there have been some disputed elections in the past (2000) that could have been resolved easier if the electoral college was canned. the electoral college all but nullifies a republican vote in CA or NY and democratic votes in TX. should elections be strictly popular vote or should the electoral college stay?

The electoral college is fundamental to keeping the nation cohesed. If it was abolished candidates would pander to the biggest cities to get the maximum number of votes, using money from people in small cities and the countryside to give to the big cities in programs such as "The Big Dig" to endear themselves to the maximum number of voters.

Theoretically, the entire nation could be de-facto run by 10 city-states with both parties pandering to them.



The electoral college system gives the power to the states so that all members of a state, whether in the big city or the quiet countryside, have equal vote; then it weights the states so that the less-populated states still have adequate represenation.

as far as i can tell, the MMP (mixed member proportianl) style of voting would fit perfectally.

each voter gets two votes;

one for the local candidate, and one for the party

so; say the local candidate is excellent for you region, but is in a party you don't like/agree with....you can have it both ways

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_Member_Proportional

Originally Posted by chewie_nz

as far as i can tell, the MMP (mixed member proportianl) style of voting would fit perfectally.

each voter gets two votes;

one for the local candidate, and one for the party

so; say the local candidate is excellent for you region, but is in a party you don't like/agree with....you can have it both ways

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_Member_Proportional

Hehe yes and if they like they can have ours, nothing like a paralysis by pandering style government.

The problem with MMP is that while it gives minor parties a say in government it leave larger parties at the mercy of those same small groups which is somewhat counter productive, I really hope we go back to FPP.

I'm with Chewie on this.

Originally Posted by MontyB

Hehe yes and if they like they can have ours, nothing like a paralysis by pandering style government.

The problem with MMP is that while it gives minor parties a say in government it leave larger parties at the mercy of those same small groups which is somewhat counter productive, I really hope we go back to FPP.

i think it works especially well when you have two major parties...once polar oppisites, but now closer to each other than either of them wants to admit.

in NZ's case national & labour
and for the US; republicans and democrats

what tends to happen is that the smaller parties (who tend to be further left or right than their bigger brothers) exert some pressure in exchange for being part of a coalition govt.

so in the end the major parties get pulled back towards the idealogical grounds they once occupied.

so in NZ's case and IMO for our up comming election, i like a labour Govt with helen clark as PM. but i also like the green party for being the only party being honest and sticking to it's guns

so i'll vote green on my party vote (as they are reasonably small and have almost Zero chance of becoming the ruling party)
and vote fot my local labour party rep.

easy!

The electoral college is useless, if you look at the county by county election results, you'll see that the big cities go one way and the rural areas go the other. It's not like we need the electoral college to confirm what's going to happen anyway.

The Electoral College was created in the days when it took months for people to get a letter or the news from other lands. It was meant as a way to ensure the timely election of officials, among other things, but that was its primary function. I think that in today's high speed communications it could be dispensed with, but before doing that the election process itself must be cleaned up. No damn hanging chads, or any other disputible ballots - that much has to be firmly decided before any removal of the Electoral College.

I don't agree with Whipering Death about large cities suddenly becoming the begin all and end all of political fortunes. Say you have those ten cities he mentioned and say they're all populations of 10 million (which would be an extreme as not so many cities reach that) then that would encompass 100 million Americans but still only 1/3 of the population. There would still be 200 million Americans elsewhere. Of course, that's a simplification but it illustrates my point. I don't think we would have to worry about population centers taking over as they don't have the greater portion of the total population. And that's not even taking into account all the powerbrokers, developers, communications, etc. which have moved out of the cities now that globalization and the internet has allowed them to do so.

The only problem with the Electoral College is that we've outgrown the need for there to be an actual person for an elector, and all the time mandated for them to convene etc. That part of the concept of the Electoral College is outdated. You could easily delete the actual elector and just count the actual electoral votes and save yourself a lot of time. Right now, if an elector is not allowed to cast his vote in any way contrary to the popular vote of the State or region he represents. You don't need a human being to make a decision here, so cut the human being and time delays out of the equation.

Otherwise, I agree 100% with what Charge7 and WhisperingDeath have said. The Electoral College ensures that candidates for President have to care about such states as Alaska and Wyoming even though their population is insignificant compared to New York or California. We cannot afford to create a system that disregards the needs of those states. The system we have is working wonderfully in that regard. They technically get overrepresented, but you're still only talking about 3 electoral votes. And a purely popular vote would be a complete disaster, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Whispering Death

The electoral college system gives the power to the states so that all members of a state, whether in the big city or the quiet countryside, have equal vote; then it weights the states so that the less-populated states still have adequate represenation.

how does everyone in a state have an equal vote? a republican in california shouldnt even bother voting. what the electoral college does is tell voters of the losing side in a state that their votes mean nothing. i also dont see how the rural people are being less heard. if a popular vote emerges, the votes of everyone will be equal.