Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Lance,
After this election I think we will see a major overhaul of our entire voting process. In fact, I know we will because somehow a state is going to have to have their general assembly choice their states candidate.

Lance, good article, you made some excellent points.

While I’m not at all convinced it would be wise to switch to a popular vote or not, I do think it’s necessary that we eventually phase ourselves into a ranked voting system. It will give third party and independent candidates a stronger voice, while helping to force more diverse viewpoints into our national political discussion. Changing to a ranked voting system will do more to level the political playing field at a national level than any amount of campaign finance reform law ever could.

I agree and would like to go a step farther and strengthen the communitarian, confederal aspects of our system at other levels, too. We ought to have a requirement that congressional districts can’t be so arbitrary — that their boundaries must follow the boundaries of existing governmental/taxing boundaries.

We had an interesting case here in southwest Michigan in the primaries in August. The race for state representative turned out to be hotly contested, because the Republican state rep, Lorence Wenke, had come out in favor of gay marriage. (I think he has gotten quite a bit of national attention, too.) Actually, nobody knew until election day how much this had got people up in arms.

The interesting case relevant to your issue was in the small town of Athens. At the last minute it turned out that some of the people there were not in the state rep district they had thought they were in. I guess it took some close deciphering of the electoral boundaries map for some folks to know for sure who their rep was. There had been confusion among the candidates, too. At the very last minute, some of the candidates found they had potential constituents they didn’t know they had had, and vice versa.

The reason this sort of confusion is bad is that these arbitrary districts destroy local community identity. Local communities ought to mean something. Candidates ought to be appealing not just to individuals as individuals, but to individuals as members of communities. But there is no motivation for candidates to appeal to the voters of Athens, telling why their policies would be good for the community of Athens, when Athens doesn’t even exist as a separate entity for electoral purposes.

The people in Colorado understand this. Democrats and Republicans alike realize that if you destroy the winner-take-all system for presidential electoral votes there, it makes Colorado less important in national politics and governance.

I agree that we are going to need a major overhaul to the voting process. We are quite ideologically polarized right now, and if our elections continue to remain so close that they must be deicided by the Supreme Court, then people will demand a better system. But even if the elections are not so close, there is certainly value in looking for a better system.

I think the “ranking voting system” or “instant runnoff voting” was dismissed too quickly above. Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s not a great solution. Granted, they need to figure out how to compile the results more quickly, but given a faster system, this has great potential.

This type of a system really encourages the success of third party candidates as well as the need for voters to be well-informed.

That last issue raises a point which is completely seperate from this thread, but I’ll just point out that it has become increasingly difficult for the average voter to be well-informed. You would think that with the amount of media saturation, voters could find some good information pretty easily, but given the nature of the coverage and the nature of the campaign rhetorik, voters are required to do so much truth-finding research that many are reluctant to engage in the process at all. This is another area where our system needs to be reformed.

Lance your arguments don’t hold up. You said: “Now turning out another 5% in California could completely wipe out the votes of several states. In an electoral college system, California will be designating the same amount of votes to candidates for ten years.”

Turning out another 5% does not wipe out votes of several other states. That is just plain false. To be true, the 5% in California would have to be shown to disenfranchise the voters in other states. The fact is, folks are just as free to vote in other states as those in California.

“Though I am sure Wyoming doesn’t brag about it’s three electors, I am sure there are more happy to have the extra representation through the “gift” of two senators.”

Makes no sense at all. Even doing away with the Electoral College system would not deprive Wyoming of its two Senators and thus equal representation in the Senate. This argument has no bearing at all.

In addition, regarding states rights, their rights are not protected by electoral college, they are protected by their representatives in the Congress. The record also shows that Presidential candidates completely ignore small states and large states where the Electoral College assures the state will fall in their camp, thus, the argument that the Electoral College somehow forces candidates to pay attention to their states is just plain contradicted by the record of past elections.

The argument that we are a Republic and thus, should have no right to directly elect our President presumes that the public hasn’t sufficient knowledge or smarts to pick vote a candidate of choice intelligently or in an informed way. That argument can be defended with regard to balancing the budget, but, NOT for picking the President. So, this Republic argument is foolish at best.

The Electoral College in fact acts as a disincentive to voters who live in a state that previous elections show went for one party or another. Getting rid of the Electoral College would invigorate voters of both parties and result in far more citizenry becoming involved in the election process which translates to becoming better informed.

Those opposed to doing away with the Electoral College don’t have a defensible argument or statistic to shore up their opposition. What they often have is incumbency which could be threatened by a one person, one vote election system. Incumbency has got this country in most of the mess it finds itself in. It is long past time to get rid of the Electoral College system and place electing federal candidates directly into the hands of the nations people on a one person, one vote, basis that will result in greater voter participation as well as elevating awareness of what goes on in Washington D.C.

It could be reformed, but I don’t see how the electoral college system could be discarded. The current system gives more weight to smaller states, which you can argue for or against, but changing it would require a consistitutional amendment which would have to be approved by 2/3 of the states, including most of the smaller states.

Reforming it *is* possible. I live in PA and let me tell you, it’s nice to have my vote count, but a lot of us are just plain tired of seeing VPs and proto-VPs and getting calls from MoveOn every day or so. Proportional voting would help a lot.

More to the point - electors should be consistutionally bound to vote for their candidate. I’m really worried that if the electoral vote counts are close this year, there will be some unfaithful electors. For many states, it’s not even illegal.

The problem with a ranking system for electorial votes is that it would have to be national, the same for every state.
Dem’s are salivating over the prospect of CO. dividing up their electorial votes, does any thinking person believe that they would be pushing for that in Calif. or NY. ?

How would this help the IND. voters? What do you propose , going into fractions for electorial votes? Try selling that system to the 2 controling partys. As soon as a Dem or Rep lost an election by 1/4 of an electorial vote, they wouldn’t be sueing to keep IND.’s off the ballot, they would be contractiong HIT MEN on them!!

Do everything exacty the the same in national elections , in every state, or leave it alone.

Why not use this same idea (but with the electoral college) to pick a nationwide candidate? There is a reason that we don’t directly vote for all the issues that are brought into the House and Senate. We vote through representatives at the national level for law and the same should be applied to voting for the President.

That’s absurd!

We vote for the President to be a representative on all the issues brought before him, just like we vote for legislators to do the same in the legislature.

We don’t directly vote on legislative issues because there’d be daily nationwide votes - utterly impractical. We can handle one Presidential election every four years just fine.

This confusion over the role of the states frustrates me to no ends. To Wit- let me quote James Wilson from our Constitutional Convention:
“General Government is not an assemblage of States, but of individuals for certain political purposes… the individuals therefore not the States, ought to be represented in it.”

Both the overrepresentation of the small states in the electoral college and Senate are nothing but political artifacts of a couple of small states delegates refusing to give over all of the power they held under the articles of confederation. The president and the Senate represent the people for certain limited ends- that is, when we have a war or when a tax is levied- that tax or that war affects 1 person in Wyoming in the same was that it affects 1 person in California (holding everything else constant). You can look at both the Senate and the electoral college in terms of voting power. In real terms, the person from Wyoming has 16 times more voting power when it comes to decisions made in the Senate, and some fraction more when it comes to choosing the president than the person from California. This is in direct contradiction to our founding principles and to the notions that justify democracy. We should be more concerned with what would make the best system, not outmoded forms forged in the heat of political battle some 200 years ago.

Dem’s are salivating over the prospect of CO. dividing up their electorial votes, does any thinking person believe that they would be pushing for that in Calif. or NY. ?

Given the last election, we’d be all for it in all states, including in California and NY.

As for those states alone, of course not. Like the Republicans, we think our candidate would be better and thus we’ll fight hard to get him elected. Sure, it’s a little hypocritical, but there’s a country at stake! ;-)

We already have lawyers and judges ‘deciding’ the election before we even vote.
The fight is on.
This will most likely continue after we vote.
Do we even know when the next President will be chosen? It may not be on the day we vote - again.
Until we have standards that we all need to follow, that are fair to all, and cannot be manipulated in the courts this will happen again and again.
What is wrong with having to show an ID when you vote? Don’t we all want to know that the ‘right’ people are voting and that they only vote once?

I don’t see anything wrong with a felon voting again after they have ‘done their time’ but being able to vote while in prison? There needs to be a National Standard on these voters.

This whole voting arguement is nothing more than both sides wanting to make sure they get a vote they want.
Looking at it this way… I don’t see how it can pssibly be good for ALL of us.

The first vote I would like to cast is to remove party choices from our registrations and keep them all guessing.

Dawn said: “The first vote I would like to cast is to remove party choices from our registrations and keep them all guessing.”

Now there is a novel idea with tremendous merit. Good call, Dawn.

David R. my friend,

The electorial collage keeps a few big citys from controling a nation. We got rid of that in 1776, when a nation was being controled by an island (england).
Would you also propose eliminating city limits, county lines, and state lines ? That way the entire nation could vote on the new gym at your childrens school. Sounds silly don’t it?, but its the same thing.
I don’t think that citys would want people in the country having veto power over everything they want, its the same for country folks.
Less populated states have a small voice now, but, they do have a voice!

I’ll go one better, lets eliminate ALL political partys, eliminate all campaign funding except $200 per person, written on a personal check, keep states rights, primarys, and the electorial collage, everyone gets free TV time to express their views, both in primarys and before the general election. This could be done with a c-span type of thing available free to everyone.

What would this do ?
It eliminates partys and and platforms, gets rid of “sheep” that vote based on something someone else “told you you were”, and anyone runing has to state their personal views on every issue.

You no longer have to pick a senator based on “the best of 2 evils”, you have a voice on the issues that you care about! Lobbyists would have to lobby the people, not pledge money to some dink that might vote against the wishs of the people that elected him/her.
Its far more complex that what I’m able to articulate, but you kinda get my point ?

Did I kill this post/thread? Seems like it.

I propose a system much like we have now, EXCEPT, by eliminating the party system, people would have to look at the views of someone running for office, be it primarys or general election.
It likely would keep stupid people from spending the time to find out about persons runing for office, they likely wouldn’t vote.

One question folks; does anyone here, from any party/group, want stupid people desideing national elections ? Hell, for that matter , even local elections ?
No discrimination in my system, reguardless of race, color, religin, ecomonic statis,or anything else, it costs nothing, you look at the views of who’s running and make a choice.
Congress wouldn’t be controled by any party(we eliminated those), it would be controled by EVERYONE that sent them there!!
I don’t see this as a partisan issue(put that in a bucket outside), but rather a fixing the system issue. Just my opinion.

Beagle- how do you outlaw parties? Do you make it elligal for people to politically organize? would you fine people who wanted to organize? Would you throw them in jail? What if people wanted to form informal organizations that resembled parties? Your proposal is incredibly dangerous because it would give the government amazing amounts of power over the political process- a sure plan for destruction of democracy and freedom. I urge you to look at Federalist 10- your cure is more dangerous than the problem you are trying to fix.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, but how do we know? The will of the people is “lumpy” in that we can’t and don’t want a continuous measurement (people change their minds too often or are not clear on what they want) and it tends to come in passionate clumps. It is the role of good governments to smooth out the lumps. That means protecting minorities - sometimes AGAINST majorities, ensuring some intergenerational justice through the continuity of institutions and making sure sufficient deliberation is allowed to cool transient passions.

The U.S. constitution is a wonderful document. It has evolved from what the founding fathers wrote. Some of the institutions they created have changed function. They created the Electoral College mostly for technical reasons (mass voting was impractical), but it developed into the stabilizer it has become. Today it spread power and protects geographical minorities. Democracies require stabilizers. Without stabilizing institutions (which actually makes them republics), democracies are short-lived experiments in mob rule followed by tyranny. We all pay tribute to the idea of making every voice count equally, but it is not a desirable goal or one that is even possible in the long run. The real goal should be to make sure every voice has a chance to be heard in the long run.

Athens’ experiment with democracy (not republic) in the 5th Century BC put practical people off the concept for almost 2000 years. Today, we look back admiringly at the their ideals, but not the institutions or the outcomes. The authors of the U.S. Constitution studied the failure of all previous democracies and they wisely tempered democracy with moderating institutions. It was a good job. We got stability with the broad consent of the governed. Americans enjoy the second oldest continuously functioning government in the world and our revolution was one of the few successful ones in history. The optimism of the French Revolution quickly descended into terror followed by tyranny. The Russians even skipped the optimism stage. One of the most democratic countries (in theory) in the world was Weimar Germany, which succumbed to the Nazis in about a decade. Before we start fooling with a system that works, we should consider the real world alternatives.

Eliminating the Electoral College would be a disaster. Without the Electoral college, a few large urban areas would elect the president. Nearly 40% of the country resides in 5 states. By eliminating the Electoral College, we would eliminate the small states. The Electoral College is a way to give them some say in the election. The rest of the country would truly be reduced to “fly-over country” without it. The candidates would concentrate all of their resources in a few areas; it would make the election a popularity contest. That is not what the founders’ wanted. Think of the election like the World Series: the champion (President) is not the team that scores the most runs (popular vote), it is the one that wins the most games (Electoral vote).

The Electoral College also gives the incoming President a mandate. Without the Electoral College, what kind of mandate would a President like Bill Clinton have had, when he was elected by a plurality?

By the way, the Consitution did change how we elect the President.

Troy, you are spreading unfounded hysteria. The fact is if you look at the map, you will see most of the country is already flyover states because the Electoral College has those flyover states already pegged as for one party or another. So the fact is just the opposite of your fear.

Also, looking back at the previous two elections, the same trend is observed. About half of the smallest states never got a visit by candidates in 96 or 2000. So that argument just doesn’t wash.

“would make the election a popularity contest.”

That is a funny line. It isn’t already with the Electoral College - the most popular candidate in a state takes all the votes for the state - sounds like a popularity contest to me with the Electoral College system.

As for our founding fathers, they would likely not have deemed the Electoral College as necessary if they had widespread local voting polls and communications into every home. So, that argument doesn’t wash either.

“The Electoral College also gives the incoming President a mandate. Without the Electoral College, what kind of mandate would a President like Bill Clinton have had, when he was elected by a plurality?”

This is the most unfounded argument yet, Troy. A mandate? The President is elected to represent the interests of all the people of the nation. The Electoral College which can elect a President without the popular vote majority is NOT a democratic mandate.

It is a waste of time trying to logically and rationally defend the Electoral College anymore. Now that the research and data are available, all of the arguments for preserving it are shot through full of holes.

The problem with debating this issue on a national level is that it is not fair and equal to no one. However, I would like to see more states develop a system that brings them into play. By a state designing a system that promotes the candidates to engage the issues we will heve a better representive government.

Thus the presidentail election is not controled by a few states every year like Flordia, Iowa, and Others. It is just like Vermont and Iowa always going first in the prumaries every year. They get to set the agenda, issues, and define the candidates. Just imagine CA and NY being the first in the primaries, Will the same issue take center stage?

David,

You are quite uninformed on this issue.

You refute your own argument by pointing out the communications into every home. That is precisely why candidates don’t need to visit every single state today. I live in Delaware. Does that mean that I don’t see and hear the candidates every day? No, of course not; I see and hear them every day (even if I don’t want to!).

Granted, the Founders felt that the people were not well-informed, so they could not be trusted to vote directly for the President. Does technology really change that? No, it doesn’t. The technology is useless if people don’t take the time to get informed on the issues.

You need to remember that we don’t live in a true democracy. If we did, nothing would get done because we would spend our time voting on every issue. Instead, we elect our representatives to do that for us; the Electoral College is no different.

William Kimberling, Deputy Director of the Federal Election Commission Office of Election Administration, wrote an excellent piece on the Electoral College. In it, he looks at the pros and cons of the Electoral College. He concludes with these words:

The fact that the Electoral College was originally designed to solve one set of problems but today serves to solve an entirely different set of problems is a tribute to the genius of the Founding Fathers and to the durability of the American federal system.

Henry,

You are absolutely correct about the primaries, especially the early ones, having too much influence. I’d like to see a limitation on the length of the presidential campaign season. By reducing the length of time involved, maybe it will make the party conventions relevant again, instead of them just being a somewhat entertaining reality TV show.

Excellent summary. These are my thoughts exactly. It’s not about fear of mob rule, it’s about preserving state rights. And allowing proportional division of electoral votes within a state would be a fine reform.

BUT, I think the Colorado initiative is motivated by partisan concerns. They want to make it retroactive.

Misha, I agree with your assesment that the Electorial College is an artifact, but I don’t see anyway around it.

As long as you have the Presidential election being held under State election rules, I do not see how you can get rid of the Electorial college. States must elect the President and not a popular vote.

I don’t see why Instant Runoff Voting has to take so long to tabulate. Electronic systems, which should be fully voter-verifiable (ie, Open Source), could crunch through a national election in a matter of minutes. So it’s just a matter of transitioning to a sane system for collecting the votes.

IRV would be an incredible boon to our national political culture. Think of the flotillas of republicans that would vote for a fiscal conservative first, then Bush second, knowing that their votes wouldn’t hurt the president’s chances for re-election. Third-party involvement will go through the roof, and adding third-parties is the only way to diminish the war-like atmosphere that the two-party system creates, perpetuates, and accelerates. Think of those fiscal conservatives, for instance, whose post-election take on politics will be very different than if they had everything staked on their choice of neccessity, Bush.

If we don’t change things, I think the partisanship could continue to increase until it reaches crisis-inducing levels. What form that crisis takes, I have no idea, but I’d like to avoid it. Instant Runoff Voting could help.

Troy, what of the problems it creates. Like so many irrational views, defending the Electoral College is a matter of protecting status quo access to power by minority advantaged groups. The problems caused by the EC far outweigh any benefits but, members of the FEC recognize that the EC is part of their hold on a two party minority rule system.

The FEC has a number of goals not the least of which is to preserve the privileged access to power reresented by the equal number of Democrats and Republicans who sit on the FEC. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The FEC is hardly an authority on voters rights or open and free elections.

But, that’s fine, just keep quoting authorities like the FEC and playing lamb to their lead. Ben Franklin warned about the sheep, and here they are touting and supporting the authority of their shepherds… but, then, what can one expect of sheep, eh?

Misha,
By eliminating the party system, I’m saying get rid of labels for both people running for office, and those in office.
Let the house and senate elect leadership based on the combined views of the persons that the PEOPLE elected to office.

It might eliminate the stalling of bills based on party lines to further an agenda.

Any group could still say we agree with these 12 others(or whatever number), but, they name their names, not a party.
No senator has to “toe the party line”, there are none. Voters would get more involved and smarter, and the elected official would anwser to the people, not the party.

Does that make sense ?

A QUIZ:

Can anyone name 5 issues that the Democrats and Republicans agree on?

Dawn,

#1..America is the greatest nation in history.

#2..The two party system must be preserved (they have that figured out).

#3..Pandering to your base brings in more cash.

#4..The opposing side is evil/stupid.

#5…see number four.

#6…gets a little more complex, you see, #6 is the age of the internet, now everyone has to express their views without bashing the other side on sites like this one. Now everyone, from all walks of life, can DEBATE issues and learn from everyone.
Dem.’s and Rep.’s alike rue the day that Al Gore invented the internet, if he would have only stoped at WW, rather than WWW, It would have been wide but not TOO wide.( that was a joke for my Dem friends).

If I sould spell “phil-o-so-fical”…I would be that now.

Yup Beagle … that pretty much sums it up.

Beagle said: ” It might eliminate the stalling of bills based on party lines to further an agenda.”

Beagle, whether intended and realized or not, you have just touched upon the major dilemma posed by the juxtaposition of a Constitution written in 1700’s and modern pace of existence. They are diametrically opposed. The Constitution was written and designed to insure that government would respond slowly and deliberately to change, and not invoke responses in law easily or quickly.

This was to insure faddish popular sentiment did not create laws which are not easily unmade. Yet, we find ourselves mired in this check and balance system that prevents us far too often from responding quickly and appropriately to threats that loom, not just terrorist threats, but internal threats like the influence of money and special interests, and corporate irresponsibility like Enron and Adelphia, and the threats to the safety net for consumers brought on by massive debt and demographic changes.

There is a small but growing number of people who are advocating a new Constitutional Convention to draft a new Constitution. I don’t think that is remotely possible, but, that leaves us with a growing faction of discontent if the government cannot find a way to recapture majority support and appeal for preserving it.

One helluva dilemma your comment points to.

Can anyone name 5 issues that the Democrats and Republicans agree on?

Trick question - if they agree it’s not an issue.

Good Point William.
in a way …
seems that it isn’t the issues, necessarily, but in how to deal with them.

Only when they are made an ‘issue’ … even though both sides pretty much agree … the way they talk about it is different and they claim they have a ‘better’ way of dealing with them.

Take Minimum Wage.

Anyone who really knows much about minimum wage knows it does not help that group of workers in the long run.
At first they are boosted financially. Until the price increases on products and services are increased to make up for the higher wage.
Unless of course businesses are forewarned and given a chance to raise prices before the wage goes up. In this case it does not help the worker at all.
It just gives the impression of doing better because the paycheck is more.
Raising minimum wage also creates more outsourcing of jobs or for businesses not to hire because they don’t have the extra money.

Sounds like pandering to me.

Kerry said: ‘I will raise minimum wage to $7/hr over a number of years.’
People think this is great? Over a number of years? It would most likely happen without his ‘promise’.

David R., my friend,

What I’ve said is my views on various issues.

I’m quite sure that you have far more education than I do (formal education.

“Beagle, whether intended and realized or not, you have just touched upon the major dilemma posed by the juxtaposition of a Constitution written in 1700’s and modern pace of existence.”

David, I intended and realized. I’ve been told that many people read these blogs without ever posting anything.

If these people learn that we don’t grade on spelling, but rather on Ideas, it might be anarchy.
I hope so.

Beagle, it doesn’t take a degree to think clearly, and you have demonstrated that capacity adequately.

Anarchy has taken on very negative connotations. But, as a school of thought on human behavior and environmentalism and population growth, Anarchism has much to offer as a guide. It is however, so contrary to herd like human behavior, that for its ideas to reap benefits, the facade of democracy would have to fail. Thus opening the door for a new democracy and constitution to be developed.

May not happen in the few decades left to me, but, I do sincerely believe my 13 year old daughter could see the demise of America’s greatness and then it would be up to her generation to reinvent the Constitution, the Democracy, and the future toward the goal of strengthening the inherent weaknesses in our system today. It is clear to me that cannot happen until the systems fail most Americans en masse. And my comments here no doubt sound like paranoid fiction.

But, there are a number of precedents being set toward such a scenario, the incessantly rising trade deficits, the inability of candidates to even mention reducing the debt, all they can talk about is cutting the defict in half, which would still add a trillion more the national debt, and of course the failure of Americans on insisting that we can preserve freedom and security at the same time. All ominous signs to me.

David,

The Electoral College has worked for several hundred years. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

Your elimination of the Electoral College would create many additional problems, among them the fact that we could wind up with a leader elected by a plurality, as happens elsewhere. Such a leader will not have much support to implement his or her programs. At least here a President elected by a plurality was a clear winner in the Electoral College. As I said before, this is exactly what happened with Bill Clinton. For some reason, you just flat-out dismissed this problem without thinking it through to its logical and reasonable conclusion.

Also, do you really think that it has created our two party dominated system? In the course of US history, political parties have come and gone. These two weren’t always here and they may well be gone one day, too.

What I think would be a great start to reform:

Eliminate the “D” “R” or “I” from behind the name of who is running for office. If your state has an opening for a senator, have a primary..but only one…get 5000(or whatever amount) registered voters to sign it, you’re in…pick the top 3 from the vote totals…now they’re in the state election.
Same deal for President except have all the primarys on the same day!..your state can opt in or out…your choice.
By all the primarys being on the same day…No more pandering to whomever you’re talking to in a given area, ( sorry A-hole…present your views to everyone voting), be it state or national!

We’ll give them all free c-span time to express their views.
All national elections, house, senate, and Pres. will be on a tues in Nov…same as now.

ALL state, and local elections will be the 2nd. tues. in June..(KMA schoolboard, no more milliage votes on a friday of a holiday weekend!), the “snowbirds” will be home to vote.

NO more pac.’s, corperate, or union money for anyone running, $200 max may be donated to anyone running for office, written on your own personal check.
Now YOUR $200 is just as important as Soros”s $200 !!
Any busines,corp,union,or simular group that funnels ANY money to anyone running or in office, it will be assumed to have been a bribe, and the head of that company or group will go to prision for no less than 5yrs…no more than 5000yrs.

Its a start !

I’d like people’s opinion on a structured electoral college, in which the percentage of a state’s popular vote resulted in a percentage of the electoral vote. For instance, California has 55 electoral votes. If Candidate A gets 60% of the popular vote in California, he/she would get 33 electoral votes.

This would make a national election more national, and would not disenfranchise voters. For example, currently, a Republican voter in New York or a Democrat voter in Texas essentially have no vote. New York WILL go Democrat, and Texas WILL go Republican.

I’d be interested in hearing opinions on whether this idea has merit. By the way, I disagree with the Colorado initiative to do just what I have proposed, but only because I dont think it works when only one state does it. All or none, in my opinion.

RIGHT Joe !!

you win a cookie…to go with the donuts.

JBOD,

If all states go with a plan like Colorado has to apportion electoral votes, then it has the same impact as eliminating the Electoral College. All such a plan does is institute an indirect popular election of the President. Using my baseball World Series analogy again, we elect the president (the champion) who wins the most games (states), not who scores the most runs (popular vote). I say again that the current system has worked for several hundred years, and we don’t need to change it.

The problem with the electoral vote is it doesn’t represent the vote of the majority of voters. Voting is a very simple process, who every has the most votes wins. For example if you have 30 voters in six groups(5 voters per group). Two groups vote Republic (10 votes), four groups vote Democrat(12 votes), out of those four groups that vote Democrat (8) vote Republic. That means out of (30) voters (18) voted Republic and (12) voted Democrat, but the Democrats win the vote because the vote was based on the groups they were seperated in. You might as well tell voters that if the majority in their area don’t vote the same way they do their vote wouldn’t count. This isn’t some playoff series where you have to win the most games, it’s more like a championship game when the highest score is the winner. There is only one vote, otherwise we should have a series of votes over time to see which person wins the most elections. Thats the only way the electoral college could even begin to become fair and equal. The excuse thats the way its always been is played out, thats why the consitution was wrote in a way that we could improve it we found a better way.

Here in Nebraska we are one of two states Maine being the second to split our electoral vote. We have 5 votes and they are spilt based on the popular vote for our three congressional districts and the last two are given proportionately. This way the popular vote and the electoral vote is given voice.

How about direct democracy?
When the first steps to democracy were taken no one believed in giving that much power to the people. Some budgetary power was yielded from the Crown to a few powerful men. As time went on democracy evolved, legislative assemblies gained more and more power and the legitimacy of those assemblies increased as more members of the public became electors. The direction of democratic evolution is to move more and more power out into the hands of more and more people. Representative democracy is not the end of the process its a stage along the way. The next step is to create a third assembly in which the people vote directly. For the foreseable future and in the case of America the President and Congress should remain to act as a check on the Direct Assembly (operating thru electronic assembly) . I realize that many people would not participate and that the Direct Assembly might be swayed by oration and passion but on the other hand a Direct Assembly could not be corrupted and with the President and Congress acting as checks the Direct Assembly could gain experience and evolve safely.

Troy,
You should do your homework before say that proportionately dividing the Electoral College would effectively remove it from existence. That statement just isn’t true. If you look at the 2000 election, Bush still would have won the Electoral College even if the votes were divided proportionately. Dividing the votes would have made the margin of victory smaller, but the final results still would have not matched the national popular vote. David Bennahum has posted these numbers on his web site.
I’ve checked them, it all works out. The only way to ensure that the final outcome of any election represents the popular vote is to establish a direct election. The Electoral College just doesn’t work.