Didn't we go over the electoral college and federalism with you awhile back? ;)

I think Oklahoma (or some state, anyway) already does that. Not sure how they work out the proper proportions- that would seem like a problem to me. What if you have 10 electoral votes, and the popular vote is 55-45%?

If you're going to do that, why not just go with a popular vote?

(As an interesting aside, I think in some states the electoral voters aren't bound, legally, to abide by the popular vote in their state at all.)

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I'm not sure I'm following what you are suggesting. If you go strictly based on % of popular vote, then you might as well just go with popular vote. % of pop vote would just be a simplification of the numbers. Pres Bush wins 52% of pop vote, so he gets 52% of electoral votes. Why do both in that case? Are you talking about % of pop vote state by state, or as a whole?

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

% of popular vote state by state.
this still gives the possibility to lose the popular vote and win the electoral college though.

but some here argued that the popular vote was not a good thing as unpractical to implement (even though I argued that the technology is here).

As for 'why do both in this case'...well indeed, for the rest of the world, it seems unnatural to have a president who is not supported by the majority of the people...and even though I would like kerry to win, I'd thought it would be odd to see him lose the popular vote, win the EC and yet be elected.

We have an electoral vote because large population centers can over rule the desires of a less populated place. For example New York City can out vote Idaho do to population. The electoral college evens out the vote.

Of course there is a chance according to the polls that Kerry will win the electoral while Bush takes the popular at which point you will sing the praises of the electoral. :-)

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

I wouldn't actually. This is why I added my last comment.
Yes, I'd rather have kerry than bush, but I still find it not natural to have the winner defeated at the popular vote.

So you have no problem with a few places in the country over ruling the votes of people in less populated areas?

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

We are not a direct democracy, and I am grateful for that every day because a high percentage of voters are really stupid...

WRT the proportional distribution of electors, this is an interesting concept, and some states do it that way, but there is a problem with it.

Let's say you are Ohio. You are a "Battleground" or "swing" or "purple" state. You have power. The President, whoever it is, will kick down all kinds of love to you in federal $$$'s to keep you happy. You win no matter what.

Now, let's say that Ohio goes proportional. Nobody will give a shit about Ohio anymore because the electoral votes will be split. No love ($$) will come from the president, and nobody will come to visit.

If you are a swing state and you give up "winner take all", you give up power. Maybe it would make sense for a state like California since politicians take CA for granted and we get nothing from either party.

The basic idea is that the majority of people don't elect the President, the majority of states do, because he's the President of the States. Otherwise, if you did it strictly by pop vote, the President would be elected by the people who live in New york, LA, Chicago,, etc,...just the big cities where population is dense. The electoral process is supposed to force the Pres to focus on the whole country to some extent, and to give the State of Wyoming a proportional say in the administration of the federation of states. Currently, I think there's two states that do some split of electoral votes. They give the winner 2 votes, and then split the remaining electorals between the candidates by proportionality. So the winner still gets a couple extra votes, even if the state is evenly split. I don't have a big problem with that in theory. It's mostly a matter of what fits the Constitution.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I think the Electoral College is an excellent system. It takes whacked out states out of the presidential campaign and forces candidates to fight for states in the center of the political spectrum.

We already know what CA, HI, MA and NY think on one side, and TX, ND and KS on the other. The president needs to appeal to the center, not campaign on give aways to aliens in CA to get out the vote for Democrats or to farmers to get out the vote for Republicans. Our elections would be even more polarized without the EC.

The Electoral College also gives a small weighting preference to small states, which I also think is a good idea.

[reply]So you have no problem with a few places in the country over ruling the votes of people in less populated areas?[/reply]

Welcome to Canada, Ontario and Quebec (although to a lesser extent due to the number of Seperatist candidates) control the government. Most elections it's already over before the West even votes which has resulted in western alienation from the rest of the country due to a lack of representation in Parliament.

The electoral college is not necessarily an excellent system. The KEY to a good electoral college is to distribute the electoral VOTES appropriately.

IMO the way to properly distribute the electoral votes, if not based on population is to split it evenly by region. This way we could say that the entire country elects the president. Right now a handful of States elects the president.

Let's look at a few States: CA 51, NY 31, FL 27, TX 34, IL 21. Obviously CA was given 51 votes to even out the voting for the west, but if you add up the votes the EAST has by far move electoral votes than the West. So in essence we can argue that the East decides the president - obviously the winner needs some of the big midwest and west States.

Also you can add up all the votes for Mountain States like MN, CO, NM and MT and they don't add up to TX or even CA. So we can argue that the electoral college means nothing for the Mountain States.

Well, actually the electoral system gives states like CO, NM, MT and WY slightly more say in the selection process than their population would otherwise justify. Similarly, states like CA, NY, FL and TX get slightly penalized. On balance, I think that is a good idea for the same reasons each state has exactly two Senators regardless of population.

I don't see how you can say the East decides the President. None of the battleground states are in the East, unless you count little NH. OH, WI, NM, NV, Iowa, AR, and FL will decide this election.

This country being polarized by a gerrymandered House of Representative. The last thing we need is drawing artificial regions and negotiating weighting in those regions.

OH and FL are THE battlegound States because they have 20 and 27 undecided electoral votes. If CA and NY or TX were still undecided then they would be battleground States too, but they are not.

My statement about the East deciding the president is simple. If you add up the Electoral votes in the East States then you have about 271 votes (+/- depending on which States are counted). So if we break the coutry down into only 3 sections West (including HI, AK), MidWest (including the Mountain time States plus), and the East then the East has more than half the votes. If you include OH in the East then the number of electoral votes is even more imbalanced.

I guess by your description you consider the South to be part of the East. That is not a very useful grouping since they vote in opposite directions.

The East ends at the VA border. After that, you are in the South. Take my word for it, though I guess you could try to argue about VA itself.

Didn't we have a war along those lines once?

OK, so let's agree on the breakdown of the regions, add the electoral votes, and I think my theory still holds true except then it might be that the South and the East decide the president.

Proposed regions:

Northeast (north of VA?)

Southeast

Midwest (do we include OH and TX here)

West (east of the Mississippi?)

That is exactly the problem. Now you are trying to draw artificial regions. Your proposed cure is much worse than the disease, even if you think there is a disease. I do not.

"Obviously CA was given 51 votes to even out the voting for the west"

I don't think that's correct. the number of electors is the number of a States Senators (2 obviously) and its Representatives. California has a lot of people, so it has a lot of representatives, so it has a lot of electors.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

You are correct.

California has 53 representatives and 2 senators for 55 electoral votes.

Trivia question: If there are 535 members of congress, why are there 538 electoral votes?

add 3 for D.C.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)