Certainly! Via the UK, Europe, China,…
hee hee hee.
pan
So you’re saying the vote of some coon farmer in the Great Dismal Swamp should count for more than those of the city slickers in New York and LA (and Boston and San Francisco and Chicago and on and on…)
Despite whatever controversy still exists, the facts is the facts. George Bush is now President, like John Quincy Adams and Rutherford Hayes before him.
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No, Uke, I’m not.
I’m saying that Gore supporters (actually, it’s done more by Bush detractors, and I do think there’s a difference) like to throw out the overall vote count for shock value for something. It’s as irrelevant as my blue-and-red county map.
If you can shrug and instantly dismiss that voters on more than 80 percent of our country’s land mass didn’t want Gore for president, that’s your prerogative. Just as it’s mine to not particularly care that America’s urban-dwellers wanted a Democrat, as they seemingly always do.
Gore and Bush both knew what they needed to do to win the election, before the election. The overall vote total had nothing to do with it, they both knew it, and they never said that it did. (In fact, if memory serves me correctly, some analysts pre-election were guessing it could be Bush that won the popular vote but lost the election, but don’t hold me to that.)
If you hate the electoral college, that’s your view. I like it. It serves a purpose, in helping to better ensure that a presidential candidate adheres to policies supportable by people throughout the nation, IMO.
Regardless of how you feel about it, there it is, in the Constitution. And it would take two thirds of both Congressional houses, or the legislatures of two-thirds of the states, to vote to overturn it.
Good luck selling that in Wyoming, the Dakotas, etc.
Gore/Lieberman get placed in the White House, all the Republican mouthpieces who tossed out “Sore Loserman” jokes and “Gore tried to steal the election” pap would be publically caned on live TV, the election worker and all responsible people would be charged with election tampering and imprisoned for five years minimum, and Katherin Haris is reduced to selling Avon products on The Shopping Network.
Oh, and for extra fun, a judicial review board goes over the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore, points out the numerous contradictions between the majority decision and the judges’ previous rulings and positions, and disbars Scalia, Rehnquist, O’Connor, Thomas, and Kennedy for violating their judicial oath of impartiality.
But that’s just me. 
Nothing, because there’s no current law to cover such a situation. Which was the whole point behind the Bush camp’s stonewalling on ballot recounts last November.
Nothing, for the same reason.
Uke:
Essentially, yes. Tyranny of the majority, mob rule, and all that. Otherwise their vote wouldn’t be worth anything because by sheer numbers, no candidate with an interest or stake in their political position would ever get elected.
Precisely because haughty, “sophisticated” urbanites (I won’t mention any names) feel that “coon farmers” in “The Great Dismal Swamp” out here in “flyover country” have zero bearing, input or applicability to the rest of the nation
Does this mean that our current electoral system should get a pass? Of course not. Perhaps laws fairly apportioning electoral votes within a state instead of our predominantly “winner take all” system would be in order. Better funding and guidlines on the election mechanisms themselves, from machinery to ballot lay-out. Voter education initiatives. Many things can be done to improve the system itself.
But scrapping the current electoral process will effectively disenfranchise millions of “coon farmers.”
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Milossarian *
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Well, I would say that a lot of people who voted Bush did indeed vote for a more moderate president, and not a conservative one. I would suspect that a lot of people actually took him at his word with all that “uniter, not a divider” crap. But I guess that’s the subject of another thread…
You’re kidding, right? So there is no moderate middle? The whole contry is filled with either left or right wing idealogues. Everyone who voted for Bush is a milo clone?
I’ll give this one my laughable idea of the week award. 
The premise in this thread is that your opponents policies actually won. So yes, you should follow them, because your ideas lost.
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Sorry. I can’t help you read better. Go back and try again. Pay special attention to where I said, “the vast majority of Americans didn’t care.”
And implicitly calling me a “right wing ideologue” is rich, as I can point to at least three stances I’ve taken in the past two weeks that are directly counter to the position of both right-wingers and the Bush administration.
S.O.P. for you, though.
No, my point was, the winner of an election should do the things they said they were going to do. Which is what Bush has done.
In the premise posed by the OP, it still doesn’t mean a president should be something that he is not.
A president in that situation would be under no legal obligation to do anything, as has been repeatedly pointed out, because he has a House-certified, registered electoral victory.
He would have to think long and hard about doing the honorable thing and resigning, though. But that would be a virtual impossibility, given the current world situation.
So, where does that leave things? The same way the real situation in Florida last November leaves them. For whatever the problems, there’s not a whole lot that can be done about it, post-election.
Under what bizarro-world definition of the word is it “disenfranchisement” to make a single vote in Houston the exact equivalent of a single vote in Cedar Rapids?
The same bizarro-world rule that gives California and Montana exactly 2 US Senators each. If that rule were changed to give California 56 US Senators and Montana just one, that would constitute a disenfranchisement of Montana voters. Get it now?
The best thing about the Electoral College, of course, is that it serves as a reminder of the important federalist values upon which this Nation’s founding is based.
Federal $$$ and programs are not assigned/apportioned in a manner that divvies up the loot in exactly equal increments, person by person, across the country. Until it is, the current process protects against a scenario where a given administration panders to a small number of large population centers, effectively ignoring a significant part of the populace.
IOW, making a single vote in Beaconsfield, Iowa, the “exact equivalent” of a vote in New York City (in the sense I believe you mean) actually makes the vote in Iowa worth a good bit less–I’d set the value at about, oh, say, nothing. They won’t just get a proportionately small share of Fed $$$ and programs in a revised scenario. Why would they get any attention at all, if we can assume that our politicians are principally motivated by doing the things that will get them elected?
If “most votes” wins the race, period, then it is predictable where our candidates will focus their limited campaign dollars, it is predictable how they will shape their policies, it is easy to envision how they will manage their administrations–and Iowa ain’t gonna be getting too much energy and attention tossed its way. They ain’t getting any. It just wouldn’t be an efficient way to run a campaign or manage an administration. Screw 'em. It’ll be nice living in a big state like mine, though.
That’s the argument. You can argue that the benefit it produces isn’t worth the “injustice” you perceive that it creates, but there isn’t anything so bizarre about it.
disenfranchise v: deprive of voting rights.
Sorry, but “make votes equal” is not the same as “deprive of voting rights,” unless you think “right” and “special privilege” are synonyms.
Bob Cos: You mean that if we eliminate disproportional voting power, we eliminate disproportional political power? Shocking. But not “disenfranchisement.”
minty green, follow the semantical thread you began to its conclusion, and I think the term is shown to be apt.
dis·fran·chise (ds-frnchz)
tr.v. dis·fran·chised, dis·fran·chis·ing, dis·fran·chis·es
- To deprive of a privilege, an immunity, or a right of citizenship, especially the right to vote; disenfranchise.
- To deprive (a corporation, for example) of a privilege or franchise.
So, yes, I believe there’s an argument to be made that going to a simple, nation-wide plurality as our method for electing president does effectively render certain people’s rights not just dimished but non-existent. The very fact that certain people would still be permitted in a voting booth would not make that a meaningful exercise.
That is the fear: that for a large portion of the populace, the right to meaningfully participate in the electoral process would be an illusion. If that ain’t disenfranchisement, then the semantical subtleties of the term elude me. So, no, we wouldn’t be eliminating “disproportional voting power” with this change, we’d be installing a different and more egregiously harmful one.
Again, I do not hold that there are no valid arguments to be made against the current process. But your “bizarro-world” comments asked for a definition, and I provided one. Feel free not to buy it, but the definition–logically supportable even if arguable–certainly exists.
I can’t imagine what significance you see to the “right” versus “privilege” distinction in this context, or what you have in mind by further modifying the latter term with “special,” but I am pretty sure neither formulation will do anything to advance this debate. You already know that Montana voters and California voter have an “unequal” voice (as you would define it) in the United States Senate. Why should you be surprised that a similar “inequality” is manifest in the Electoral College. There is nothing “unfair” about this “inequality”; it exists by design. And I–although a resident of a very, very, very large state–am happy with that design
Nonsense. Consider how much attention was paid to both the states of New York and Wyoming this past election. How many campaign stops were there from either candidate in these states? Wouldn’t you think candidates would be wild to snag New York’s 33 electoral votes? You might think so, yes, but no one bothered. Bush knew he didn’t stand a chance there, while Gore knew he had it locked up from day one. Likewise, no one paid attention to Wyoming, since Gore didn’t have a prayer there, while it was clearly Bush country.
On the other hand, Bush and Gore campaigned in New Hampshire, Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin—while not your biggest vote-getters, these states were up in the air. The fact that they actually were considered “in play” made them targets for campaigns.
If a state has three electoral votes instead of one, it’s still not going to draw a lot of attention unless a candidate feels he has a shot at winning. Likewise, if a state has, say, 54 electoral votes, no candidate will waste energy there unless he feels like he’s got a shot at winning—or unless he feels he’s got that state locked up. Vote-rich states don’t get much attention unless the vote there could be close. Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio, rich in electoral votes, saw lots of campaigning for this reason. Likewise, Texas, New York and California, also rich in electoral votes, saw little campaigning.
The electoral college does nothing to draw campaign attention to smaller states, while giving too much influence to those smaller states. As to attention paid to the several states after the elections: isn’t that what Congress is for?
If there were no electoral college there would be no nation. The EC was part of the original deal. What we don’t need is another unwarranted departure from that deal. Remember federalism?
Not quite. The electoral college as we know it wasn’t implimented until 1804. Besides, the constitution has been changed before; it’s designed to be. As the country changes, its needs change. Just because something works two hundred years ago doesn’t mean it will work forever.
Chance, I appreciate you making my argument for me. Why do you suppose there was substantial campaigning in Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin? Do you suppose it had anything to do with the fact that their electoral votes afforded these states a stake and power in the campaign they would not otherwise have had?
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Yes, both Gore and Bush realized early on that New York state, in the aggregate, clearly had a majority that felt Gore was the better man–i.e., the chap who best met their personal, regional needs. Nonetheless, Bush still received a bit over 35% of the vote (6,821,999 total votes cast in the state). How much time and energy would Bush have dedicated to New York if there was no Electoral College, and every percentage point over the 35% he received (in such a large state) would have fed the kitty, so to speak? Do you suppose he might have considered it a little richer ground, at the expense of other areas (compared to, say, the Bush country of Wyoming, where a total of 218,351 votes were cast)?
Compare California (10,965,856 votes cast) and Iowa (1,315,563 votes cast), and tell me how much of the limited campaign dollars and the administration’s attention will go either way, given the choice, if electoral votes are no longer a factor? It seems inarguable that, given limited resources, politicians would have to focus on policies that best served densely populated areas, which for the most part means serving the needs of large urban centers. Biggest bang for the buck, so to speak. Screw Wyoming and Iowa and Idaho and New Hampshire.
Then you might want to actually make an argument and provide evidence that doesn’t suggest the exact opposite.
Ok, I’ll bite. Please describe how the EC as we have “known it” since 1804 materially differs from the EC that existed before 1804? And I trust your point is not that the 1804 modifications are somehow unfaithful to what was the original deal.
Of course the constitution can be changed, and a good reason to change it might if one of its features no longer “works” (as you put it). Please identify some respect in which the EC once worked but no longer works.
See, simply observing that the EC has already changed in some unidentified respect and that there is no insurmountable legal obstacle to changing it again (or even doing away with it entirely) is a far cry from demonstrating that its elimination would be a good thing. The latter, I take it, is your position.