OMG Politics, I'm over it already.

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Help!I'maRock! said:
The USA, whether it's residents want to believe it or not, is not a democracy. It is a republic. Always has been.
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Hence the argument. Or irrelevant.

There are republics that are more democratic.

Not that democracy is all that great, when you've got, like, Oklahoma.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
Why:

In a strictly popular vote, no candidate will ever care about rural folk and B-list cities. All politicking will cater to major cities and everyone else will be forgotten. The Electoral College, warts and all, prevents this.
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That may have been the case at one time, but certainly not now. It's the Congress and Senate representatives that have the real power and the real impact on the local level you referred to.
The White House means fuck all to the residents of Po-Dunk Junction USA.

The Electoral College is an outdated and counter-productive relic that combined with the Jerrymandered districts becomes a giant anchor dragging democracy under the surface toward the abyss.
 
OGG said:
That may have been the case at one time, but certainly not now. It's the Congress and Senate representatives that have the real power and the real impact on the local level you referred to.
The White House means fuck all to the residents of Po-Dunk Junction USA.

The Electoral College is an outdated and counter-productive relic that combined with the Jerrymandered districts becomes a giant anchor dragging democracy under the surface toward the abyss.
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Do you really think gerrymandering of districts will go away if you remove the Electoral College? Because I'm thoroughly unconvinced of that argument.

Here is the Electoral College map:

electorl.gif


If you live anywhere with 10 or fewer votes, you'll never have another President that considers you in their platform. Bank on it.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
Do you really think gerrymandering of districts will go away if you remove the Electoral College? Because I'm thoroughly unconvinced of that argument.

Here is the Electoral College map:

electorl.gif


If you live anywhere with 10 or fewer votes, you'll never have another President that considers you in their platform. Bank on it.
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Thats 150 electoral votes, more than the difference between Obama and Romney. Candidates can count. Like I said, Californias votes, despite having the most of any state in the country, often do not matter. We have a "late" primary (It didn't used to be late but a lot of states voted to move primaries earlier in a quest for relevance) and are one of the last states to vote due to time zones .

It just makes no sense any more. People have access to the same information no matter where they live. We should just ban all election coverage on the day of the election so no one knows who is ahead before they go to the polls, and use the popular vote.
 
335clone said:
Thats 150 electoral votes, more than the difference between Obama and Romney. Candidates can count. Like I said, Californias votes, despite having the most of any state in the country, often do not matter. We have a "late" primary (It didn't used to be late but a lot of states voted to move primaries earlier in a quest for relevance) and are one of the last states to vote due to time zones .

It just makes no sense any more. People have access to the same information no matter where they live. We should just ban all election coverage on the day of the election so no one knows who is ahead before they go to the polls, and use the popular vote.
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You do realize that the Electoral College only counts for the general election in November, right?
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
You do realize that the Electoral College only counts for the general election in November, right?
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Yes I do. But the issue is the same with the primaries, which I mentioned in my earlier post (#336) and was expanding on that. Sorry if that was confusing, but the later time zone issue clearly references the general election.

So what about those 150 EC votes that nobody will try to woo?
 
Removing the electoral college won’t change presidential races much. States with high populations would still have high population densities, so it would still make sense to focus on them and just let the media carry the message to voters in similar demographic blocs around the country. Presidential candidates would keep skipping Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas, because they could just pay lip service to farm and oil business in California, Texas, and Ohio and let Fox news spread the word.

But dropping the electoral college would strip congress of a very important check on the presidency—the ability to overturn a mob mentality election that puts a lunatic in charge of the US military. Given our massive nuclear stockpile, and the efforts of radical fundamentalist religious groups to co-opt our military, it’s important that this check is left in place. Just imagine a 2020 candidate getting elected on a “Nuke Mecca, Medina, and Beijing for Jesus” platform.
 
I didn't imply that a correlation necessarily exists between the two things, only that the combination of them was detrimental to the process. They individually have a net negative effect on the democratic process.
 
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