Uhhhhh Electoral College :(

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

Last time I checked, Bush received more than the requisite 270 Electoral Votes required to win the presidency. These votes were furthermore certified by the House of Representatives as legitimate. Therefore, any assertion that Bush didn't legitimately win is complete and utter bullshit.

Oh, you're right, my mistake. Thank you for setting me straight.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

Anytime, you pretentious jackass. You wanna make outlandish claims, back them up, don't sit here and try and act like the bullshit you spew is true without any kind of proof.

What's pretentious and outlandish is an electoral college system that misrepresents the total population of the United States.

But this belongs in a different thread, and I know it's not worth wasting my breath on the likes of the Night Phoenix.

How ya doing, buddy?

Does nobody else realize how broken an election system is if a President can't win the actual MAJORITY of votes cast, but can still win the White House?

That is B R O K E N.

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That's exactly why the electoral college is a stupid, broken system.

States are assigned "value" based on their population. But considering that the majority of the population doesn't even vote, the correlation between these values and voters is pretty much nonexistant.

A contingency of right-wingers, left-wingers or whatever else in any given state can completely sway an election, although it doesn't truly reflect the majority opinion of every person that votes.

Basically, it invalidates the opinions of people that live in less-influential electoral states. Just like Mikey has said five times in this thread already. Just because someone lives in a state with a large population doesn't mean that their opinion is more valuable than people anywhere else.

It's like how slaves and ethnic minorities votes only counted for a percentage of a white man's vote back in the day.

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So there's a difference between interest groups attempting to garner more votes nationwide versus just trying to garner more votes in states with high electoral payout? I don't see what you're trying to say, Brady. It all looks the same to me. People are still going to campaign the heavily populated areas because there are the most voters there, in theory.

But when you take mid-population state like, for instance, Florida or Ohio, and the votes there are very close, the winner-take-all system of awarding these electoral votes is just dumb.

People in this country should be rewarded for voting. In my opinion, that means that every vote should have the same weight. If people forget to vote, or don't want to vote, then that's too bad. I think it's a crime that it's possible for a President to be elected through a cockneyed system of awarding points based on population when those populations don't even vote in a number proportionate to the points they're assigned. And all this without even maintaining the popular vote throughout the country.

If we're so hung up over giving people these electoral points, then get rid of the winner-take-all scenario and reward the candidates a proportional amount of the electoral votes from each state. That way everyone's vote is weighed equally and everyone in the country has a say who becomes President.

And yes, I think it would be a good thing if the voting system was standardized across the nation. It would avoid hanging chads.

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I'll take my chances with conspiracy theories versus being told my vote ultimately doesn't matter.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

Your vote matters more than all of ours, though. You vote in the first primaries. :P

(Which is more absurd.)

Well, I wasn't really griping about me, myself, and I. I realize that my political clout is better than most because of the caucuses here. And believe me, I think there is plenty wrong with the primaries and caucuses as well.

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The only thing good about the caucus in Iowa is that it actually brings the candidates here. I fear they wouldn't even bother if it weren't for that fact. I do enjoy being able to go to an event and see what they're talking about, and hear about the issues pertinent to the region in which I live. In a country this big, that is definitely a luxury.

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Originally Posted by Bradylama

noot zo. Again it comes down to campaign finances. Focusing the primaries on Iowa and New Hampshire allows candidates with very small finances to focus their money and time on a few states so that their candidacy has the potential to snowball. Imagine what it would be like if all states had their primaries at the same time. Grassroots candidates wouldn't have a chance.

Tom Harkin took 76% of the Iowa democratic caucus vote in 1992. Bill Clinton only took 2%, but he still became the President.

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Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Wouldn't a person in New Hampshire be more likely to sway the balance of their state's voting turnout than a person in California? So a single vote in NH ought to have more weight than one in CA (even more so with BM's comparison of the number of people each electoral college person has to represent in CA versus WY).

Theoretically, yes. But they have a lot of influence over what is ultimately less influence (being the electoral votes coming out of New Hampshire). So what's worse: having little influence over a lot of power, or having a lot of influence over little power?

Consider that there are some states that have closely split voting percentages and a relatively high number of electoral votes. That's more the issue I have with the winner-take-all situation.

Jam it back in, in the dark.