the electoral college.... yay or nay?

should the electoral college be canned?

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behemoth79

Active member
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.
 
chewie_nz said:
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.
 
MontyB said:
chewie_nz said:
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 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.
 
Whispering Death said:
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.
 
Okay Behemoth79, let consider this then: Lets say that popular vote is a reality and you happen to be a Presidential Candidate. Wyoming has less than 500,000 people in it. It still has a lot of important needs, especially in terms of its wilderness areas, mining and agriculture. But honestly, 500,000 votes out of 290,000,000. That's 0.1724% of the vote, why the hell should you care about them?? Why even bother campaigning there at all?
 
godofthunder9010 said:
Okay Behemoth79, let consider this then: Lets say that popular vote is a reality and you happen to be a Presidential Candidate. Wyoming has less than 500,000 people in it. It still has a lot of important needs, especially in terms of its wilderness areas, mining and agriculture. But honestly, 500,000 votes out of 290,000,000. That's 0.1724% of the vote, why the h**l should you care about them?? Why even bother campaigning there at all?

i would've thought that that is where the local representative comes in, the sentor or congressman, isn't it THEIR job to make sure their home state is looked after?
i wouldn't expect the national leader to look after a state more...just because they voted for him/her...
 
wyoming only has three electoral votes. why should any candidate care? besides, its not like any candidate spends any considerable time in wyoming anyway. also think of it this way, are there more republicans in California or people in wyoming? the republican vote in California and even the democratic vote in texas or another red state becomes null and void. that is why teh electoral college needs to be done away with.
 
There's much more than electoral votes. Vermont has only three as well, however, we have one of the most senior and powerful Senators in Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords is not without some clout himself. Of course our Congressman, Bernie Sanders is a bit of a joke. Still, not a bad powerbase for a tiny state with only 600,000 people and no large scale industry.
 
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.

Some pressure my :cen: , the Alliance party exerted far more power than their 7% of the vote gave them in the first Labour term, United and the Greens did the same in the second Labour term as did New Zealand first in the previous National government.

All MMP has proven in terms of New Zealand is that the minor party in the government effectively blackmails the majority party in return for being decimated at the next election.

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.

I cant bring myself to vote Labour, while I tend to lean toward Labour policies I am not over enthused about the direction this government is taking, at the rate she is going we will be leasing our defence forces out to pay for a new museum somewhere.
However you couldn't get me to vote for Don Brash either so I suspect I will vote for my local Labour candidate but pass on the party vote as I dont like any of them.
 
I say do away with the electoral college, as it's been said before, it had it's purpose before, but with modern technology, it's defunct. As for large cities becoming center pieces, there's already that element with "Swing states" that presidential candidates focus on.
Already large regions of the country are ignored. At least under the popular vote system, the candidates would likely visit a larger area of the country (NYC, LA, Boston etc) rather than just the swing state area. And combined with modern technology, those regions issues could be discussed IN that region, more of that areas topics could be answered, rather than just broad-spectrum answers on taxes, medicare, and so on, and then broadcast via television (just like the debates) to the other states.

I think switching to popular vote would do this country some good.
 
My opinion is that electoral vote gives each voter more voting power when the popularity between the two (most of the time there are only two leading candidates anyway) is not very close. In an election where each candidate has close to 50% of the popularity, popular vote would give individuals more voting power (your vote could decide who wins and who loses). However, in an election where the popularity between the candidates are further apart (let's say, 55-45), electoral college system magnifies the power of the less popular candidate. Let's use the Wyoming state as an example: Assume nationally the less popular candidate actually has more popularity in Wyoming, 52-48; In popular vote, if no one in the state voted, it wouldn't have mattered because this is pretty much a push for either candidate (NEITHER candidate would really care about this state). However, in an electoral college vote, the winner of the state takes all the electoral votes (3), which virtually translates to 100% of the popular vote. This then is no longer a push, one candidate definitely did benefit from the result. Factor in other states in the same situation, the possibility of having an anomaly (like in 2000) can actually occur (granted not often) -- which may not be a flaw, but a proof that the system is working.
 
behemoth79 said:
wyoming only has three electoral votes. why should any candidate care? besides, its not like any candidate spends any considerable time in wyoming anyway. also think of it this way, are there more republicans in California or people in wyoming? the republican vote in California and even the democratic vote in texas or another red state becomes null and void. that is why teh electoral college needs to be done away with.
I grew up there and still remember George Bush Sr and his multiple visits to our state. Yes, he most certainly did campaign there. So did Reagan. Democrats will drop in on Jackson Hole (the only part of Wyoming that is potentially a liberal stronghold) but that's about it. THEY definietly do not bother with Wyoming. George Sr also appears to have really liked Wyoming's hunting and wilderness options and came back for a retreat there on many occasions. I haven't lived there at all since 1994 though, so I can't tell you what campaigning has or has not been done since that time. I doubt that it has been entirely passed over since I've lived there.

Personally, I'm in favor of the idea of Electoral Votes being distributed based on districts and such. There's a term for it but I can't remember what it was. Give the electoral votes that represent the Senators to the overall popular vote of the state in question. All other votes are sorted by popular vote within their congressional districts.

The reason for the Electoral College is the same reason that the Senate exists: making sure that the little guy isn't going to get overlooked or their needs overlooked.
 
those for keeping the electoral college still fail to defend the aspect of those in strongly red or strongly blue states not having their votes represented. what will be done for those people?
 
behemoth79 said:
those for keeping the electoral college still fail to defend the aspect of those in strongly red or strongly blue states not having their votes represented. what will be done for those people?
Read my last post.
 
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