A big question for everybody

[evansnakes]

I was listening to the debate the other day on the state of Colorado wanting to change their electoral vote system for voting for the Presidential election. If you guys don't know, let me just fill you in real quick, when I candidate wins a state they win all that states electoral votes. Colorado wants to change the state system to 5 electoral votes for the winner and 4 for the loser. So in one way Colorado would become less desirable to campaign for as you have so little to gain over the loser and you could spend your money in other states that are winner take all. Makes sense, but, if Colorado was not alone and every state had the same system, candidates would have to respect and campaign nationwide instead of just in the states they feared losing.

Here in Michigan and in Ohio and Pennsylvania we have had all the top players in both campaigns visit us almost daily the past few months. If you live in most states outside our area, you have seen very little of the candidates (except in Florida of course). So what do you guys think? Should we change the system to make them work harder?

I personally think that the electoral college should be junked entirely. It was set up in colonial days when they did not have the technology and communications that we have today. I think each and every American who votes should have their vote count by the popular vote numbers being the vote count that directly gives the winner the presidency. With the electoral college we have states where 49% of the voters in the state are seeing their vote thrown away as the winner takes all the electoral votes regardless of margin. No electoral college would mean every single vote would count 100% toward who would win the office. Now wouldn't that motivate more people to vote? Wouldn't that make everyone, regardless of personal political views, feel like they were part of the process of choosing their president? I think that would do much good for this country.

Rich, I don't know if and or when you will move this thread, but with just 5 days until we vote for president I thought it was a solid non partisan topic to talk about. E

[Chris@TSE]

Not to be an ass or anything, but....

Is the BOI the appropriate place for this post???? :(

[sirenofthestorm]

I am all for junking the electoral college, or splitting the votes, like maine does and colorado wants to. One vote should be worth one vote, not worth more in a small state, and less in a heavily populated state.


Of course, the small states will never ratify a constitutional amendment. So it'll have to be at the state level, which could take ages to implement.

[CAV]

Originally posted by sirenofthestorm
I am all for junking the electoral college, or splitting the votes, like maine does and colorado wants to. One vote should be worth one vote, not worth more in a small state, and less in a heavily populated state.

Abolishing the EC would be unequivocally contrarian to every known source of insight into the Founding Father's ideology for producing and ratifying the United States Constitution.

The inclusion of the EC was essential in the debate to gain the support of the smaller states during ratification. The EC guarantees that each vote is equal and "not worth more in a small state, and less in a heavily populated state". It's whole purpose is to ensure that a single large state doesn't lend a lopsided slant to the national election.

The argument as to how each state should divide its electorate is completely a state's right issue. With that said, I do not believe Colorado's proposal will with stand up to judicial review, even if it passes. It is written to become effective immediately, including the current election. That essentially amounts to changing the rules during the contest.

[evansnakes]

Chris, you are being an ass. If you read my post you would have seen that I specificialy told Rich that I knew this would get moved and that he would be doing it shortly. Sadly, the most important thing in this country right now is less important than selling a couple reptiles. No, the BOI is not the right place, this is much more improtant than the BOI, BUT that is the only forum on this site that gets any hits. Everyone in the reptile business whines about government but nobody does anything to make changes.

[sirenofthestorm]

Evan, THANK YOU!!!!!!! finally, someone who doesn't just want to complain and whine but not show an iota of civic duty.




And CAV, that just isn't true. Votes count more in small states like maine and rhode island because they have disproportionate representation in the electoral college relative to their population size. Since they (small states) have the constitutional minimum of representatives (2), adding the two votes from the senate seats gives them a total of 4 electoral votes.
Now the senate-based electoral votes don't add too much weight to obviously populous states like california, texas, or new york. But they give small states more power in the electoral college than the number of people that live there. Did I explain it well enough now?

And I think we can all agree that the whole idea behind assigning electors [B]at the time[/Bold] the Constitution was drawn up was to select the most respected, educated men from each district and have them debate which candidate would be the best President. Its rare now that the debate style of the electoral college is left behind for party-appointed electors, but it wasn't a rare occurance if electoral votes were split between the candidates, before.

Now that literacy is extremely high, I honestly don't see many illiterate farmers and merchants like there were in the eighteenth century. The only reason I can see that people don't vote now is that they're apathetic, its not a priority. Apathy is not a reason to keep around a relic like the electoral college, in my opinion. The Constitution is a living document, not frozen in stone, or else slaves would still only count for 3/5 of freedmen. I say keep the good parts, change the outdated.

[CAV]

Originally posted by sirenofthestorm
And CAV, that just isn't true.

Um, actually it is not only "true" but also factual. The Federalist Papers discussed the details quite nicely. :)

Originally posted by sirenofthestorm
Votes count more in small states like maine and rhode island because they have disproportionate representation in the electoral college relative to their population size. Since they (small states) have the constitutional minimum of representatives (2), adding the two votes from the senate seats gives them a total of 4 electoral votes.
Now the senate-based electoral votes don't add too much weight to obviously populous states like california, texas, or new york. But they give small states more power in the electoral college than the number of people that live there. Did I explain it well enough now?

You just strengthened my point with your justification. Contrary to your personal interpretation, THAT is exactly how the framers wanted it! Each and every state has equal representation under the two senator rule. THAT is exactly the reason that there are two houses of the legislature; one based on population, and one that is equal. The number of votes in the EC is a mirror image of the legislative branch. Equal representation regardless of size was a key compromise during the Constitutional Conventions. ;)


Originally posted by sirenofthestorm
I say keep the good parts, change the outdated.

When that is warranted, I agree. Unfortunately, the inability of the general public to grasp the concept for, and the reasoning behind the EC doesn't constitute a "need." :)

[Mister Internet]

Originally posted by CAV
When that is warranted, I agree. Unfortunately, the inability of the general public to grasp the concept for, and the reasoning behind the EC doesn't constitute a "need." :)

Heh, that was nicely said.

Another side benefit to the EC is protecting the rest of the states from an easily influenced population center. If votes were purely majority, candidates would spend all their time in big cities, trying to influence the urban population which, stereotypically, has a pack mentality and is easily influenced. Hilary Clinton is proof of this effect in action.

If someone campaigns in big cities to the largely minority and largely undereducated people groups, you would get a ton of votes that would be pack mentality activity based not on who was right for office, but "what's in it for me". This is a desperate demographic, and is easily preyed upon.,

[sirenofthestorm]

So you just skipped over the whole evolution of the electoral college from a debate between educated and respected members of the communities, to prevent an unruly uneducated public from totally overrunning the government with mob passions, to a position gained only by party loyalty.
The even headed, educated debate was (and is) more important than the semantics, in my opinion.

And what federalist papers are you talking about? can I get numbers please?

[sirenofthestorm]

And CAV, yes there is supposed to be equal represenation IN CONGRESS, that's what a republican form of government is. But, I thought it was a democratic republic, meaning that we get to elect our representatives, except of course for the president, who we elect represenatives to elect.


Originally posted by Mister Internet
If someone campaigns in big cities to the largely minority and largely undereducated people ... This is a desperate demographic, and is easily preyed upon.,


And I'm not even going to go there....

[evansnakes]

But the dilema stands. With the electoral college nearly half of the votes in each state are discarded in a sense as they are meaningless once the state is won regardless of how many there are. People are disenfranchised and don't vote because they think their vote doesn't count and in this system in almost every case, they are right. You vote directly for every other elected position to vote for at every level. The reality is that the system was created, as stated by the founding fathers, for the main reason of it being impossible back then to collect and count the votes in the colonies in a timely manner. Today you can vote in alaska and everyone in the world knows the poll data seconds later. It is obsolete. How sad is it that you can listen to the media excitement over voter turn out for this election because there may be 110 million Americans showing up to vote? I will tell you how sad. That is still half or less of eligible voters! What other country on Earth that has the great right to vote squanders it in such a terrible way? Nobody. 90%+ of the population votes in Russian! How about Afghanistan? If we want to tell people that we truly are a democracy and we are going to be so arrogant as to tell the rest of the world to envy our system, wouldn't it be great if our own people cared? If our citizens votes counted?

[Chris@TSE]

Originally posted by evansnakes
Chris, you are being an ass. If you read my post you would have seen that I specificialy told Rich that I knew this would get moved and that he would be doing it shortly. Sadly, the most important thing in this country right now is less important than selling a couple reptiles. No, the BOI is not the right place, this is much more improtant than the BOI, BUT that is the only forum on this site that gets any hits. Everyone in the reptile business whines about government but nobody does anything to make changes.

So basically I'm an ass because I pointed out the thread did not belong in the BOI even tho you basically WHORED it there to get hits Evan? Lets not resort to this, you're a good guy and I have alot of respect for you. I agree with you as well, I just did not read your entire first post and realized it did not belong where it was.

I wish things were different, but alot of people, even with the huge turnouts this year, will still not vote because they know that a great percentage of their votes will be for not....

[Clay Davenport]

In a worst case scenario, 100% of the votes in 39 states and 49% in the remaining 11 could be for nothing at all under the EC.
Eleven states can gain the win, and it only takes 51% to win the state.

Just for fun I ran the numbers.
According to the 2003 population estimate, there are currently 216,557,469 people over 18 in this country.
61,709,425 votes could carry the 11 states with the most EC votes thus gaining the required 270 votes to win.
That means if 61,709,425 voted for candidate A, and 154,848,044 voted for candidate B, then in this example candidate A would win. That cannot possibly represent the interests of the people when 2.5 times as many people voted for the loser.
Granted, this exact situation would never happen, but it does not need to be that extreme for the point to be made.

I see the argument for the EC, but I still believe that every vote should count regardless. Sure, CA with their 26 million potential voters would carry alot of weight as a state, but not one of them would be any more powerful than anyone else in the country.
As it stands, the states with the highest EC votes get the attention from the candidates anyway so little would change there. When is the last time you heard of a presidential candidate making a campaign tour through Montana hoping to grab their 3 whole votes.
In the states they do visit, how often do they stray out into the countryside anyway. They stay in the cities where they can reach the most people in the shortest time so pack mentality comes into play anyway. It's just in the current situation, the pack mentality in the cities nullifies the opposing votes from the rural areas by sheer numbers.

Aside from the problems with the method of presidential election I have little interest in making the trip to the polls for lack of options. In reality the election itself is just something to try to make you feel better about the screwing you are going to get for the next four years because you're going to get one either way.
Where's the choice? You have rich boy number one against rich boy number two, both claiming they can best represent a nation full of people who will never in their lives earn the amount of money the candidates were born with. It's like Trent Lott becoming head of the NAACP.
You can believe nothing they say for the very reason it came from their mouth. Since you can't take them at their word, they give you nothing to vote for. Myself, I'm tired of having to vote against something. Trying to pick the lesser of two evils which ultimately is the one who can sling mud with the most accuracy.

Primarily for the above reasons, I take little interest in excercising my right to vote for the president. If my vote actually meant anything, and if for once in my life a candidate would give me something to be for rather that a list of things to oppose, then my attitude would change.

[evansnakes]

Clay, it sucks. We are the only major democratic society in the world that is a two party system. Countries like Canada, England, Australia, etc., parties have to get other groups to back them, they have to reach accross the isle. How great would it be if our congress had to work together to get things done that we wanted done instead of just wasting time while they passed $400+ million in garbage pork barrel spending a couple weeks ago, to give tax breaks to PGA golfers and horse racing venues??? It is total bull! Why do professional golfers need tax breaks?

It sucks when you get down to two guys worth hundreds of millions of dollars talking about the middle class, something they have never been a part of and know nothing about, BUT if for no other reason, consider the importance of voting this election because of the potential long term implications of the supreme court for the next generation. The president that appoints the next 1-4 supreme court justices will change the climate of this country for a generation.

[evansnakes]

How about a scary story for Halloween? If the 2 candidates should tie at 269 electoral votes each, which it turns out is not as unlikely as it seems, then the Congress votes in the candidate they want as president. Talk about our votes meaning nothing, there you go.

Just on side note, the 2 candidates have now spent over $550,000,000 on this campaign. Can you imagine what we could do to improve the lives of so many Americans with that money?

[evansnakes]

The sickest stat yet, the total dollar amount spent on televison advertising on the 2004 presidential election by both parties and other groups.... $1,505,000,000!!! How does that make you feel?

[Chris@TSE]

ill :(

[dwedeking]

On the topic of Cav's posts, the original country was not designed as a solid group of people under the US but rather each person was a citizen of their state, and the states were joined together to form a partnership in dealing with foreign entities and interstate dealings. So a private citizen did not call themselves "Americans" but instead "Virginians" or "Floridians" (as an example). So they elected a national leader by first deciding who would represent the state the best not who would represent the individual citizen the best. This is the reason behind the electoral college.

Since the civil war ended (the main purpose of the civil war was the destruction of states rights), the basic premise explained above has become less and less important as has the state entity. With mass transit and mass communications the basic thought process of American citizens is moving away from state citizenship. As such the electoral college is antiquated. The hard part is to develop a way to move to a popular vote at a single time, as having 1/2 the country vote one way and the other 1/2 the other would cause many issues.

[dwedeking]

Evan,

Do you see the duality of your posts?

You want each states votes to count as more, promoting more campaiging in each state.

You then point out the dollars spent on campaigning.

Wouldn't increasing the campaigning increase the dollars spent?



I'm curious how candidates and various groups are supposed to get out the message they are trying to send without large TV advertising? Low cost pamphlets mailed to people? How many caresheets have you handed out that you KNOW the people are NEVER going to read :( and that is for a living creature right in front of them on a daily basis. You think their going to study and read about issues that they probaby only think about for 2 months every 4 years? Personal attendance at political rallies would be physically impossible for every citizen in the US (especially with only 2 candidates, just got get to that many places in a few months).

[Brownie55]

Originally posted by dwedeking
I'm curious how candidates and various groups are supposed to get out the message they are trying to send without large TV advertising? Low cost pamphlets mailed to people? How many caresheets have you handed out that you KNOW the people are NEVER going to read :( and that is for a living creature right in front of them on a daily basis. You think their going to study and read about issues that they probaby only think about for 2 months every 4 years? Personal attendance at political rallies would be physically impossible for every citizen in the US (especially with only 2 candidates, just got get to that many places in a few months).

Have you really learned anything from those political soundbites? The main purpose seems not to inform, just to say, "Hey, morons, my opponent sucks." I wish I had the money. No wonder the media conglomerates grow stronger and stronger with an infusion of cash like that. They have every incentive to support the status quo. No wonder we get such weak candidates, those are the ones that need to spend the most.

[dwedeking]

Have you really learned anything from those political soundbites? The main purpose seems not to inform, just to say, "Hey, morons, my opponent sucks." I wish I had the money. No wonder the media conglomerates grow stronger and stronger with an infusion of cash like that. They have every incentive to support the status quo. No wonder we get such weak candidates, those are the ones that need to spend the most.

Yes, I've learned that is the depth of character on the two choices available. :D

[evansnakes]

Daniel, my posts are not contradictory. What I would like to see is the dismantling of the electoral college as it directly goes against the principles of our democracy, if you are going to be calling it that. Second, I would like to see REAL campaign finance reform. Get rid of all the money that doesn't belong there. How about these stats?

the 2 candidates spent a total of $63,500 of their own money

1.5 billion was spent on the election, much of that tax dollars and contributions from people who make very little money each year

the 2 jerks running are worth hundreds of millions of dollars (maybe billions). Add in the vice presidential candidates and it soars that much more. 4 mega rich people that need to take tax dollars away from social security, education, etc., to run for office?

if you are going to allow the process to be ruled by the two parties who can at a whim cut third party candidates out of debates, off of ballets and tie them up with thousands of lawsuites to protect the 2 parties from competition, then it bites the other way too! We no longer match tax dollars to campaign dollars! Simple. The law of campaign matching money was created to give candidates without the money a chance to compete but since the rich guys want to cut them out and pervert the system, toss it out! They only spend their own money and money legally raised by their parties!

The candidates the have to have real debates, not staged jokes like what they give us now. They also would have to travel around the country instead of going to Ohio over 40 times a year and not going to 15 states once!

For the people, by the people, PERIOD.

[dwedeking]

ok, I misunderstood, I thought you were upset at the fact they use mass media and spend money on it, but rather your upset at the source of the money. Acceptable.

The candidates the have to have real debates, not staged jokes like what they give us now. They also would have to travel around the country instead of going to Ohio over 40 times a year and not going to 15 states once!

Actually I doubt this would happen. Instead they would focus on large population states and skip over the ones that do not have a large population base. For example California has 35,484,453 people (as of 2003). North Dakota has 633,837 (also as of 2003). That makes CA 56 times more important to a candidate than ND using Popular Vote. Using the Electoral Vote system CA is only 18 times more important than ND thereby giving ND more representation for their issues. With the federal government expanding it's role in all areas of rule this would mean more and more that large urban populations would decide many issues from social to economical. This will widen the gap in differences between Americans, maybe causing a split down the road (I'm not sure that is a bad thing)

They would still use mass media and emotional ads as those are far more effective in making the general public vote one way or the other than actual debate (especially when there is little choice between the candidates). Frankly, the general public of America buys a car based on which super model the actor in the ad is able to land, and sadly their presidential decisions have just as much depth.

Great discussion though.

[evansnakes]

But don't forget, if you were talking popular vote, you may have many many more votes in California but 3/4 of them will be democrats where as south dakota is a republican state that sometimes votes democrat so they may be more of a target as the break in the large states like NY, CA, TX are already a foregone conclusion to some extent.

I have been up all night watching the returns and it just still makes me angry that the votes of so many people are invalidated by the electoral college. Some states went 50%/49% for the two major bozos. So half that state is tossed away. If Bush has now won and is in fact re-elected, out of 112,000,000 people that it looks like voted, he won by less than 3,000,000. What is that? 2-3%? That is really not much when you think about it but I am at least happy if the winner actually wins the popular vote this time around even as I may be unhappy with the results.