But I guess it does go to show-the country doesn’t seem to give a shit about the voice of the people.
How does it disagree with the “voice of the people” Guinastasia?
The last time I checked MSNBC Gore was only ahead 167,838 votes in the popular vote. This was out of a total of 100,804,464 votes. Also, if Bush takes Flordia then he will have won the popular vote in 30 (or 29, I am not sure about OR) out of 50 states.
I think that the “voice of the people” is getting plenty of say.
Very little in this country is based on pure “majority rule”. The EC is just one of many equalizers.
True “majority rule” would lead to it’s own form of chaos. White’s could vote the right to vote away from minorites, women could vote the right to vote away from men, New York could vote to use New Jersey as a garbage dump, major metropolitan areas could vote to exercise the rights of emminent domain over the rural areas, etc.
On the surface the EC may seem unfair, but if the election results hold and GWB becomes our next president, in actuality the EC will have accomplished the very effect described in the last example above.
Mr. Gore’s hot button is the environment. His own writings indicate that the welfare of the common man are secondary to the preservation of the environment. But the Electoral College has helped to defeat Mr. Gore and his environmental excesses.
The low population states that house many of this country’s most impressive wonders voted solidly, nearly unanimously, against Mr. Gore and for Mr. Bush. The Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, the Apalachian mountain range, the Grand Tetons, Black Hills, Mississippi River, and Alaskan Wilderness all voted in a way to minimize federal intervention in how the states managed their local environments.
The EC is simply a set of rules that favor neither side. Both are aware of the rules and work within them.
Actually, this has the exact opposite effect of what you claimed. 10,000 fraudulant votes out of 100,000,000 is .001% of the vote. But if Louisiana incorrectly votes for Gore, that’s 10 votes out of 538, or 5.38% of the vote. You tell me which is a more horrific scenario?
The EC isn’t set up to combat the Al Capone’s of the world. Yes, if we use popular vote, 10,000 illegal votes will be going towards the winner. Then change the way the system to get reduce the corruption! With the EC, millions upon millions of legal votes are thrown away. Is this better?
Admittedly, a hassle. Probably less so than having the wrong man put in office for the next four years.
Guess what had 100% accuracy in comparison to the popular vote. The popular vote! Hey, who would have thought? Look, if the EC were set up to accuractly coincide with the popular vote, there would be no need for the EC in the first place. And since it doesn’t, one has to wonder why we bother having a popular vote in the first place. The EC is actually under no obligation to vote the way of the popular vote for their state. Sure, there would be hell to pay if they didn’t, but they can. So why bother holding elections if the popular vote doesn’t really matter?
This seems a contradiction from an earlier statement. If Louisiana, a smaller state, doesn’t matter (10 votes here, 10 votes there, what’s the difference) then why would the EC give them reason to campaign there? Besides, what difference would it make if we got rid of the EC from this point? They would spend all their time in California and Chicago, and NY? News flash! They do that now! When’s the last time you saw a president campaign in Hawaii? Don’t their 4 votes matter?
A problem with divvying up the EC votes proportional to the popular vote of that state is that it may make it even more likely than neither candidate will reach 270 electoral votes. Especially when you have strong 3rd party candidates.
Besides, smaller and mid sized states would be reluctant to pass this amendment because they would lose their leverage. I mean, when you only have 10 EC votes to begin with, you want to keep them in a block in order to wield more influence on the outcome.
I live in Davenport, Iowa. Iowa has 4 electoral votes. George Bush spent a couple of hours on the eve of the election giving a speech in downtown Davenport. Earlier, Al Gore gave a speech in Waterloo, Iowa.
There is not a chance in hell that would have happened if the vote was a straight popular vote.
As it turned out, the vote in Iowa was very close, a 1% victory for Gore. Certainly in this campaign, a pickup or drop of one state mattered.
You can argue that maybe the candidates should not be spending so much time in states with a low electoral vote …but the fact remains that the EC, at least is some end game scenarios, forces the candidates to visit parts of the country that they would not visit in a straight popular vote scenario.
Hawaii, like some of the smaller Northeastern states has almost always been a traditional Democratic stronghold. Gore does not need to go there to get the 4 votes, and unlike California or other larger “Democratic” states, there aren’t many congressional races to influence either (the main reason Bush spent time in California)
States like Iowa, Missouri etc have traditionally been swing states (with relatively small EC votes)…In a close election, they matter.
Damn, I want to get back to this but I am so busy right now. Imagine that? Working at work? It really leaves a sour taste in my mouth. But, I was just curious about this tidbit. I’m not sure what you’re saying here Peyote Coyote. Can you explain? I certainly hope you didn’t think I wanted Gore to win? Actually, I didn’t even vote. I could care less which one of these candidates wins. But, if there was (and hopefully there will be someday) a candidate that I wanted to vote for, I would want my vote to have the power it should. That’s why I’m debating this. Perhaps you weren’t assuming this at all. I don’t know.
Be back on the other issues later…
Fuck the electoral collage!
Fuck the DWG that invented it!
And fuck Millossarian for gloating!
He can procure his own hamsters and goats from now on.
Sorry Democritus, the EC doesn’t respect your decision not to vote. You were counted with the rest of your state. Many were counted for a candidate they voted against. Your voice was ignored and usurped.
Ya know, John Corrado is right.
This is exactly how our country is run.
I vote for Constitutional Crisis.