Online Vote: Is it Time to Get Rid of the Electoral College?

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MrBigglesworth

New member
http://www.vote.com/vote/19053098/index.phtml?cat=4075633

Some of you will remember a few weeks back my posting of the dislike of the EC.

I am starting to see about 1 story a day out there that proposes that Bush could win the popular vote but Gore could win the EC!

How is this even remotely possible? If you have a pop vote that determines a specific winner in a state the EC vote is supposed to reinforce that. Now as stated this hasnt happened since the 1880's but this has no excuse to happen now especially with the "instant knowledge" that TV and Internet provide.

I dont see any justice in Bush getting the POP and Gore getting the EC. I am truly worried that this could happen. How should we respond in this instance if Bush doesnt secure the EC vote??

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Try to take away my gun...and you will see my 2nd Amendment Right in ACTION!!! -Me

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crime. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Thomas Jefferson

[This message has been edited by MrBigglesworth (edited November 02, 2000).]
 
Just remember who's promoting this story-- the same Media Jackals who helped Klink get elected-- and hang on to office.
They'd love to abolish the EC so we could go straight to mob rule ( th' will O th' peeple!)...which is what pure democracy is, and why such governments end in chaos.
Remember-- everything shown on TV revolves around some kind of conflict-- they are peddling this so you won't walk away during commercials...
 
How is it possible? Two ways.

First, most states allocate electoral college votes on a winner takes all basis. (They don't have to, though.) If you have a candidate who is wildly popular in a small number of states running against a candidate who's moderately popular in a large number of states, the moderately popular guy can barely win all the electoral college votes of a majority of states, while the guy with only local appeal racks up a larger vote total in a minority of states.

Secondly, electoral college votes are not allocated on population, but on the sum of a state's Senators and Representatives. Small states have a disproportionate number of Electoral college votes, because you can't have fewer than 2 senators and one representative no matter how small your population. So a candidate can assemble an electoral college majority by winning in lots of small states, and not win the popular vote nationwide.

THIS IS INTENTIONAL!

Our federal system was designed so that Presidents need widespread support to get elected, instead of being wildly popular in just a few states. And it's designed so that a handful of large states can't just ignore the small states, treating them like dirt. Sure, it's not pure democracy. If it were, the small states would never have ratified the Constitution, and we wouldn't have a country.

Would you really want to live in a country where California and New York called all the shots, and people living in all the other states had no say in how the government was run?

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Sic semper tyrannis!

[This message has been edited by Brett Bellmore (edited November 02, 2000).]
 
This sort of control is already happening. New York and California have a tremendous amount of EC votes anyway. And they always go to the Communist party (DNC uber alles). It takes most of the U.S. to vote for a republican because of huge population centers in places like CA and NY that are demo. When you get more and more people crowded into one area you get more liberals. As the population of this country increases freedom will slowly die. All these people need to be kept safe somehow, right? You can't have people shooting guns or fireworks or flying model RC planes or hot air balloons or amateur pilots or high power rocketry or.... Do you see what I am getting at? If you just sit on your ass and watch football then your ok though.

Whether they use popular or EC votes doesn't really matter. Now if they could just devote the EC amounts to states as a percentage of land mass...

Joel
 
Joel: Read this, it might make you a little less depressed.
http://www.nationalreview.com/daily/nr103100.shtml

All over the Map

Michael Barone's latest column in U.S. News explains why the states aren't lining up as usual in the presidential race: During the Clinton years, the Democrats gained votes in "the nation's very largest metropolitan areas" while losing them "in rural areas and the fast-growing metropolitan fringe." This, he writes, is "why New Jersey (100 percent major metro) is solidly Democratic, why Illinois (where metro Chicago casts nearly two thirds of votes) is the most Democratic Midwestern state, why California (where metro L.A. and the Bay Area cast two thirds of votes) has been leaning to Gore." Barone attributes both the metropolitan and rural trends to cultural issues such as abortion and gun control.

So who comes out ahead? Barone notes that the "major metro areas are casting a declining share of the nation's votes, while fast-growing counties beyond metro-edge cities, with family-size subdivisions and megachurches, are heavily Republican…. The new political map puts Bush in a weaker position than his father was in 1988 in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Florida, and six other states, with 145 electoral votes. But it puts him in a stronger position in 19 states with 201 electoral votes."

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By the way, since the electoral college increases the weight of low population states, which tend our way, it is actually helping us.

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Sic semper tyrannis!
 
Think of it as we would total scoring in the World Series or the NBA Championship Series.

The Mets can score ten runs and shut out the Yanks in the first game and then lose the next four games to the Yankees 1 to zip, 1 to zip, 1 to zip, 1 to zip.

Total score: Mets 10, Yanks 4. But the Yanks have a better representation in the best of seven series. This causes the Yanks and the Mets to want to do the best they can over each game, so that one dominant pitcher can't isn't the whole game. Same with NBA Championships.

Same with the electoral college. If you think it is important to have each state sharing influence and being recognized as a sovereign entity, then the EC is for you. It keeps candidates from loading up in just one region. They have to pay attention to fly-over country.

Some want to get rid of the EC for the same reason then wanted to stop the state legislatures from electing Senators.

1) They didn't understand the intent of the framers to have state legislatures with a branch to represent state interests while the people got the House of Representatives.

2) They knew exactly what the intent was and want to further dilute the influence of individual states.

Smart chaps, those Founding Fathers.

Rick
 
George...emailed them all that was in my district about 4 weeks ago...have yet to hear back.

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Try to take away my gun...and you will see my 2nd Amendment Right in ACTION!!! -Me

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crime. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Thomas Jefferson
 
MrBigglesworth
Instead of waiting/hoping for the hell of war, grab a few fence-sitting. non-voting, beer-drinking, TV-watching, conspiracy-whining gunowners and take 'em down to the polls to VOTE on Tuesday.

It's too late to get the lazy bums registered to vote, but we certainly can do our part in getting our vote out. At least get on the phone starting at 7am on Tuesday to every hunter and gunowner that you know.

Arguments to use...

Check out the "Registration" thread. Yes they HAVE in the USA registered first and confiscated later. These lazy gunowners don't realize they will soon be left with single shot .22's and 3-shot shotguns - NO HANDGUNS OR SNIPER RIFLES. Sniper Rifles? Yep, ANY centerfire scoped or scopable rifle. And that means grand-dad's old 30-30 or the kid's new 220 Swift or .243
 
The EC also helps blunt the effect of voter fraud. For example, if Chicago politics ever became corrupt and voter fraud became rampant( :) ), it could only affect the outcome in Illinois. Smaller states would not lose their effect on the EC.
 
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