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Popular Vote?

Do you support Popular Vote?

  • Yes - Liberal

    Votes: 6 13.6%

  • Yes - Conservative

    Votes: 5 11.4%

  • Yes - Moderate

    Votes: 9 20.5%

  • No - Liberal

    Votes: 2 4.5%

  • No - Conservative

    Votes: 6 13.6%

  • No - Moderate

    Votes: 13 29.5%

  • I hate voting

    Votes: 3 6.8%
  • Total voters
    44
What else is there to say?

If anything a popular vote may help the people in Iowa or Mississippi. If CA is won by one vote, it effectively negates the votes of several southern states.

However if it is by popular vote the losing side gets millions of votes to balance out the winning side.
 
RJKarl said:
What else is there to say?

If anything a popular vote may help the people in Iowa or Mississippi. If CA is won by one vote, it effectively negates the votes of several southern states.

However if it is by popular vote the losing side gets millions of votes to balance out the winning side.
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You're talking about the NPV plan. I wasn't sure, as there are more ideas than just that.

What if they took away the "Winner takes all" system?
 
It's all or nothing to me. Either the EC or popular vote.
 
RJKarl said:
What else is there to say?

If anything a popular vote may help the people in Iowa or Mississippi. If CA is won by one vote, it effectively negates the votes of several southern states.

However if it is by popular vote the losing side gets millions of votes to balance out the winning side.
Click to expand...

You can't really be this dense. You realize that's a double sided coin. There are millions of blue dog dems in the south who would love for their vote to count for something. Like I said earlier, only 4 presidents have ever won without the popular vote. If you want your state to have all this "influence" then just convince half of them to vote a different way. California being a swing state would be great television, because that's a ton of EC votes. That would be a lot more entertaining then seeing politicians pander to New Hampshire.
 
Who cares whats' "great television"?

Or do you want Steven Tyler and Snooki deciding who should be POTUS?
 
RJKarl said:
Who cares whats' "great television"?

Or do you want Steven Tyler and Snooki deciding who should be POTUS?
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Sorry RJ, I don't want NYC or LA to have more political influence then they already have. If you're so jealous of the swing states, move to one. You're basically just complaining that your state doesn't get enough attention. I promise that if a pub candidate could even make a dent in Cali, they would spend a shit load of time there. Or maybe you could petition all of the news channels to report on California last, so that you could really believe that your state decided the election.
 
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I checked "I hate voting" in a completely non-ironic way. I am truly disenchanted with popular democracy, and think there is probably a better way. "We the people" should definitely be able to get a bad leader out of office, but I have serious reservations about whether we're the best decision-maker re: who should be in it in the first place.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Sorry RJ, I don't want NYC or LA to have more political influence then they already have. If you're so jealous of the swing states, move to one. You're basically just complaining that your state doesn't get enough attention. I promise that if a pub candidate could even make a dent in Cali, they would spend a shit load of time there. Or maybe you could petition all of the news channels to report on California last, so that you could really believe that your state decided the election.
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By having it a popular vote NY and CA have LESS input. Right now if you take LA, Chicago and NY, those three cities can control more than 1/3 of the EVs needed to be POTUS.

Those three cities alone can balance out the following states combined:

VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, LA, TN and AR

By making it popular vote, you'd get 40+% in those states.
 
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By the way, CA may have created the model for fixing gerrymandering. Rather than letting the State Legislature draw these insane districts. there is a Citizens Redistricting Committee (http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/).
Citizens have direct input.
 
Couple issues with a national popular vote that I don't think have been brought up yet:

1) Costs of controversy: Think back to the 2000 election. Voting irregularities led to a contested result in Florida. With a national popular vote, this might not be isolated to specific states. Can you imagine a national recount?

2) Lack of mandate: Electoral College tends to exaggerate the President's winning margin (i.e in 2008, Obama won 53-46 in the popular vote, and 365-173 in the EC). Under a national popular vote, most every Presidential election in today's era of hyper-polarization will be relatively close, at the popular vote level. This would undermine the President's ability to claim a national mandate to implement his agenda.
 
What's the difference between a popular vote that makes candidates focus on a few metropolitan areas versus the EC system that makes candidates focus on a few battleground states? Under the EC system, whole regions are essentially written off as either Red states or Blue states.
 
Another question: Why does it matter where the candidates focus? They're going to do what they need to do to get elected. Why can't you stop bitching about your own states and do your own research? Its not like we lack information on the subject.
 
WT901 said:
Another question: Why does it matter where the candidates focus? They're going to do what they need to do to get elected. Why can't you stop bitching about your own states and do your own research? Its not like we lack information on the subject.
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It's not so much about where they spend campaign $$ as much as it's about determining the values and programs they represent while in office. A non EC system allows the Presidential candidate to pander only to the majority without really giving any thought at all to the needs of the minority. As something like the recent vote in NC shows, majority rules isn't necessarily the best policy for protecting the rights and needs of the minority. I'd rather majority rules not be the means of choosing the most important position in the US. The EC puts some checks onto that. Balanced with the other checks (executive vs. legislative vs. judicial, House vs. Senate, etc, etc), it works out to a system that makes it tougher for the majority to rule over the minority as iron fisted as they could in a straight democracy.
 
The EC system has evolved to where candidates only have to campaign in 6-12 states. The rest are solid one side or the other.

Obama won't spend time or money in ASL or TX. Romney won't bother with NY or CA.
 
ProfessorDeac said:
I checked "I hate voting" in a completely non-ironic way. I am truly disenchanted with popular democracy, and think there is probably a better way. "We the people" should definitely be able to get a bad leader out of office, but I have serious reservations about whether we're the best decision-maker re: who should be in it in the first place.
Click to expand...

This is where I stand as well.
 
RJKarl said:
The EC system has evolved to where candidates only have to campaign in 6-12 states. The rest are solid one side or the other.

Obama won't spend time or money in ASL or TX. Romney won't bother with NY or CA.
Click to expand...

And yet without the EC system, there are likely states, if not entire areas of the country, that neither candidate would give a damn about.
 
RJKarl said:
Why should one person in NC count more than one person in NY?

Why should a vote in NH count more than a vote in CA? It clearly does now.
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Because we are a federal state.

On the other hand, why should the vote of an illiterate high school drop out count the same as that of a person with an advanced degree? It makes no sense.
 
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