dubz dubz

The reason why we should get rid of the electoral college

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The reason why we should get rid of the electoral college

from PolMach Forums
Lets say 7 million people in New York voted. And lets say all of those votes went to kerry. Lets say that 1 person in each of the other 49 states voted and all of those states went for Bush. The outcome would be kerry 7 million and Bush 49 votes. Bush would win because he would get more electoral votes even though Kerry got more votes. The US has american ciizens not state citizens. We're not illinois citzens or ohio citizens. Or florida citizens or california citizens. We are American citizens and if more american citizens vote for a person that person should win. The electoral college should not decide.

We are not 50 states, we are 1 country. They treat the 50 states like 50 countries. Lets forget about states for a minute. Look at our selves as 1 country. Whoever gets more votes from our country deserves to be president, not the people of each state. A place such as florida for example should not decide our countries vote. The people of our country should decide and not a state or a county. They say big cities would dominate the vote then. So, more people live there and its the people that count. It should not matter where you live, it is about who gets more votes. We decide, not each state decides. Our country decides, states should not decide.
politics
17,603 views 38 replies
Reply #26 from PolMach Forums Top
It seems that republicans want the electoral college because it is the only way for them to win. Or bush lovers. Bush cannot have a chance to win wihout the electoral college. Bush haters and democrats prefer popular vote because most of our country, not just people who vote, but most of this country is not republican. Im not saying they are democrats but most are not republican. So if more people go out to vote it is most likely, especially among young voters or people who have never voted, to work in kerry's favor cause most people are not republicans. They recognize that the major parties are democrats and republicans. So they would most likely vote for kerry because the republican party is not popular.
Reply #27 from JoeUser Forums Top
And it would greatly increase the corruption in elections as both sides did shady things to maximize (ahem) "turn out" in urban areas. I'd rather have our elections decided in states such as Ohio and Florida and not based on turn out in New York and Los Angelas.


And decided in Wyoming and Montana rather than Michigan and Illinois?
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #28 from PolMach Forums Top
Zbuck, you are saying that we are a republic? We are a democracy and that is what it says in our government. A democracy should have whoever gets the most votes wins. That is the topic. The electoral college, based on my example, shows that a person with more votes can lose. Even though I know not only 1person is gonna vote in a state. It doesn't matter if you live in NY,UT,CA,IL,IA, or any state, you live in our country and your vote counts. The most votes for the person in our country deserves to win. No matter where you live. I am saying that it makes 50 states look like 50 countries. Ohio is not a country it is a state. Utah is not a country, it is a state. Hawaii is not a country, it is a state. And that goes for the rest of the states. All states should have their laws, but in voting terms, we add up our country's vote and not our states vote. It just divides and segregates our country.
Reply #29 from PolMach Forums Top
The total in a state like florida should not be who is our next president, the total votes in our counry determines who is our next president.
Reply #30 from JoeUser Forums Top
Well dubz, we disagree.  I've already stated why I think the electoral system, while not perfect, is preferable to a simple national majority.
Reply #31 from PolMach Forums Top
Dubz, we are a republic. Look at how the founding fathers set up our government. It is a represenative government. True democracy is where the entire people vote on every issue. That is what a democracy is. A republic is where the people vote on represenatives who then go to the government and do the voting. Look at the basic documents that our government were founded on. They all point to a republic. Go and look up republic and democracy and then tell me if the United States is one or the other. We have democratic ideals, but we are not a democracy.
Reply #32 from PolMach Forums Top
An interesting analysis of the last presidential election

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

  • From Bondage to spiritual faith;
  • From spiritual faith to great courage;
  • From courage to liberty;
  • From liberty to abundance;
  • From abundance to complacency;
  • From complacency to apathy;
  • From apathy to dependence;
  • From dependence back into bondage."

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent Presidential election:

Population of counties won by:
  • Gore=127 million
  • Bush=143 million

Square miles of land won by:
  • Gore=580,000
  • Bush=2,2427,000

States won by:
  • Gore=19
  • Bush=29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
  • Gore=13.2
  • Bush=2.1


Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."

Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency and "apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
Reply #33 from JoeUser Forums Top

See scopes on that. While the stats are true, There is no such person as Professor Olson.

But it does highlight why many of us aren't that concerned about raw bio mass.  The states that feed the other states, such as Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, would essentially have no voice in a pure raw popular vote election because they're not populated very much. 

There are a lot of definitions of what's "fair". 

Reply #34 from JoeUser Forums Top

There's going to be problems with every system. We shouldn't change the electoral college simply because it might help Bush in the next election. That'd be terribly short-sighted. Besides, Democrats have won the electoral college sometimes too. Unless the popular system is significantly better, which it isn't, then we shouldn't change anything.


Besides, if you can say that Republicans are for the electoral college because it'll help get Bush elected, then you can easily say that Democrats are for a popular election because it'll help Kerry be elected.

Reply #35 from PolMach Forums Top
I knew this info was still out there somewhere, thanks to the old world wide web, here goes some great info....

First USA Today

... which says:

Bush would still win with electoral reforms
By Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY

No matter how you count the Electoral College, it appears George W. Bush would have won the presidency by the same narrow margin he had over Al Gore this week. Implementation of one of the most talked about reform proposals - awarding Electoral College votes to the winner of each congressional district, plus two more to the candidate who wins a state's total popular vote - would have given Bush the exact 271 to 267 margin he received under the current winner-take-all system, according to an analysis of votes by USA TODAY. It takes 270 of the 538 electoral votes to capture the White House.


You can also review:
Link

which, if you click on the link for USA Vote by county (under graphics), brings up the following:
USA Today map

The numbers back up the stats referenced in an earlier post above.


Some additional detail can be found here:
More detail in USA Today about election 2000


CNN had previously had this great article:
CNN

... which details how the Miami Herald/ USA Today/ Tribune counted through *all* of the votes in the state and still concluded that Bush won under all but the most liberal types of recounts under very specific conditions.


I'll hand the left and the conspiracy theorists over there some points for some of the slant given in this link:
Lefty Link slamming media recounts
Reply #36 from PolMach Forums Top
The electoral college has been with us, and it is damaging elections. This has occured in 1876, 1888, and as we know it in 2000.

-1876: Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes: Hayes won by 1 electoral vote. That is the closest electoral vote ever. Many called Hayes and the Republican party 'schemers' because they might've done something after hearing that Samuel Tilden had actually, and most likely won the election. Tilden had lost by one electoral vote. One puny electoral vote

-1888: Incumbent Cleveland lost the electoral vote, but won the hearts of the American people. No problem there, but the electoral college caused trouble. In 1893, Benjamin Harrison, the incumbent lost to Cleveland unfourtanetly.

-2000: Al Gore and George W. Bush: Mr. Bush did win the electoral votes, but Al Gore won the popular votes. Al Gore should be the president by the American's opinion, but Mr. Bush should be the president by electoral votes...as the votes went.

There is a lot of 'scheming' involved in here once again. They are saying that Kathleen Harris had ordered ex-convicts to be off the voting list. Anyone with the b-day of an ex-convict would be scrapped too, as well as anyone with the surname. Also, a reported 2,000 votes were NOT counted in the 2000 election in one minority county (with a whole bunch of ex-cons)....

There is a lot of information behind this, and there is actually evidence proving that Al Gore truthfully won the election, but the Bush's had to cheat.

There is no reason to vote for Bush. If the Americans..Ahem..Republicans saw that his father had a bad administration, don't you think he would? Is there a whole bunch of coincidences in the Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. administrations: Wars in the Middle East, Conflicts in Administrations, deadly Hurricanes (Charley and Andrew)??
Reply #37 from PolMach Forums Top
Reply #36 By: Deaniac - 8/16/2004 5:43:29 PM
2000: Al Gore and George W. Bush: Mr. Bush did win the electoral votes, but Al Gore won the popular votes. Al Gore should be the president by the American's opinion, but Mr. Bush should be the president by electoral votes...as the votes went.

There is a lot of 'scheming' involved in here once again. They are saying that Kathleen Harris had ordered ex-convicts to be off the voting list. Anyone with the b-day of an ex-convict would be scrapped too, as well as anyone with the surname. Also, a reported 2,000 votes were NOT counted in the 2000 election in one minority county (with a whole bunch of ex-cons)....

There is a lot of information behind this, and there is actually evidence proving that Al Gore truthfully won the election, but the Bush's had to cheat.

There is no reason to vote for Bush. If the Americans..Ahem..Republicans saw that his father had a bad administration, don't you think he would? Is there a whole bunch of coincidences in the Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. administrations: Wars in the Middle East, Conflicts in Administrations, deadly Hurricanes (Charley and Andrew)??


I just knew sooner, rather than later, someone from the left would insinuate that the Bush family somehow controls the weather in Florida.

Anyway, you might want to check out this Link and explain to me who was cheating in the last election again please?!?

Specifically:

In Philadelphia, "people apparently take their civic responsibilities seriously," Stephen Bronar and John R. Lott Jr. write in the New York Post.
"In that city, 1,025,259 are registered voters out of 1,065,455 residents aged 18 and over. As a number of adults are ineligible to vote (e.g., felons and non-citizens), the number of registered voters clearly exceeds the number of eligible people," writes Mr. Bronar, chairman of the University of Texas Economics Department, and Mr. Lott, a senior research scholar at the Yale University Law School.
"These numbers cannot be explained simply by voters being left on the rolls after they have moved or died. Preliminary numbers show some precincts had 100 percent of the registered voters voting, with 99 percent of their votes going for Gore. There is no obvious explanation for how this is possible."


More information on Voter Fraud here


There's plenty of other evidence that shows that those on the left of the aisle have very dirty pasts in this area.


Jesse Jackson raised a stink about Creole speaking Hatians not being able to vote in Election 2000 - can someone explain why we should have Haitian citizens voting in U.S. elections?!?! If they were U.S. citizens (legally), then would they not be called Americans?!

Why have dead people voted in Baltimore city and Baltimore city for years?!


Again, there will be those on the left that claim it's all because of some Bush dynasty and there's absolutely no truth to any crimes the left have committed (laws only apply to republicans anyway, just ask Bill Clinton who proved it was ok to have relations with someone other than your wife since oral doesn't count).


Oh, I should add in the following also....Supreme Mandate -- The Supreme Court should overturn the New Jersey election decision. That one is a nice article on how the rules were changed/ignored to install Fossil Lautenberg in the U.S. Senate after Torricelli was forced from the race, even though New Jersey law had to be tossed on its ears to do it.
Reply #38 from PolMach Forums Top
The US has american ciizens not state citizens. We're not illinois citzens or ohio citizens. Or florida citizens or california citizens. We are American citizens and if more american citizens vote for a person that person should win. The electoral college should not decide.


What about people who do not recognize the 14th amendment? Surely you don't think the State is more important than what people feel is the best for them, do you?

We are not 50 states, we are 1 country. They treat the 50 states like 50 countries. Lets forget about states for a minute. Look at our selves as 1 country. Whoever gets more votes from our country deserves to be president, not the people of each state. A place such as florida for example should not decide our countries vote. The people of our country should decide and not a state or a county. They say big cities would dominate the vote then. So, more people live there and its the people that count. It should not matter where you live, it is about who gets more votes. We decide, not each state decides. Our country decides, states should not decide.


Germany is a state. Should all the people in the United Nations vote for who represents and runs Germany? Who cares what Germans think about what would be best for Germany when there are so many Chinese? You sound like a Republican who wants to overrun the states because you know what is 'best' for so many people you don't know.

There is a lot of 'scheming' involved in here once again. They are saying that Kathleen Harris had ordered ex-convicts to be off the voting list. Anyone with the b-day of an ex-convict would be scrapped too, as well as anyone with the surname. Also, a reported 2,000 votes were NOT counted in the 2000 election in one minority county (with a whole bunch of ex-cons)....


From my understanding, all of those people were given plenty of warning for what happened to them, and many were able to appeal. It's not good policy to disenfranchize people for such reasons, but those people were obviously apathetic enough to not CARE if their vote counted. After that, it's all about certain partisans who feel that Florida law is obsolete.