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Canoas
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<Member>
DillButt64 wrote:
almost half of them are him insulting someone in a "creative" way, hes indirectly calling people stupid and such
Insulting people indirectly is allowed.
Attempting to bring this thread back to be a little more on-topic:
Anyway, back to the electoral process
Moon Ill give you 2 things that they can use as an electoral system and you can tell me the flaws in them.
1. Votes count directly towards the candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins. You are able to vote until 12 o'clock midnight, at which time anyone left in line is allowed to complete their vote but the lines would be closed, the votes are tallied and the president with the most votes wins.
First, a small logistical thing. There's absolutely no reason to keep polling places open that late. It would put unnecessary strain on poll workers, who would be forced to pull extremely long hours to keep the polls open. The current system doesn't really preclude anyone who wants to vote from voting, with the length of time that polls are open and the amount of early and absentee voting available.
Second, the current winner-take-all nature of allocating state electors does have its benefits. Because a party, to get any electors whatsoever, must win a majority (or at least plurality) in a state, the system heavily precludes having more than two parties. Without getting into whether or not this is a good thing (which we could discuss for ever), this does have the distinct benefit of tending to elect presidents who receive at least a near-majority of the public vote. By removing the electoral college entirely and only using the popular vote, the way would be much more open for candidates outside of the two standard parties to have a realistic chance to actually win the election. This presents two possibilities: On the one hand, a President could still need to receive an actual majority of the popular vote, so the presence of viable third-party candidates would likely lead to multiple run-off elections, which could have disastrous consequences if we don't know who our next President is going to be until late December; on the other hand, a President could only need a plurality of the popular vote (like you suggested), which would instead lead to instances where the President-elect could easily have received far less than 50% of the popular vote.
2. Make the Electoral college balanced by first: Doubling the number of electoral votes, giving a total of 1076, then giving 1 vote to represent each 292 thousand people. A state like Wyoming would get 2 votes, and everything would go up from there all the way to California, who would get 192 Votes to represent them. People would vote for which president they want and the Electoral votes are given to the president with the majority vote.
I Also want to note that the number of Representatives and senate won't change, Just the number of votes they represent, so instead of 1 they would represent 2 to make the system more easy to calculate with the population.
This isn't substantially different from just having the House vote. I'd have to run some numbers to check, but this will probably actually favor larger states over smaller ones even compared to the numbers of Representatives in the House. (Also, you seem to have typo'd. California would receive 129 votes.)
Generally, such a system would have the massive issue that small states would have even less influence than they currently do. Any Presidential candidate who can win California, Texas, Florida, and New York (unlikely, but that's not the point) already has 151 electoral votes. The candidate would then only need another 118 to win the entire election. If a candidate wins the 11 highest-population states, they win the election; by contrast, a candidate has to win the 40 lowest-population states to win the election (New Jersey is required either way). Under your system, a candidate would probably only have to win the top 10 highest population states to be elected.
And they believe in?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party. Google's a powerful thing.
It's unlikely that such a party would survive in the US, though. We don't have a coalition government, which tends to preclude any parties except the most bland and broad. And, of course, it doesn't already have a broad base to draw on.
MrCuddowls wrote:
Anyway, back to the electoral process
Moon Ill give you 2 things that they can use as an electoral system and you can tell me the flaws in them.
1. Votes count directly towards the candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins. You are able to vote until 12 o'clock midnight, at which time anyone left in line is allowed to complete their vote but the lines would be closed, the votes are tallied and the president with the most votes wins.
First, a small logistical thing. There's absolutely no reason to keep polling places open that late. It would put unnecessary strain on poll workers, who would be forced to pull extremely long hours to keep the polls open. The current system doesn't really preclude anyone who wants to vote from voting, with the length of time that polls are open and the amount of early and absentee voting available.
Second, the current winner-take-all nature of allocating state electors does have its benefits. Because a party, to get any electors whatsoever, must win a majority (or at least plurality) in a state, the system heavily precludes having more than two parties. Without getting into whether or not this is a good thing (which we could discuss for ever), this does have the distinct benefit of tending to elect presidents who receive at least a near-majority of the public vote. By removing the electoral college entirely and only using the popular vote, the way would be much more open for candidates outside of the two standard parties to have a realistic chance to actually win the election. This presents two possibilities: On the one hand, a President could still need to receive an actual majority of the popular vote, so the presence of viable third-party candidates would likely lead to multiple run-off elections, which could have disastrous consequences if we don't know who our next President is going to be until late December; on the other hand, a President could only need a plurality of the popular vote (like you suggested), which would instead lead to instances where the President-elect could easily have received far less than 50% of the popular vote.
MrCuddowls wrote:
2. Make the Electoral college balanced by first: Doubling the number of electoral votes, giving a total of 1076, then giving 1 vote to represent each 292 thousand people. A state like Wyoming would get 2 votes, and everything would go up from there all the way to California, who would get 192 Votes to represent them. People would vote for which president they want and the Electoral votes are given to the president with the majority vote.
I Also want to note that the number of Representatives and senate won't change, Just the number of votes they represent, so instead of 1 they would represent 2 to make the system more easy to calculate with the population.
This isn't substantially different from just having the House vote. I'd have to run some numbers to check, but this will probably actually favor larger states over smaller ones even compared to the numbers of Representatives in the House. (Also, you seem to have typo'd. California would receive 129 votes.)
Generally, such a system would have the massive issue that small states would have even less influence than they currently do. Any Presidential candidate who can win California, Texas, Florida, and New York (unlikely, but that's not the point) already has 151 electoral votes. The candidate would then only need another 118 to win the entire election. If a candidate wins the 11 highest-population states, they win the election; by contrast, a candidate has to win the 40 lowest-population states to win the election (New Jersey is required either way). Under your system, a candidate would probably only have to win the top 10 highest population states to be elected.
FatelBlade wrote:
And they believe in?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party. Google's a powerful thing.
It's unlikely that such a party would survive in the US, though. We don't have a coalition government, which tends to preclude any parties except the most bland and broad. And, of course, it doesn't already have a broad base to draw on.
OTGBionicArm wrote: Armored wimminz = badass.
My posts may be long. If this bothers you, don't read them.
My posts may be long. If this bothers you, don't read them.
Canoas
<Member>
<Member>
Mooninites wrote:
i would say great minds thing alike but I don't know if that applies to you
I certainly hope you're not comparing me with you. And if anything you would be talking about mowen and matt, not me. I don't make the rules here, I only test them.
lifebaka wrote:
the current winner-take-all nature of allocating state electors does have its benefits. Because a party, to get any electors whatsoever, must win a majority (or at least plurality) in a state, the system heavily precludes having more than two parties. Without getting into whether or not this is a good thing (which we could discuss for ever), this does have the distinct benefit of tending to elect presidents who receive at least a near-majority of the public vote. By removing the electoral college entirely and only using the popular vote, the way would be much more open for candidates outside of the two standard parties to have a realistic chance to actually win the election. This presents two possibilities: On the one hand, a President could still need to receive an actual majority of the popular vote, so the presence of viable third-party candidates would likely lead to multiple run-off elections, which could have disastrous consequences if we don't know who our next President is going to be until late December; on the other hand, a President could only need a plurality of the popular vote (like you suggested), which would instead lead to instances where the President-elect could easily have received far less than 50% of the popular vote.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party. Google's a powerful thing.
It's unlikely that such a party would survive in the US, though. We don't have a coalition government, which tends to preclude any parties except the most bland and broad. And, of course, it doesn't already have a broad base to draw on.
Well, you've stated both the problem and the solution yourself :P
Without the electoral system smaller parties would have a bigger chance to win.
The electoral system needs to go and paired with a way of dividing the power according to votes I think it would be a more fair system.
I think I'd like to see multi-party politics instead of the silly presidential stuff we have now.
Google has a job title called "Head of Black Community Engagement"..
I don't know whether to cry or laugh.. or both.
I don't know whether to cry or laugh.. or both.
I love how I can make one post and basically kill a thread. Not that this one really needed to live, but hey.
Well, you've stated both the problem and the solution yourself :P
Without the electoral system smaller parties would have a bigger chance to win.
The electoral system needs to go and paired with a way of dividing the power according to votes I think it would be a more fair system.
I think I'd like to see multi-party politics instead of the silly presidential stuff we have now.
While I don't claim that the US two-party system is terribly functional, I hesitate to claim that coalition government is better (see: Europe struggling with its debt/economic crisis). It simply has different problems. I'd rather stick with the devil I know, on this one, as changing to a multi-party system would certainly cause problems while people adjust and I have little reason to believe that government would function all that much better with one.
Most of the people here are probably spared from the worst of the Presidential madness, though. Very few states actually have any real power in deciding who the next President is going to be. This year, for instance, was almost entirely about Ohio and none of the other states. Between the two campaigns, several hundred million dollars was spent there, while I saw very little about the election except on the news here in Georgia. To come back to what Cuddowls was arguing earlier, about few people really deciding the election, this is a far more worrying, and realistic, issue than any silliness about what relatively low population states could do if they could all agree on one candidate.
(Also, to take the most ridiculous example possible, a President could be elected with only 11 votes for him. If only one person voted per state, and a President got the 11 most populous states, they'd still win. The other states don't even have to have a single voter. It wouldn't matter.)
Searz wrote:
Well, you've stated both the problem and the solution yourself :P
Without the electoral system smaller parties would have a bigger chance to win.
The electoral system needs to go and paired with a way of dividing the power according to votes I think it would be a more fair system.
I think I'd like to see multi-party politics instead of the silly presidential stuff we have now.
While I don't claim that the US two-party system is terribly functional, I hesitate to claim that coalition government is better (see: Europe struggling with its debt/economic crisis). It simply has different problems. I'd rather stick with the devil I know, on this one, as changing to a multi-party system would certainly cause problems while people adjust and I have little reason to believe that government would function all that much better with one.
Most of the people here are probably spared from the worst of the Presidential madness, though. Very few states actually have any real power in deciding who the next President is going to be. This year, for instance, was almost entirely about Ohio and none of the other states. Between the two campaigns, several hundred million dollars was spent there, while I saw very little about the election except on the news here in Georgia. To come back to what Cuddowls was arguing earlier, about few people really deciding the election, this is a far more worrying, and realistic, issue than any silliness about what relatively low population states could do if they could all agree on one candidate.
(Also, to take the most ridiculous example possible, a President could be elected with only 11 votes for him. If only one person voted per state, and a President got the 11 most populous states, they'd still win. The other states don't even have to have a single voter. It wouldn't matter.)
OTGBionicArm wrote: Armored wimminz = badass.
My posts may be long. If this bothers you, don't read them.
My posts may be long. If this bothers you, don't read them.
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