Not too long ago the state of Maryland, which is also where I live passed a law that says it's votes will follow whatever the popular vote of the entire nation has. Here is the article.

Within a local context this is especially interesting. Mainly because the governor who signed off on it (O'Malley) is a democrat and the state of Maryland (Baltimore and 3 large counties) has voted for dems for ages (except the rest of the sparsely populated counties, but it doesn't matter because Bal and the big 3 outnumber everyone else). So in the last election, the state would have sided with Bush and so on. The rest of the counties vote for republicans but they don't have a huge population.

What's your take on this?

Popular vote just makes sense, fuck electoral college

Exactly. Someone should be elected by more people voting for him than the other guy, not earning votes based on the states they've won in.

The popular vote is meaningless unless voting is compulsory; the numver of absentees precludes any notion of being a more "accurate" representation of the population's political alliegance.

Besides, you're a demoratic republic. You're already voting for a set number of pre-determined candidates; what good will "every vote counts" do then?

Finally, popular voting without compulsory voting would allow for fringe parties to obtain demeasurate amounts of power; a candidate could get literally millions of vote in one county (say, a Mormon candidate in Utah) thanks to borderline shady GOTV tactics and somehow be worth more than the half-half split of a another state, like, say, Florida.

Does the population's political alliegance matter that much? Most of the time people are voting for the man and not the party.



I'm not really getting what you're saying here. How wouldn't "every vote counts" still matter?



Would it really matter if some nut managed to snag up a bunch of votes in some bumfuck county? The majority of the state and the rest of the country would still focus on the Democratic and Republican candidates.

*prepares to have post ripped-apart for not wholly understanding the Canadian's smart-speak*

Switching to a popular vote system wouldn't help that. If anything, MORE people would just stick to party lines. The "Vote for the man" part is due to your status as a republic; you need to swtich out of that (abolishing congress in favor of a Parliament) to even get anywhere.

It would merely give you a false sense of accuracy. One of my biggest personnal peeves is false precision. People saying this would be "truer" are just deluding themselves.



Well, you're partially right. However given the wide territory of your country and the cult of personnality you seem to develop wqith your candidates I wouldn't be surprised if a candidate with only 10% of the vote could get himself elected President of the United States thanks to massive voting in key districts.
Of course, this is ONLY if you switch to a popular vote system without making voting compulsory. Then the number will be an absolute plurality and such a scenario becomes exceedingly unlikely.

I think I messed up that first paragraph. It should be noted as a preamble that I disagree with your notion that people vote for the man and not the party as a general rule; I belive it only applies to the Presidential vote and nothing else.

I get the rest part of your post, but this part (especially the last sentence really intrigues me) What exactly are the advantages of a Parliament over Congress?

With the parliamentary system you :


PROS
-cut down on a lot of bureaucracy;
-simplify electroral procedures (vote for the party, their leader is automatically prez);
-remove veto power, which prevents cockcblocked congresses.
-Eliminate the two-party system; both the opposition and the ruling party can be composed of a coalition of other parties.

CON
-You remove veto power, which is somewhat contrary to the Checks and Balances approach as the leading party only needs enough parliamentary votes

There are other cons but I must admit I have a biased point of view and can't think of any right now. You can probably deduce them.

Indeed, the whole point of the current American political system is that it takes forever for something to be done. Thus, change is only enacted if it is truly wanted and sustained for a long enough time for something to happen, as opposed to a brief flash of passion. Suggesting the US change systems is totally idiotic though, and you should realize this BC. Such a massive change at this point could only come from revolution, and I highly doubt how probable that is at this point .

I like the idea of the popular vote better, but for all practical purposes, the electoral college system is right for America.

If we went by the popular vote, politicians would only campaign around urban issues, because those are the areas with the most population. They'd target problems facing New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, etc. while ignoring problems of smaller cities because the urban areas hold the vast majority of people that will (hopefully) be voting for them.

The biggest change I would make to the current system is to make every state's electoral college vote count for the same number of electoral votes, which would serve as a compromise and eliminate the current problem of politicians only campaigning to certain "swing states" because they know the other states will vote for them anyway.

How?

1 vote and a senate rubberstamp vs 2 votes and a presidential approval. Seems simple enough?

Oh please. Change is only enacted if companies lobby enough for a long enough period of time to get their selected representatives to push bill after bill after bill until it squeaks through on the back of the Protect The Children of Freedom from Terrorism Act (I assume this would be a 400,000,000,000$ war bill, ironically enough). There is nothing democratic about the way the American government is RUN right now, only it's electoral process.



I never did suggest the US switch systems to a Parliamentary system - I was asked what it entailed because I proposed it as a solution to the "Vote for the man and not the party" situation.

I'm pretty sure a couple of British fellows thought like you did circa 1770.


Finally, if you honestly believe that the American government is democratically run, ask yourself why you are still in a war 70% of the people disagree with with no exit plan from a president less than 30% approve of.

Then shut up.

Because pulling out now would be an absolute disaster?

As opposed to years of slow, neverending "supervised" civil war. No disaster there, nope.

Leaving current events out of the equation...
If you want true democracy, and real "power to the people", the democratic republic, AND the commonwealth forms of government are both wrong. True democracy was The Roman Senate. There was a dictator who listened to the people. Then there were senators who were elected by popular vote, and then brought the voice of the people to the "Cesar". If the Cesar didn't listen the senate killed him. I think this is something like the way we should do things.
Each state has one senator, and a staff to help the guy. And one dictator who is voted in by the senate.
Then it would be true freedom for the people. Taxes would be less because of less laws.
The "president" would truely listen to the people. Because if he didn't he died by firing squad on live T.V.
Each state could operate autonomously, and freely. They would build their own regiment of a "national guard". Funded in part by the country, but mainly funded by themselves. The state would be able to lend these troops to the president, and senate whenever the country was threatened.
As far as Popular vote vs electoral vote. It doesn't matter, they are both flawed with the current forms of government.

P.S. I don't care how crazy it sounds, it would still be true freedom if we went back to the Roman style of goverment where the mob ruled all.

Sadly.

K, my bad then.

Quite possibly.

I never said that it was democratically run. I was just saying the reasoning behind the founders of the Constitution, that people fundamentally SUCK.

Still, there really isn't any other place I'd choose to live.

True democracy is that every person votes on every issue. For example: Hey let's pull out of Iraq, 70% vote yes and 30% vote no. we then pull out.

What you were describing was tell a democratic representative state.

I'm pretty sure that's true.

True in all your posts in ID.


Anyways, the question isn't what's wrong with popular vote, it's whether or not it would be better than electoral colleges, which it is. Only twice in history (One was obviously Gore vs. Bush, the other was long before we were born so we don't care) did the electoral college system contradict popular vote, and now we are pissed about it because had popular vote won in 2000, we'd probably be a hell of a lot better off, right?

I disagree. My view is objectively developped most of the time. I simply have no experience living under a democratic republic.

If you mean that I'm against you in all of my posts then yes, but that's just because you're an idiot incapable of formulating a coherent argument.


Flawed premise : The same voting would NOT have occured under a popular vote system. It influences voter turnout as well as voter choice.

Electoral College was made to represent State's Rights. I don't see a problem with it.

If the federal government hadn't trampled it to death thanks to bullshit SC interpretations of "Interstate commerce" amongts others, I'd agree. A small-government approach works fine with the electoral college.

Sure a parliamentary system seems wonderful on paper as the party is supposed to control the government but in reality it is the president that ends up controlling parliament, thereby eliminating an important check.



70% of the people disagree with the war but not all of those 70% want to pull out of Iraq. Many Americans realize that entering the war may have been bullshit but it's too late now and we need to finish the job.

As for the original question in this topic: I personally like the top few elite from each state deciding who gets my vote because there are some seriously uneducated people there and I don't like when they vote for the wrong person.

who cares about a 'true' democracy? what's important is what's effective.

A fascist government can be pretty effective.

...what? The Prime Minister / President is merely a figurehead for the party in power. He's pretty irrelevant.

This post is pure vintage Yosh I have to say. For information to make a more informed answer to your first point. And to point out we have voted and the results are in for our elections. We don't vote for a person on the national level. The party gets in and has a month to decide on the Prime Minister since Blair is offsky. Margaret Thatcher was turfed after a vote of no confidence by her party so no they don't get to abuse their powers too far. Certainly not as far as your President I suspect. Not eeeeeeven going to touch the second paragraph.

I don't know how Yosh got into all of his "honors" classes when he posts like a retard.

Honors/AP classes =/= intelligence

Um I was pulling a Stephen Colbert. I just reiterated many arguments I have heard about this and posted it here in sarcasm O_o.
Nobody else has heard those arguments before?
I guess it is true, sarcasm is only oral.

Your post contained absolutely no hallmarks of sarcasm. Furthermore, the coupling of this and your preiously posted stupidity would naturally lead the reader to assume that you are, once again, talking out of your fucking arse.

As for the original question in this topic: I personally like the top few elite from each state deciding who gets my vote because there are some seriously uneducated people there and I don't like when they vote for the wrong person.

I thought that completely gave it away and I wasn't even sure whether to include that because I didn't think that was subtle enough.

Oh well, I think for the sake of this argument (it's interesting) let's move on from this and go back to the topic. If it means I have to admit my post was an accurate reflection of what I believe then so be it.

Do you think practically that the EC will ever change? It was actually a essay question on the free response of the AP Gov essay...something like "Why has the EC not been reformed yet?"

I think it'd have to be a very extreme situation similar to the political machines that led to the direct election of senators. I figure if the situation ever became that extreme then at that point the legislative branch would be a part of the conspiracy too.

Hahah.

A reformed electoral college ftw. Currently, in most states the candidates that win the popular vote have their entire slate of Electors elected. I advocate the "district plan" which is used in Maine and Nebraska. But basically, it awards one electoral vote to the winning candidates in each congressional district, and an additional two electoral votes which reflects the two constant/senatorial electoral votes awarded to each state to the statewide winners.

There's always going to be uneducated or biased circuits in the country's population so I don't think complete popular vote is the effective route to go. Founding father James Madison warned against such factions in the Federalist Papers. Factions beng defined as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." The Electoral College was partially an attempt to minimize the damage that factions can produce. Representation "refine[s] and enlarge[s] the public views"

Yay for Maryland. Give up all of your rights as a state, and for all intensive purposes become annexed by California and vote for exactly what they want. Forget about the constitution, and the chekcs and balances and the power divided somewhat fairly between the states. Why follow the constitution at all anymore? We are certinaly very picky about what amendments we choose to follow anyways. Why should a state determine it's own government anyways? California and Texas could just elect people to fill all of their positions for them. Who needs to anyways, right?

While we are at it, we might as well just finish pissing upon states rights, and do away with any kind of borders between the states anyways and just make it one giant mass, to allow of cours for better popular voting.