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You seem to be making the argument that pure democracy (one person-one vote) on a national level, somehow favors the Democratic political party. By logical extension of that argument, you are admitting that a majority of American voters would be likely to align themselves with the Democratic party.
In reality, the Electoral College serves the ongoing interests of both Republicans and Democrats. It does this by keeping the decision-making process in the hands of a few individuals who have close ties to one or the other of these two political parties.
If you look at a list of electors from any given state, most of the names you find will be either former/present elected officials or major financial donors. The Electoral College doesn’t favor either of these two parties—or, more accurately—it favors both of them… at the expense of anyone not given to being involved in machine-politics.
Pure democracy does favor the Democratic political party. Democracy is FLAWED. Democracies ALWAYS favor urban dwellers over rural dwellers, because urban dwellers OUTNUMBER rural dwellers. And in the United States, any simpleton can look at election maps and see that urban areas vote for Democrats. Urban areas are BLUE. In RED states, Urban areas are BLUE, in BLUE states, Urban areas are BLUE. Rural areas are RED.
So your entire "in reality" remark isn't IN REALITY at all.
You can't really believe that what you have said calls for us to abolish the Electoral College. How in hell is any voter in play any more without it than with it? I guess you are trying to convince yourself that doing away with it more people will want to vote. I don't think you have taken too many things into account.
Come on.
Now, only 10 battleground States in play. ZERO discourse in the other 40 States.
Blow up EC
ALL 50 States in play, INCLUDING the rural areas of those additional 40 States.
It's just first grade math.
Last edited by JaxBlueMan; 06-19-2012 at 02:22 PM..
Pure democracy does favor the Democratic political party. Democracy is FLAWED. Democracies ALWAYS favor urban dwellers over rural dwellers, because urban dwellers OUTNUMBER rural dwellers. And in the United States, any simpleton can look at election maps and see that urban areas vote for Democrats. Urban areas are BLUE. In RED states, Urban areas are BLUE, in BLUE states, Urban areas are BLUE. Rural areas are RED.
So your entire "in reality" remark isn't IN REALITY at all.
So, your point is...
Urban dwellers, who have contact with, and understanding of other humans = Democrat
Rural dwellers with contact with farm animals, and no understanding of anyone remotely different than themselves = Republicans?
Ok. Now I got it.
But, what's you point anyway? Why is more important for us to support a system that over values the rural vote, at the expense of the urban voter?
An urban voters opinion is just as meaningful as a rural voters. (or it should be, anyway)
I'd much rather live under a system that insures we follow the the majority will of the people, instead of an antiquated system that too often has resulted in the majority will of the people being overturned or disregarded.
One citizen = One vote
Last edited by JaxBlueMan; 06-19-2012 at 02:46 PM..
Pure democracy does favor the Democratic political party. Democracy is FLAWED. Democracies ALWAYS favor urban dwellers over rural dwellers, because urban dwellers OUTNUMBER rural dwellers. And in the United States, any simpleton can look at election maps and see that urban areas vote for Democrats. Urban areas are BLUE. In RED states, Urban areas are BLUE, in BLUE states, Urban areas are BLUE. Rural areas are RED.
So your entire "in reality" remark isn't IN REALITY at all.
I understand the traditional argument concerning the theoretical urban-centric nature of absolute democracy. What I don’t agree with, is your belief that individual voters who live in urbanized areas should be deprived of the full value of their individual votes.
As for favoring Democrats, as opposed to Republicans: that notion is only of value if one lives in a world of black and white; or, in this instance, a world of red and blue. I hold both of these political parties in equal disdain. I refuse to pretend that there is any substantive difference between two right-of-center political parties which contribute equally to our national dysfunction, or that there is any value to an electoral system that nurtures that dysfunction.
I’ll leave it to those of you in the red and blue suits to fight-it-out as to which of you suffers the most from democracy.
Urban dwellers, who have contact with, and understanding of other humans = Democrat
Rural dwellers with contact with farm animals, and no understanding of anyone remotely different than themselves = Republicans?
Ok. Now I got it.
That's lovely. I'm sure you denounce racism when you see it, but prejudices against rural people isn't just fine with you, you actually propogate it.
My point is that the ideal of democracy has an inherent flaw. Democracies invariably give more power to urban dwellers. Always and irrevocably. Our Founding Fathers were intelligent, logical, and well-read. They realized that pure democracy had problems, and they instituted measures to offset the problems while preserving the spirit of democracy. Part of the spirit of democracy is that all people within that democracy should have a voice. The Bill of Rights ensured that individuals and minorities would have that voice. The design of the legislature and the electoral college ensured that rural voters would be included in the process of government.
It is inherently anti-democracy to systematically render a significant part of the American population irrelevent to the process of government, to any process of government. Electing our national leader would be one process of government. National Popular Vote renders non-urban dwellers as irrelevent to that process, and is therefore anti-democracy and un-American. Not to mention that the actual workings of National Popular Vote divorce the actual voters of a state from their state's electors. While that may be legal, the ethics of such action are very questionable.
And the majority of people don't seem to understand what elections are for. Everyone acts as if the sole reason we have elections is to vote someone into office. And that's only the end-game of elections. Elections are really about developing a discourse between voters and candidates. And the National Popular Vote confines that discourse between urban voters and candidates, which is a disservice to our nation. And if MM... says one more time that National Popular Vote preserves the electoral college, I'm going to scream. National Popular Vote preserves the electoral college like taxidermy preserves the animal. It guts it, and then tries to make it pretty.
States have the responsibility and exclusive power to make their voters relevant in every presidential election.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, will not reach out to about 76% of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. These flyover states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That's more than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans, ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
The number and population of battleground states is shrinking as the U.S. population grows.
As of March 10th, some pundits think there will be only Six States That Will Likely Decide The 2012 Election The Six States That Will Likely Decide The 2012 Election
“The presidential campaigns and their allies are zeroing in mainly on nine swing states, bombarding them with commercials in the earliest concentration of advertising in modern politics. “
“no recent general election advertising strategy has covered so little ground so early. In the spring of 2000, George W. Bush and Al Gore fought an air war in close to 20 states. In early 2004, there were the “Swing Seventeen.” And in 2008, the Obama campaign included 18 states in its June advertising offensive, its first of the general election.”
“The fall promises to bring wall-to-wall advertising” in the handful of swing states remaining.
“With so many resources focused on persuading an ever-shrinking pool of swing voters . . the 2012 election is likely to go down in history as the one in which the most money was spent reaching the fewest people.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/us...pagewanted=all
The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States. Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.
Any candidate who ignored the 16% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a “big city” approach would not likely win the national popular vote.
If big cities could always control the outcome of even state elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ."
The Electoral College is the set of electors who are selected to elect the President.
That would continue to exist. No gutting.
The Electoral College is now the set of dedicated party activists, who vote as rubberstamps for presidential candidates. In the current presidential election system, 48 states award all of their electors to the winners of their state. This is not what the Founding Fathers intended.
The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
The National Popular Vote bill would change existing state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), to a system guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
I understand the traditional argument concerning the theoretical urban-centric nature of absolute democracy. What I don’t agree with, is your belief that individual voters who live in urbanized areas should be deprived of the full value of their individual votes.
As for favoring Democrats, as opposed to Republicans: that notion is only of value if one lives in a world of black and white; or, in this instance, a world of red and blue. I hold both of these political parties in equal disdain. I refuse to pretend that there is any substantive difference between two right-of-center political parties which contribute equally to our national dysfunction, or that there is any value to an electoral system that nurtures that dysfunction.
I’ll leave it to those of you in the red and blue suits to fight-it-out as to which of you suffers the most from democracy.
It's irrelevant what your opinion of the two parties is. What's relevant is that the urban-centricity of democracy is not merely theoretical, it's actual and demonstrable. And therefore individual voters who live in urbanized areas don't just receive full value for their individual votes, they receive inflated value for their individual votes in any democratic system. They receive inflated value under our current system, and national popular vote only adds to that inflation.
Once again, though, elections aren't just about votes. Votes are just the end-game. Elections aren't just contests. NOT JUST CONTESTS. Elections are real conversations, between voters and candidates, between voters and the government, between voters and voters. Elections are the platforms of the most valuable commodity of our representative system of government, communication between the people and the representatives. THAT's the point of elections. To give the people their voices. To place voters at the table. To give everyone their chance to be heard.
And improving the system is about enhancing that conversation. Doing away with the electoral college doesn't enhance the conversation, it just silences and marginalizes an important part of our conversation.
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I like the system Nebraska and Maine have. The winner of those states gets electorals,but the loser can also get votes,if they win a congressional district. In 2008,Obama lost Nebraska by a large margin,but still won 1 electoral,by winning the Omaha based district. Meanwhile,the northern district of Maine was competitve,and McCain campaigned there.
A system like that would make every district important. Obama could win districts and electorals in Alabama. Romney in California and New York. As a Californian,I do fell disenfrachised at times. My district is red,but it doesn't matter. Likewise I'm sure for lliberals in Utah or Kentucky.
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