I figured everyone knows, but if you don't and you're too lazy and words are big things and stuff, here ya go.


Electing a US President in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

The best part is how it illustrates in "plain English" how retarded the system is. "We couldn't just count the popular vote! That'd be CRAZY!" *explanation of stupid convoluted system follows*

Yay! :hangten


But the popular vote would make the most populous areas too powerful! We need the Electoral College to balance out that power by providing an appropriate number of a different kind of vote based on population![/ST53(was I think the one I was debating this with a couple of months ago)]

Oh, that's right, there was a big ghey argument about all of that.

Well, by all means....FIRE IT UP!

Actually I think we both said what we had to say. No point in going there again. ST53 should feel free to take a good natured jab at me in this thread, though. Fair's fair.

isn't that how all these end. except the ones that end with warns and bans and stuff.

I seem to recall most all internet debates I've had ending with the other person conceding defeat and adopting my principals as their own.

Why, do you remember it differently?

Internet debates suck! Because halfway through you realize you're wrong and you have to keep arguing anyway.

Or am I the only one that happens to?

I'm rarely wrong. But frequently a jackass, which is basically the same.

Internet debates would be better with webcams.

But then I'd have to wear pants

not in this theatre.

hawt

But if we used webcams, then we'd realize we were yelling and throwing obscenities at actual people...



And I do love how it points out the ridiculousness of the EC system, it's as if we elect our leader in by Rube Goldberg

We can't elect Presidents by the popular vote, because then less populated states would be less represented. So what we do, is make those less populated states count less than the more populated ones.

Wait, what?

its set up so that the state govt's are the actual electing bodies. we are a union of states, not states of a union. the founding fathers knew that generally people are bewbs. so they set it up as a republic with the states electing the pres.

I like the system. hell I wish we didn't even bother with the popular voting. course I actually believe states rights>nat'l rights.

And both of those > individual rights?

I think it's retarded, AND NOBODY WILL CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE

well of course not but individuals rights to representation are not in the equation. our representation comes from congress and our individual state governments.
we vote on our states govt. and we have our natl reps./senators. our states only say in the natl govt now is the electorates.

Yeah I know how it works, I'm just saying that it's retarded.

Anyway, going by the popular vote would only have changed the outcome of three presidential elections since 1872.... Samuel J. Tilden would have defeated Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Grover Cleveland would have defeated Benjamin Harrison in 1888... and, well, you know the third.

The Electoral College is the last vestige of the Three-Fifths compromise. Which, for those who are outside America or fell asleep in civics class, was a compromise between slave state legislators who wanted their slaves to count toward the state's population in determining representation in Congress despite the fact that they couldn't vote, and free state legislators who did not want slaves to count. The compromise was that slave states could count three-fifths of their slave state toward the population.

The Electoral College was originally devised because in an era without mass communication, a popular vote among a large land with low population density wasn't thought to do much good; people would just vote for their local candidate and have no knowledge of any other. And again the slave states were the stickler, as they knew that because a large portion of their population couldn't vote, they'd be better off with an indirect representative method of choosing the President. So it was decided that the states, rather than the people, would choose the President and that the representation of each state would be proportional to its population. But again the slave states wanted all their slaves counted in the population. To resolve this, the representation was based on the number of members the state had in both houses of Congress (Senate and House) which meant that the Three-Fifths Compromise was applied again to the Electoral College.

So really, the Electoral College was partly designed to give slaveholders a bigger say in national government, and the 14th Amendment (abolition of slavery and representation based on people eligible to vote) combined with mass communication makes the Electoral College obsolete.

What happened to accountability in this representative system we're running?

Candidate-If I win I'm going to do this, that and that.
People-Oooh, I like those ideas. *votes*
C-Now that I hold office, and these others paid for me to get here, I'm no longer going to do this, that, and that; but instead, these, those and them.
P-Wait a minute, that's the exact opposite of what you said to get my vote, you no longer represent the ideals you did to get these votes.
C-Tough $hit, I'm here, deal with it.
P-F*&K ME!!!
C-

Ay, there's the rub in the "representative" system. You don't elect a vote or stance or promise or position, you elect a person. Therefore, it is beholden to the people to decide who is lying about what. Not saying it should be necessarily, but it is.

Besides, what alternative would there be? Have the candidates record their campaign platforms on affidavits and consider it a "high crime and/or misdemeanor" should the elected renege on his sworn statement? It seems like whoever gets the power to decide what constitutes a "broken promise" could abuse this power pretty easily.

I think it requires the electorate to be smart and NOT RESPOND TO PANDERING, then maybe candidates will stop making bullsh*t promises just to get votes.

If wishes were horses...

Of course you could always make voting a compulsory part of citizenship, so candidates don't just pander to special interest groups because they know they're the only ones who will get of their arses and vote.

I liked your avatars with Hobbes in them better.

Does that sting?

That...that does sting a little.

I'll make a new one this weekend...

You could stick with the RDJ theme...put Hobbes in the Iron Man suit.

Or put Hobbes in black face?

result of a Google search

http://ateam.blogware.com/calvin_and_hobbes.jpg

No wai Hot damn!



That's great

How about Hobbes peeing on RDJ? I'm sure RDJ's been peed on before...

Hey, look, a new Avatar.

Hey, there's a whole world of copyright-infringed possibilities there.

One of these days I still need to pick up that Calvin & Hobbes complete hardcover set.

Sigh...me too. Maybe after America elects a president.

/trying to re-rail this thread

Vote Hobbes!

Me or the tiger.

well since now everyone is counted fully in the determination of number of reps and electorals. your point is moot. the people all have representation based on A)population and B) equal basis'. our govt is intended to be a representative govt. the fact that people get upset after the reps don't do what they say is also moot if they don't write the house member or senator in question. remember the amnesty bill. when people got threatened with losing their jobs, the reps voted like the constituency requested. we should write our congressmen on every vote we care about to get proper representation. its not their fault they can't read minds.


my guys get letters anytime I feel strongly on a bill.

This is the point I was really trying to make, I think I wandered off too far from the topic though (not that this thread has stayed on topic). I mean, I guess there's not a whole lot patently wrong with the Electoral College but there's simply no need for it anymore.

I might be okay with that IF they start with the West Coast first.

Here's my vote:

I go back to the same thing. the electoral college is set up to allow the States to elect the president. not the people. it was never intended that the people vote directly on the president. we live in a republic where the local govt decides along with the 49 other local govts who will lead the big govt. we vote on representatives and senators, that's our branch to make a difference. they already took the senate away from the states so where would their voice be in the natl govt without the electors? that is its purpose, it gives the state govts a voice.

I think you guys are talking about the difference between what is and what should be.

depending on who you ask what should be. I think more power should be given back to the states. seems like maybe you guys think the states should go away and we just have the one govt. I could be wrong. I'm just guessing. but I like the way it is, in that the population doesn't decide, being that most people really wouldn't understand what we've been discussing. I tend to think the electors have a slightly better focused interest in our country and are probably more educated on the workings than the avg person.

Fair enough. I get what you're saying. The one question I still have though is, what do you define as a "state" in this context? It can't just be a demarcated chunk of land, it has to be defined as some person or group of people that can make a decision. In this case, is the "state" defined as the governor, the legislature, the state courts? Who is the "state" that needs a voice in national government, if not the people within?