The electoral college

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mike
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Re: The electoral college

Post by mike »

appleman2006 wrote:As I always say. If you do not vote you are by default saying you will be satisfied with whoever is chosen as the winner.
So if you refuse to choose between two types of poison, are you "satisfied" with the one that is chosen for you?

What if you choose a third party that you know has no chance of winning? If choosing none of the above by default makes you satisfied with the winner, is voting third party that has no chance of winning really any different?

Since MD was erased, we may as well discuss this again. :)
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Robert
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Re: The electoral college

Post by Robert »

And this is an opinion page, but I suspect people in big cities agree with this while people in less populated areas disagree.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opini ... llege.html
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Robert
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Re: The electoral college

Post by Robert »

mike wrote:What if you choose a third party that you know has no chance of winning? If choosing none of the above by default makes you satisfied with the winner, is voting third party that has no chance of winning really any different?
This was my choice this year for the Presidential choices. I only filled one in so someone could not choose for me later.
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Josh
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Re: The electoral college

Post by Josh »

Robert wrote:And this is an opinion page, but I suspect people in big cities agree with this while people in less populated areas disagree.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opini ... llege.html
Ah, yes, the America that consists of NYC and LA (and maybe Chicago if we're feeling generous).

The rest of the country are a bunch of ignorant rubes. If they weren't, they would have figured out how to be respectable people living in a real city by now.
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appleman2006
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Re: The electoral college

Post by appleman2006 »

Ok I will bite. :) Please understand this is not a case for voting or non voting. But the fact is if you do not vote you are by default saying that you will be satisfied with whoever wins. That is the way both your and our system works. Some would say the same about voting for a third party that has no chance or destroying your ballot. I would disagree with that even though mathematically it might seem that way. With either of those two options you are expressing a divergent opinion and the winner cannot in any way say that you were supporting them. Theoretically you do not know for sure that a third party has no chance and every single person could destroy there ballot which would create an interesting dilemma for the powers that be. I would venture that everyone could also choose not to vote which may have the same effect however I think the way our system views it presently a destroyed ballot is looked at differently than a no show at the ballot box. It is generally understood I think that a no show really means you either do not care or have an opinion or you really are neutral. A destroyed ballot is considered a protest vote and understood as such. And a vote for a third party is just that and cannot be construed by the winning party as a vote for them.

So Mike, I am assuming you did not vote. :) Whether that was to do with your allegiance to another kingdom or your disgust with either party the results remain the same. Your not voting implied that you will be satisfied with whoever the electorate chooses. There are good reasons for doing this. And a person might very well say after the fact that he should of voted based on the fact that he did not like the choice that was made. But that in no way lessons the fact that by default he was alright at the time of the election with whoever won.
Hence my original point. There were far far more people that voted for Trump or supported him by default than there were those that voted against him. The same held true the last two elections for President Obama.
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MaxPC
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Re: The electoral college

Post by MaxPC »

appleman2006 wrote:I think the fact that you have a system where in fact less populated areas have a chance to be heard is a good thing. Even the way things are presently urban interests are far more likely to be heard over rural which I think is a bad thing.

One other thing to keep in mind as well. Because of the electoral college system parties plan their campaigning accordingly. My guess is that as close as the majority vote was this time around, had the outcome actually been based on it Trump would of spent far more time in places like California and the west coast and could very well have more than made up the difference.

There is another way of looking at it as well. If you add in all the people that did not go to the polls and add them to Trump's supporters he has a pretty strong mandate. As I always say. If you do not vote you are by default saying you will be satisfied with whoever is chosen as the winner.
You have an outstanding understanding of the reasons for the system we have... better than most Americans I would venture. :D
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temporal1
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Re: The electoral college

Post by temporal1 »

i don't know how many, but in this election, i sensed many who voted for Trump did so because of those "in his camp," like Pence, Carson, Huckabee, Rand, Herman Cain, David Clarke, and many more, who would have been silenced, possibly in a final way, with continued establishment politicians.

i'm not sure if that sort of thing ever happened before in U.S. history?
it's usually all about the one POTUS candidate (too much so.)

by contrast, the establishment party (DNC and RNC combined/alike) offered nothing
(i.e., nothing more than certain continuation of what they had created for themselves.)

but, as Robert described (somewhere) voters came from various camps.
it was not a 1-issue, or a few issues. multiple peoples had been hurt, alienated, insulted.

insulting people may hit them harder than starvation.

trump may have been like a cow-catcher on a train. he was able to plow-through in ways the more genteel had proven they could not. as it was, there was no negotiating or diplomacy going on. those things had been replaced with arrogance and entitlement.

so, now we'll see.
i do not expect Trump to be as foolish as the establishment had become. i mean, it had become outrageous, exposed beyond doubt in the campaign. no one can alienate half or more of the population then expect continued support.

Trump was never a conservative hard-liner. he's unlikely to disenfranchise like that.
it's not productive.

time will tell.

btw, the unorganized majority is my fav part of the U.S.
without these, the U.S. is nothing more than just another banana republic.
that is not what people sacrifice to come here for. they come here to get away from that.
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Bootstrap
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Re: The electoral college

Post by Bootstrap »

appleman2006 wrote:Ok I will bite. :) Please understand this is not a case for voting or non voting. But the fact is if you do not vote you are by default saying that you will be satisfied with whoever wins.
I doubt it. There are a huge number of voters who basically believe government doesn't work for them, isn't going to, and their vote isn't going to change that fact.

According to polls, most voters did not like or trust either candidate. I think it's deeply misleading to imply that they would be satisfied with either Clinton or Trump. Sometimes voters just give up.
appleman2006 wrote:Because of the electoral college system parties plan their campaigning accordingly.


The team that wins the Super Bowl knows what the rules are. If they rules change next year, they will prepare differently. But the electoral college is not going away.
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Bootstrap
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Re: The electoral college

Post by Bootstrap »

Two important things about the electoral college. It's not what the Constitution tried to set up. And it's not going to change.

The original idea is spelled out in Article II of the Constitution. Electors were supposed to be part of a deliberative body, and to make an informed choice. Also, the second place winner originally became the Vice President.

Faithless electors are rare, and there's a lot of pressure on anyone who makes that choice. But they aren't unconstitutional, they are doing the kind of deliberation that the Constitution asks them to do.
Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.
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Robert
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Re: The electoral college

Post by Robert »

Bootstrap wrote:Two important things about the electoral college. It's not what the Constitution tried to set up. And it's not going to change.
I wonder if there was a push by the right to sway electors in 2008 or 2012 like there has been this year, how the left would have reacted and if there would have been as much a desire to rid us of the evil electoral college?

Without it, all a candidate has to do is go to a few big cities and promise them things to get elected.

With the electoral college, they have to go to lots of places and promise them everything.

At least with the electoral college, we make them work for it.
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