 20% Kerry, Georgia will give 100% of its electorial votes to Bush.

However, now that we are a unified nation, such a system is not really needed anymore. A reorganization of the electorial college which would allow the state allocation of electorial votes to better reflect the popular vote within the state would help, but probably wouldn't solve all the problems.
Author:  StrongCanada [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:46 am ]
Post subject: 
Canada doesn't use an electoral college, and I don't think it needs one (our government and voting system is flawed in other ways...but that's not what this thread is about...). Didymus is correct - the electoral college was oringinally implemented as a safe-guard of sorts, but these days, to me, it only alienates people, and causes them to believe that their vote doesn't count (which is NOT true - VOTE VOTE VOTE). The US probably would do well without the electoral college; I know a lot of people who think that having it represents a lack of faith in the voting ability of the citizens of this country. Though that's not exactly what is going on. Still, I personally think it should be done away with.

I also think the US voting public needs more options other than just Dem. or Rep. Yes, there are Independants, but they don't get any real attention, unfortunately. Canada has (based on the last time I was there...so the number may be different now) 5 major federal parties to choose from PLUS independant candidates. Of course, our entire voting system is COMPLETELY different....but I digress.

To sum up this post: electoral college = unnecessary.
Author:  King Nintendoid [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:21 pm ]
Post subject: 
The US needs a reform. Lika this. Works :)
Author:  Black Metal [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
I don't like the electoral college. An unlisted flaw that the electors don't HAVE to vote for the person they're supposed to. Even if Candidate A won with all the electoral votes, (Candidate B got 40% of the popular vote, though.), the electors could all decide to vote for candidate B instead, and Candidate B would be the next president instead of the candidate who was elected by the people.

Although its likely to never happen, The republicans or democrats might start a conspiracy like that someday. the whole system of the electoral college was a way of taking power directly out of the people's hands.
Author:  Jitka [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:01 pm ]
Post subject: 
See, the problem with the electoral college is that the person the people elect is sometimes not made President, as was the case in 2000 and in 1876 when Samuel Tilden received more votes than Rutherford B. Hayes, but Hayes became President anyway. I feel that the President, like all other public offices in the U.S., should be directly elected by the people. Then "President" Bush would never have taken office.

He shouldn't have, anyway, but that's another story.
Author:  Didymus [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:31 pm ]
Post subject: 
Actually, the story of Rutherford B. Hayes is much more complicated than that. There were about 20 electorial votes in dispute, and Hayes was actually behind in the undisputed votes. But Tilden struck an agreement with Hayes; he'd let him have the 20 disputed votes if he promised to carry out some of the policies Tilden wanted to see implemented. Hayes agreed. So, in that case, a compromise was reached between the disputing candidates for the best interest of the country. At least that's what I remember from my high school history class.
Author:  kaemmerite [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:10 pm ]
Post subject: 
Actually, getting rid of the electoral college would destroy the "majority rules" concept.

Hear me out on this one, it's simple mathematics.

100% is one whole, everyone in the nation. To have a majority, it would require more than 50%, even if that percentage was 50.000001%, it would be a majority.

Look back at the results of the elections. How many presidents got over 50% of the popular vote? Not too many.

What does this mean? Assume we have two parties and a strong third party candidate (like Perot was), and the results break down like this:

Candidate A: 45%
Candidate B: 34%
Candidate C: 21%

Assuming no margin of error. Looks like Candidate A wins, right? Ah, but you're forgetting something! Majority rules, right? Well, let's see...looks like 55% of the population DIDN'T want Candidate A. Doesn't matter whether they picked B or C, they just didn't want A. So now, the majority is the people who don't want A to be president.

So now how do you determine the winner? If you make A the president without a majority (more than 50%), you're not going with a "majority rules" philosophy.

This is why I completely support the electoral college.
Author:  Smorky [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:15 pm ]
Post subject: 
That is a good point if there are more than two runners, and I think that's exactly what happened with Rutherford B. Hayes. However, most people in the United States either vote Republican or Democrat.
Author:  kaemmerite [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:35 pm ]
Post subject: 
Smorky wrote:
That is a good point if there are more than two runners, and I think that's exactly what happened with Rutherford B. Hayes. However, most people in the United States either vote Republican or Democrat.

True, and I think most third party candidates don't even get into the double digits most of the time...though I think Perot was an exception...didn't he get like 14% or something in the 92 election? *goes to wiki it*
Author:  Katie 80 [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
Actually, I don't think the Electoral College is a balance between less populous states and more populous states, because more populous states have more Electoral Votes in the Electoral College. I think the primary balance between less populous states and more populous ones is the Senate, where each state gets two Senators, regardless of population.

I think that the Electoral College system was put in place originally because it could be a safeguard against electing a charismatic, popular despot. It is possible for someone to win the popular vote but still be someone who would do things that are not good for the country, and I think that the Electoral College is supposed to be a group of educated, thinking people who could break with the how they are "supposed" to vote if they truly felt it was in the best interest of the country. A "faithless elector" is treated like a threat to the democratic process, but can actually be someone who saves it from a popularly-supported tyrant. This may have been more relevant when there was more of a gap between the common person and an educated person, but it is still relevant today.

I was going to cite an anecdote about Hitler being an elected dictator, but apparently I have to read quite a bit of history to figure out how exactly Hitler came to power. It is clear, at least at the beginning, that his political party was very popular.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler
Author:  Jitka [ Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:16 pm ]
Post subject: 
Kaemmerite, you raise a good point. This is why, if we were to remove the electoral college system, we would have to implement a runoff voting system.

This would eliminate problems caused by direct elections, and would ensure that one candidate gets at least 50%.

You may want to check out Instant Runoff Voting, too.
Author:  extremejon09 [ Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:33 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
Assuming no margin of error. Looks like Candidate A wins, right? Ah, but you're forgetting something! Majority rules, right? Well, let's see...looks like 55% of the population DIDN'T want Candidate A. Doesn't matter whether they picked B or C, they just didn't want A. So now, the majority is the people who don't want A to be president.


um....That makes slight sense, but I have to say thats assumeing too much. Why do they assume that its just that they dont want canidite A, but instead what if they liked all of them, but had chose the one he liked most?

um...at this point i'm just going to stop trying to understand Politics.
Author:  Smorky [ Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:58 pm ]
Post subject: 
It's because the majority of the people chose someone other than Candidate A so a majority of the people do not want Candidate A to be President. Of course, a majority of the people also chose someone other than each of the other candidates, so it appears that no one should win.
Author:  IantheGecko [ Sat Sep 03, 2005 3:14 am ]
Post subject: 
King Nintendoid wrote:
The US needs a reform. Lika this. Works :)

As Americans, we don't believe in monarchy.

*bows*
Author:  King Nintendoid [ Sat Sep 03, 2005 9:55 am ]
Post subject: 
IanTheGecko wrote:
King Nintendoid wrote:
The US needs a reform. Lika this. Works :)

As Americans, we don't believe in monarchy.

*bows*


*Slaps*

At what point did you start to think the Queen does anything besides cutting ribbons?
Author:  Jitka [ Sat Sep 03, 2005 2:42 pm ]
Post subject: 
King Nintendoid wrote:
IanTheGecko wrote:
King Nintendoid wrote:
The US needs a reform. Lika this. Works :)

As Americans, we don't believe in monarchy.

*bows*


*Slaps*

At what point did you start to think the Queen does anything besides cutting ribbons?


It doesn't matter. Ceremonial or no, America doesn't do monarchy. We established that quite a long time ago.

And really, only the electoral college needs reform, not the rest of the government. Maybe the politicians need changing, but not the process that selects them. Again, except for the electoral college, which needs removal.

Also, let's try to stay polite and respectful to each other. Like, no slapping. No flame-wars, please.
Author:  Einoo T. Spork [ Sat Sep 03, 2005 2:56 pm ]
Post subject: 
extremejon09 wrote:
um...at this point i'm just going to stop trying to understand Politics.


Good man.
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