There was a discussion in one of the threads about it and Colorado has a pending law suit changing the way the state’s electoral votes work out. If people didn’t know, Nebraska & Maine also don’t let all the electoral votes go to the state’s winner.
I do understand the logic behind it and would not want to go with a national popular vote but how about a compromise? Electoral votes be divided according to the percentage of the votes won in that state or go with Maine’s idea & give electoral votes on a district basis not all to the winner.
AJ, for those of us and there are many, can you explain the logic behind the electrol college/votes first? Why not just go with popular vote. Iss mulk mein to vote rigging nahin hogi, right?
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*Originally posted by 5Abi: *
AJ, for those of us and there are many, can you explain the logic behind the electrol college/votes first? Why not just go with popular vote. Iss mulk mein to vote rigging nahin hogi, right?
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Rigging? Remember Gore's complaints to the election commission. Jeb Bush's administration in FL did use different ways to keep the voters from the polling stations. On the other side the state govt. used all the resources to make sure each and every Republican voter gets registration and encouraged early voting as well, specially those elderly ppl who alway want to avoid the long queues on election days.
I like the ideas of dividing the electoral votes in each state. I have absolutely no voice in this election because my state is overwhelmingly voting for 4 more years of going down the rat hole. It's kind of like the bidding of the Showcase Showdown cannot be for higher than the actual price. Some weenie can underbid by $20k and still win his Showcase just because the other guy went over by $1. Makes no sense.
smoothie, we can leave FL and Jeb Bush for another thread.
Explain to me how the electoral college works? And why choose such a method! Remember Im a layman so in Engrish please :D
After all is said and done, I guess the prime contention of defenders of Electoral College in its present form, is that the system has “worked” for 200 years, so why fix something that ain’t broke. And according to them, anyone who is suggesting a change has probably a sinister intention anyway. :devil:
By the way, each state can determine the allocation of their electoral college votes anyway they choose. Thats why Colorado has this ballot measure on for Nov 2. But interestingly, seems as if it is a citizen inspired measure, and if it wins, the Republicans will probably challange it saying citizens have no right making changes to state law ( :smokin: ), and it is only the prerogative of the state legislature. I guess, they’ll just cross the bridge when they get to the river. No party will want to make any change that can potentially lose them some seats (or electoral college votes). A close election is always the worst nightmare of election authorities, anyway. And in all fairness, it is rare for a person to win electoral college votes while losing the popular vote.
i’ll try.. only to make my own concepts of it clear.. feel free to correct me.
Take Gupshup.
Suppose there were an election and the two major parties were the MAToo party and the Mod-Muslim party.
They both nominate their Presidents.. TM and anti-OBL respectively.
Now these people nominate from within their own party faithful and loyal poeple as electors.
The electors then receive the votes of the guppies and come time to cast their votes along party lines. So if u want to elect a MAToo.. give your vote to the MAToo electors who promise to give their vote on your behalf to TM when it’s time to cast the electoral votes.
Things would be simple if each Gupshup forum would have equal membership.. but surely we can’t elect a Gupshup President based on what Cafe’ wants!
So each forum gets one electoral vote per number of threads (congressional districts) + two extra
So each forum is given Electoral Votes which are somewhat in proportion to their traffic BUT also make sure they don’t get disenfranchised.. so for Eco, Arc, S&P etc the two extra votes mean a lot while the two extra votes for busy forums like Cafe’ are meaningless.
Another aspect of the Electoral College needs to be considered. Allocating Electoral College Votes on a percentage of the popular vote basis could fundamentally change the two-party system.
Here are the election results in 1992:
(Popular Vote)
Clinton -- 43.3%
Bush I -- 37.7%
Perot -- 19%
(Electoral Vote)
Clinton -- 370
Bush -- 168
Perot -- 0
Under our current rules, a candidate MUST get the majority of Electoral College Votes to Win. Pursuant to the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution, if no candidate gets a majority of Electoral College Votes, the election goes to the House of Representatives (this occured in 1824 when the House elected John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson even though Jackson won the popular vote but did not win enough Electoral College Votes).
If you allocated Electoral College votes strictly on the basis of a percentage of Popular vote, the House of Representatives would have elected our President in 2000 and in 1992 since no candidate received more than 50% of the popular vote. Thus, any change in how you allocate Electoral College Votes must take into consideration the 12th Amendment.
^ Try as you may, the MAToo party is gonna win. The two extra votes for mod-muslims are not going to matter in front of Cafe's avalanche.
Anyway, you forgot the most important 'key' in the system. Any candidate who gets more votes in any forum, get ALL the electoral votes from that forum.
If you allocated Electoral College votes strictly on the basis of a percentage of Popular vote, the House of Representatives would have elected our President in 2000 and in 1992 since no candidate received more than 50% of the popular vote.
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The House would have been a better representative body to elect our president than the Supreme Court was. I think any reforms ought to encourage more parties other than the 2 in power.
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*Originally posted by myvoice: *
could fundamentally change the two-party system.
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Before we go into the technicalities of 12th Amendment, and how likely it is for Perot-like candidate to ensure no Dem or Rep gets 270 electoral college seats, first tell us, do you think a 2-party system is the best for United States of America?
And no, please not just the reason, that "it has worked for 200 years". :)
It may surprise you to learn that in 15 Presidential Elections, the winner did not get a majority of the popular vote. In 5 of the last 11 Presidential elections, the winner had less than 50.1% of the vote (including both times Clinton was elected). It doesn't take a "Perot-like candidate" for this to occur. A Nader-like candidate is sufficient.
** Thus, if Electoral College votes were allocated based solely upon the percetnage of popular vote, the House of Representatives would have elected five of our last 11 Presidents. ** Regardless of how you feel about the current system, it is hard to imagine how the House of Representatives routinely electing our President would possibly be better.
It's hard for me to reduce the provisions of the US Constitution, as amended, to mere "technicalities." Based upon the 12th Amendment, a two-party system works better than a multi-party system would in the US. Otherwise, the House of Representatives would always elect the President. This would eliminate the checks and balances we have built into our system. It is important that the Executive Branch be independent of the Legislative branch. If the Legislative Branch chose our Executive, you don't have a balance.
Well, if you don't want to violate 12th amendment and still don't want House of Reps to elect the President, then you can make the rule that electoral college seats of each state will be allocated to the top 2 candidates based on popular vote they got in that state. So thats not really the issue.
Beyond the nitty gritty of the 12th Amendment, I asked a more fundamental question. Do you believe it is a great idea to have the American people choose from just two political parties.. Republicans and Democrats?
Throughout American History there have been quite a few political parties. At any given time though, only two have been dominant. The parties themselves have had no problem working together to insure that it would be most difficult for a third-party to emerge and compete for dominance. Too bad they can't work together on much else.
I do not happen to favor a parliamentary system that encourages the creation of a whole bunch of viable small parties. I look at the Israeli parliamentary system and shake my head in dismay and am thankful we don't govern ourselves like that. When you have a whole bunch of parties who need to cobble together coalitions to form a government, you put too much influence and power in the hands of extremists. No one benefits when single issue parties representing small fragments of opinion are able to assert power that far exceeds their representation of the public at large.
Our two-party system (although the parties may change as stated above), has a tendency to keep our government pivoting around a center occassionally tilting a little left or a little right depending upon events of the time. Generally, extremists on the left (like McGovern in 1972) and extremists on the right (like Goldwater in 1964) get trounced by the more mainstream candidate. Viable candidates and parties always have to drift back toward the mainstream center of the electorate to get elected.
I would like to see a viable third-party emerge in the US which enunciated a consistent philosophy across economic and social issues. I think that might help the DEMs and GOP to be more consistent themselves and help differentiate them a little more on a whole host of issues. Whether that third-party ultimately replaced one of the other parties or eventually fell by the wayside doesn't much matter to me. I think it would give a jolt to our system that is needed.
Is the magic number of parties 2? Heck, I don't know. It might be 3. But it is not 10 and probably not more than 4.
** But please, don't even think of changing our electoral college system in a way that will throw the selection of the President to the House of Representatives more often than not. So you see, these ideas that people think are so simple and straightforward (like allocating electoral college votes based upon percentage of the popular vote) can have very significant effects. .**
A third fiscally conservative, socially moderate party is needed in the US. A true, compassionate conservative platform and candidate. The US electorate is too polarized for this non-productive 2-party system to work for the country.
Oh and I agree with myvoice bhaijaan on the 2 party system. Third parties in US have played a significant role in molding the two parties on issues that have a true public base. Abolition, segregation & civil rights are good examples on how third parties though not wielding actual power have significantly changed the political atmosphere of the two dominant parties.
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*Originally posted by ahmadjee: *
So, everyone agrees that, not a direct popular vote, but a popular vote within a state to divide the electoral votes is a workable compromise?
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No. I do not. Read my replies again. A pure proportional allocation of electoral votes in each state would have serious negative repercussions because of the 12th Amendment.
