The three greatest heels in history...Andy Kaufman, Triple H, and Dr. Jeebus
Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
Posts: 24887
Posted:
Jan 26 2010 02:06 pm
You can't just draw up new borders and divide existing socioeconomic regions into new ones. Historically, it has never worked out quite so well. Look at Africa and the Middle East.
States are in theory autonomous regions joined together in a federation. You can't just redraw the map like that. And what do we do, redraw them every 10 years?
And while I'm not a fan of the Electoral College, the solution is to either dump it altogether or modify the existing system away from a winner-take-all style in the states. Not redraw the lines to make it "fair".
There are so many issues with that I'm going to have to come back to this thread.
Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
Posts: 24887
Posted:
Jan 26 2010 02:40 pm
UsaSatsui wrote:
And while I'm not a fan of the Electoral College, the solution is to either dump it altogether or modify the existing system away from a winner-take-all style in the states. Not redraw the lines to make it "fair".
IIRC, not all states use the winner take all system. Most do though.
I agree that the system is bit convoluted and, that the elections only depend on a handful of states, but that's the way it is. Just because Alaska is the largest state, doesn't mean it should get the largest vote, when it's less populated then just the Greater Metro LA area.
UsaSatsui
Title: The White Rabbit
Joined: May 25 2008
Location: Hiding
Posts: 7565
Posted:
Jan 26 2010 03:12 pm
Syd Lexia wrote:
UsaSatsui wrote:
And while I'm not a fan of the Electoral College, the solution is to either dump it altogether or modify the existing system away from a winner-take-all style in the states. Not redraw the lines to make it "fair".
IIRC, not all states use the winner take all system. Most do though.
Yeah, Nebraska and Maine don't. It's never been an issue, though.
Here's how I'd do it. 2 electoral votes to the overall winner of the state, 1 for the winner in each congressional district. Which I think is the way Nebraska and Maine does it. It's a good compromise system, it fixes the major problem I have with the EC while keeping the interest of the States intact, and doesn't require any Constitutional amendments.
I'd do it proportional to the amount of votes they got, but I call that system "Send the election to the House every year".
I can fix this with two words...Popular Vote. I never understood the reasoning why not. There should be no winning states, you should win by being the most most voted for candidate. In essence it makes everyones vote count more.
UsaSatsui
Title: The White Rabbit
Joined: May 25 2008
Location: Hiding
Posts: 7565
Posted:
Jan 26 2010 07:10 pm
Douche McCallister wrote:
I can fix this with two words...Popular Vote. I never understood the reasoning why not.
The reason why not is because we the people are not supposed to be voting for the President. The states are. It just so happened that every state somehow decided to put the matter of where they cast their electoral votes to a popular vote.
The President wasn't supposed to be a representative of the people. He was supposed to be a leader of a federation of states for their common interest. I agree that's largely changed and the electoral college is an artifact of an old way of thinking, but it is what it is.
To me, at this point, the popular vote seems like the best alternative. Doing what was suggested in that link seems like it would really mess up congress, meaning that reps from one state would have to focus election resources into another state since they're under the same electoral location.
Since the country seems at about an even split these days, we don't have to worry as much about the less-populated areas being under-represented compared to the higher-populated states.
So here's to you Mrs. Robinson. People love you more- oh, nevermind.
username
Title: owner of a lonely heart
Joined: Jul 06 2007
Location: phoenix, az usa
Posts: 16136
Posted:
Jan 27 2010 02:28 pm
UsaSatsui wrote:
Douche McCallister wrote:
Like I said I never understood there reasoning. Why don't we just ask other countries to choose for us.
Their reasoning was "The people are too stupid to elect a President". You could argue they're right.
It was a different time. You could also argue they just set up whatever system would guarantee George Washington won.
wasnt it also because that way the south could get an equal vote in the house/senate, since most of their population was made up of slaves? i read something about that a while ago, cant remember where though
Klimbatize wrote:
I'll eat a turkey sandwich while blowing my load
UsaSatsui
Title: The White Rabbit
Joined: May 25 2008
Location: Hiding
Posts: 7565
Posted:
Jan 27 2010 04:15 pm
username wrote:
UsaSatsui wrote:
Douche McCallister wrote:
Like I said I never understood there reasoning. Why don't we just ask other countries to choose for us.
Their reasoning was "The people are too stupid to elect a President". You could argue they're right.
It was a different time. You could also argue they just set up whatever system would guarantee George Washington won.
wasnt it also because that way the south could get an equal vote in the house/senate, since most of their population was made up of slaves? i read something about that a while ago, cant remember where though
That was the "3/5 compromise" you're thinking of that counted slaves as 3/5 of a person in the census, so they could get a better share of representation.
The electoral college does give undue weight to smaller states. The 55 votes of California (55) compared to Wyoming (3) may make Wyoming seem insignificant, but look at the amount of people they represent. An electoral vote from, Wyoming, represents only 181,423 people, while one from California represent 615,848 people. And that's something intentional built into the system.
In retrospect I don't really know why I didn't just respond to the topic at the time. It would not have taken very long at all, that basically that to fix a system thats managed to work just fine you would tear the political and economic fabric of the states to shreds, using what would probably be a very considerable amount of resources to leave a people stranded for years to come.
Its trying to address an unfixable topic(total equality or fairness) with a solution that will cost a profound amount that doesnt target a real problem area anyway. Very Democrat.
Ermac
Title: Thread Killer
Joined: Aug 04 2008
Location: Outworld
Posts: 1512
Posted:
Jan 29 2010 06:37 pm
Syd Lexia wrote:
Dumbest thing ever. People who complain about the Electoral College are losers.
