Debates of all sorts discussion

Is the current US election process a fair one?

...I don't know anything about the British one... Want me to make a separate topic for it?

Your welcome.

Sorta, each state has the electoral college, which consists of member based on it's population. The citizens vote and the winner in that state get's the electoral college votes. There are a total of 538 electoral college votes... I think it should be changed to a direct tally of citizen votes.

It could be changed to a direct tally - it usually doesn't affect the winner, I think it only did twice, actually. :P I guess the election process could probably go faster if we did it as a direct vote though...but yeah, I don't think it matters very much as long as it's a democracy :P

Yeah... But the electoral college is just weird... and as you said it effected it twice... it could again... A direct vote is more the voice of the people over the voice of the biggest state.

It could, but it either won't or it was an extremely close vote anyway :P Like I said, I guess direct voting might be a bit better but it's not that much of a difference....

I know, I just never got why they made the electoral college in the first place.

When it was established, it was easier to count a state's-worth of votes and then an EC-worth than a country-worth :P

So laziness... of course.

And accuracy...if there's less to count, less chance of messing up :P I mean, if the founding fathers wanted to be lazy, they could've just like...not revolted xP

Lol true. But we have computers now, it's pretty accurate now no matter what.... Unless we get hacked eh that would be bad, they could put someone like Bachman in office, egh that would be terrible.

And there's plenty of motives to hack :P

Or Rick Perry... Or... just about any Republican lol.

I don't like any possible candidate anymore >.< Not on either side. Actually, my family is seriously considering moving to Canada...T_T

Hmm... I don't know who would be any good yet...

Okay, I don't know if I want this guy to win (he really doesn't say anything other then "the rent is to damn high") but he's entertaining. Also he could get votes based on his beard http://mcmillan2012.com/tv-radio.htm

Oh and he's a Karate-ka (karate student) that's a point in his favor!

He was doing so good till I read this... "McMillan supports allowing laws to be influenced by Christianity. His website states that "we need more reliance on the moral laws brought by religion and not limit out goodwill to our neighbors and co-workers to what the law demands alone." He also spoke of "restoring family values" and making sure that one parent remains at home to watch children."

I mean he supported everything else I was for... but that is a major negative for him...

...Didn't check out the link, but after message 24, don't particularly want to :P No offense.

I don't blame you... I mean he was doing so well... But he could do well still with other people... Something he did say that I liked, is he doesn't care who you marry, you could marry a shoe as long as your happy lol.

Well, point for him, still totally against any moral laws :P

Yep me to... But he could be a very entertaining candidate lol. I mean he has a music video called "The Rent is to Damn High"

xD Wow...heh.

I remember him. He for some reason remind me of Antoine. Hide your kids hide your wife, hide your husband, cause theyre rapin everybody out here.

XD, that's why I like this guy, he's more down to earth then the others. He's more in tune with normal people. But what he has a major breaking point with me by saying that the bible should influence our laws... That's a huge one I'm against.

That's just straight up against the Constitution :P

Yes, yes it is :), alas people will never understand this.

Most do, a very few don't...but those few will forever exist :(

Cody wrote: "Yeah... But the electoral college is just weird... and as you said it effected it twice... it could again... A direct vote is more the voice of the people over the voice of the biggest state."

But the problem is that one state tends to have mostly the same mentality as a whole, just because of what region they live in. Therefore, a huge state with one opinion might drown out a smaller state with an opposing opinion.

There are definitely some weaknesses in the electoral college system, but I don't think there's a better alternative.

I forgot about that Brigid, that is a very good point...

The electoral college wasn't created out of laziness - rather, as Brigid was getting at, it has more to do with giving voice to the smaller states. Because of the number of votes required to win, candidates may still spend a lot of time in large states, but they're also forced to campaign in smaller ones. Every electoral vote counts for a lot, after all.

I sort of like the electoral college. The one thing that I would change: requiring electors to vote as the populace decides. Right now they're legally allowed to vote for whoever they want, if I remember my AP Gov class correctly, and while that's not a power which is often (if ever) abused, I'd rather it not be there anyhow.

I think you're right... Some how we skipped over the electoral college in APUSH...

yeah, I was really angry when the whole bush/gore thing happened, and I do think that it should be based solely on the popular vote.

a history major in my english class said that part of the reason it was set up that way was b/c your average citizen had no way of making an informed choice back then. if that's the case, then the system has definitely outlived its usefulness.

...I don't understand how it could help the smaller states if the number of electoral college votes are based on population...the larger states would still have a larger say, wouldn't they? my high school (obviously) didn't teach me crap about how our government works...

I believe the concept there was that if every state had at least three electoral votes, it would be impossible to carry an election based solely on carrying the major population centers and their sheer overwhelming popular vote. And it does actually give individuals in smaller states a proportionally larger say - if you're a voter in Wyoming, with a population of less than 600,000 and three electoral votes, your individual vote is worth approximately 0.000005 of an electoral vote, and a candidate only needs about 300,000 individual votes to take the state. California, on the other hand, has nearly 37,000,000 people and 55 electoral votes - which means that each individual vote counts for 0.00000148 of an electoral vote and, if electoral college votes in the state were given out proportional to popular vote recieved, it would take over two million popular votes for a candidate to win three electoral votes. Effectively, a voter in Wyoming has more than six times the power of a voter in California.

TL;DR: the Electoral College system is rubbish because math.
Which is a rather dramatic reversal of my post above, I'm aware, and here's why: I just recently turned eighteen and will be voting in the 2012 elections. However, because I go to college outside of my home state and will be at school during the elections, I can choose to vote either in my home state or my school state. Effectively, I can choose how much my vote counts for, particularly since my school state is pretty blue and my home state fairly purple. Since I will be voting Democratic, if I cast my vote in my home state it could have more impact in turning it for Obama, whereas if I cast it in my school state it is more likely to be one among many - Obama took it with 57% in 2008.
It's kind of like voting districts, in a way. Every time a state has to readjust its representative districts, it's a huge political fight in the state House, because each party wants to carve out lines that put a minority of opposition voters in the same district with a majority of their own. In the end, state Supreme Courts usually mediate the effects of that sort of wrangling, but on a national scale it still exists and it really isn't fair.

Right, we talked about this disproportionality in my history class recently. Definitely agreed, the electoral system is far outdated and very problematic...actually, I believe part of the reason it was installed was because a direct democracy would mean counting every citizen's vote, which would be difficult without modern technology...but we do have modern technology, so we should have a popular vote now.