Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The two parties should be abolished. Candidates should stand as individuals with individual ideas. Voting should be made by those who have done their research and are voting for the best candidate possible. The person with the most votes should win.
As it stands the entire system is rigged. The electoral college seems to matter more than what the voters want, many voters have not done their research and vote against the other party regardless of who it is just so their party will reign. Republicans and Democrats hate each other (politically). Lets face it, these two parties have divided us. Its such a simple system that has been made into a complicated process.
For instance, I see the Democratic party consisting of one person, Bernie. If I did the things Hillary has done while holding a security clearance I would be in Jail. SHe should not even be allowed to run for President. Bernie stomps on her in NH but the electoral college gives her an equal amount of votes? The govt wont let anyone in that White House that they don't want regardless of the number of votes they receive by voters. Its a rigged system.
The problem is NOT with the electoral college. It is with the laws made on the state level regarding how the electors are chosen.
As for your last paragraph, WTH? The electoral college is not involved at this point.
And finally, the political parties are not part of the government. They are separate, private entities, that get to make their own rules regarding their nomination process.
And they rely exclusively on the taxpayer paid for election system. So this argument holds no water.
They don't rely exclusively on the taxpayer system.
The political parties are funded by donations.
As for primaries and caucuses, originally, the parties paid for them, but the states had to pay for local elections. People didn't want to have to go to the polls separately for party voting and for state voting, so the two were combined in the case of primaries, and the states footed the bill because state and local issues were included in the voting. More and more states have switched to primaries, and part of the reason is because of the sort of complaints we heard after the Iowa caucuses. Caucuses demand a greater commitment on the part of voters, and can be confusing, especially since the parties generally pay for the caucuses, and the parties set their own rules for the caucuses.
While the political parties pay a key role in our election process, they are still private and independent of the government. Laws passed primarily by the states on the state level have made the election process increasingly dependent on the political parties, but those laws can all be changed. What cannot be changed is the fact that political parties are private entities, and as private entities have the power to function without any input from the general public if they so chose.
And they rely exclusively on the taxpayer paid for election system. So this argument holds no water.
This isn't universal. The entity bearing the brunt of the cost varies widely by state, but generally speaking caucuses are funded for by the parties while primaries are funded by the states.
And lets be realistic, when we talk about the government "paying for" a primary, we're largely talking about voting hardware (booths and such) that are already in existence and whose costs aren't tied to the primary. The actual cost of a primary event is pretty minimal.
The problem is NOT with the electoral college. It is with the laws made on the state level regarding how the electors are chosen.
As for your last paragraph, WTH? The electoral college is not involved at this point.
And finally, the political parties are not part of the government. They are separate, private entities, that get to make their own rules regarding their nomination process.
If the govt stood back and let the people decide who the next president would be there would be no problem. The Electoral College is rigged part of the system. WHy vote at this point? WHy does the electoral college have a say if peoples votes matter so much? How can someone have a crushing defeat and then come back because of these superdelegates? I don't care if we are voting for who baked the best cake...the majority should rule. The Electoral college is that person that wants others to feel empowered but then when they don't like the outcome they just decide to do what they wanted anyway.
I guess I kind of blended my thoughts together but I feel that no one will be in that White House that the govt does not want in there.
I don't care who the political parties belong to, they should not be allowed to exist. They are what corrupt the political system. Candidates should not be Republican or Democrat, they should be "Joe Smith" (for example) with their own set of ideas and their own set of followers. The parties divide us as a nation.
If the govt stood back and let the people decide who the next president would be there would be no problem. The Electoral College is rigged part of the system. WHy vote at this point? WHy does the electoral college have a say if peoples votes matter so much? How can someone have a crushing defeat and then come back because of these superdelegates? I don't care if we are voting for who baked the best cake...the majority should rule. The Electoral college is that person that wants others to feel empowered but then when they don't like the outcome they just decide to do what they wanted anyway.
I guess I kind of blended my thoughts together but I feel that no one will be in that White House that the govt does not want in there.
I don't care who the political parties belong to, they should not be allowed to exist. They are what corrupt the political system. Candidates should not be Republican or Democrat, they should be "Joe Smith" (for example) with their own set of ideas and their own set of followers. The parties divide us as a nation.
What does the electoral college have to do with superdelegates?
It's a rhetorical question, the answer is nothing. Suprdelegates are done after the National Convention, the Electoral College doesn't come into play until the general election.
If the govt stood back and let the people decide who the next president would be there would be no problem. The Electoral College is rigged part of the system. WHy vote at this point? WHy does the electoral college have a say if peoples votes matter so much? How can someone have a crushing defeat and then come back because of these superdelegates? I don't care if we are voting for who baked the best cake...the majority should rule. The Electoral college is that person that wants others to feel empowered but then when they don't like the outcome they just decide to do what they wanted anyway.
I guess I kind of blended my thoughts together but I feel that no one will be in that White House that the govt does not want in there.
I don't care who the political parties belong to, they should not be allowed to exist. They are what corrupt the political system. Candidates should not be Republican or Democrat, they should be "Joe Smith" (for example) with their own set of ideas and their own set of followers. The parties divide us as a nation.
The winner-take-all LAWS passed by STATES is what you are complaining about. The STATES made those laws. The STATES can change them. That's not the fault of the electoral college.
The super delegates have NOTHING to do with the electoral college.
The problem with your "political parties should not be allowed to exist", is that your alternative, individuals running willy-nilly, would create situations where hundreds of people would be running for President. How could any voter educate themselves about the hundreds of people running, to choose just one to vote for? And then you'd have hundreds of people running for Vice President, with no party affiliation, how do you know which Vice President would be a good match for the President?
Political parties do provide a service. But since their service is to the public, and the parties themselves have endorsed laws regulating the election process (laws which served to entrench the major two parties at the cost of all others), they could hardly object if some laws were revoked, and if new laws were passed.
I think the winner-take-all laws governing elector selection should be made proportional, better reflecting the citizens of a state. But that's a challenge that has to be taken on at the STATE level. I also think that the primaries should be regional, and should be rotated each election, so that every region of the country would have a chance to winnow out candidates and speak to the issues that effect their particular region. As an additional benefit, I think this would force sitting presidents to be more responsive to the electorate. And by rotating the order of the primaries, no region would become dominant in determining who goes on during an election.
I also think that the cap on the number of representatives in the House of Representatives should be removed. That cap has contributed to the skewing of the electoral college, as well as skewing representation in our federal government. A representative from California should represent roughly the same number of constituents as a representative from Idaho. But under the current system, because of the cap and the related laws about how districts are drawn, representation from one state can be grossly diluted in comparison to representation from another state.
There's big money In the electoral seasons, jobs get taken, ads get sold, news ratings go up, bumper stickers and t shirts get sold. When actually the regular person has very little influence over who gets nominated or elected --- it's just a lot of theatre to keep us entertained and duped into believing that we have this great "democratic" election system.
Cakes and circuses....
I apologize for my lack of political knowledge. I am taking bits and pieces from what I read to form an opinion. The ONLY votes that should be counted are the ones from the general public. But it seems as though these votes don't really matter when there are superdelegates and electoral colleges. That's all I am trying to say.
I think the much larger problem is this idiotic primary system (in addition to the electoral college). Why should Iowa and NH, two states with noticeably homogeneous populations that are totally unrelated to, and unrepresentative of the majority of the country, decide who will be the nominees of the parties?
It is patently absurd. We talk and complain about it every four years and then forget it. This needs to change. It is totally undemocratic and, frankly, stupid. If the entire election begins with, and is built on this farce, what difference does the rest of the election process make? Primaries should all take place on the same day.
^ THIS!! all day long.
I have never understood why 2 states get to determine so much.
Primary's should be like election day.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
