A Reform of the College

[Weasel]

Reading some news on the upcoming event "Who Wants to Run My Country in the Ground this Time", I have found out that Maine (and one other State) will ,if the vote is close, divide their Electoral Votes up between the two. I was thinking could this be the way to finally get people to vote? A end to the "All or Nothing". Should each State have this rule, would it cause the "Angels" to concentrate on the whole State?

Opinions? Death Threats? Chime in!

[fable]

I don't understand. If the electoral college splits its voice, the system of winner-take-all still presides. No one who regards this system as hypocritical or even unfair is going to believe that a split electoral college remedies anything. What am I missing?

[Weasel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fable I don't understand. If the electoral college splits its voice, the system of winner-take-all still presides. No one who regards this system as hypocritical or even unfair is going to believe that a split electoral college remedies anything. What am I missing?

Hmmm, (I will try to explain my meaning of "All or Nothing")

Say Florida had split it's Electoral Votes between Bush and Gore, Could had Gore won? In a close election the spliting of the E. Votes could stop a state from throwing all the votes to one side. Should a State with 3 electoral votes give all the votes to the one who gets 50.1 %. I believe it should be 2/1 at least.

(Depending on how it could be worked out, I would go to percent wise for the other 1 vote, giving the 50.1 percent 1 vote, the other person 1 vote and dividing the last vote according to the .1%)

I believe the difference between what you and I mean is once the Victory has taken place, which is true ..the other side gets nothing.

Or

(Most likely this one now that I think about it) in the case of an Independent, which I agree it will not help either. (IMHO) the Indendent should recieve some part of the Electoral vote as well. This still will not solve the "Winner takes All" though.

[fable]

It's that all-or-nothing aspect of US elections that's the kicker for me, @Weasel. I simply can't accept that a place is a democracy which only represents the majority of those who vote--and as the last presidential election shows, not even that. Proportional representation is the only system I can agree to.

I think much of the voter apathy in the US is traceable to this. If a US citizen had opinions that most nearly coincided with the Green party, for instance, and these could actually gain federal representation with (let's say) 5% of the national vote, I think you'd see Green supporters eager to vote. As much can be said for Libertarians, Socialists, and Right Wing religious parties. Right now, people who aren't represented by the Republicans or Democrats can 1) forego voting completely, 2) vote for a party that represents their votes, and find their vote discarded, or 3) vote for one of the two mainstream parties, and find their vote misrepresented. Proportional representation would galvanize the populace, I think. Just my POV.

[Scayde]

OK.. I'm going to be the odd man out here.. but I am glad for the electoral system.. It prevents the needs of the more rural areas, such as Texas (Typically fiscally conservative and very independent)...from falling mercy to the demands of the highly concentrated urban areas, which are typically highly marginalized to the left or socialist view...

I don't think such large areas of our country which are largely very independent and self sustaining should be subjected to the burden of sustaining the crowded inner cities.

JMPOV

[Sojourner]

I agree with Fable. Right now, IMO, we're seeing the "tyranny of the minority" vis-a-vis the two so-called mainstream parties.

[Weasel]

Quote:

Proportional representation

@Fable, how would this work with only one President? I can see it working in Congress.



@Scayde
To clairfy, I'm not looking to kill the Electoral College...at least not in the sense of doing away with it altogether. I do believe some of the rules/laws behind it need to be reformed.

Extreme needs fixing (1.)A person on the E. College board having the ability to decide where the vote goes needs to be fixed. To me this is outrageous. All the votes in some State mean nothing if this person decides he or she knows better.NARA

Could have bad side effects (2.) Breaking each State up in to voting districts based on the pop of the State. Now I will admit this is going to be hard, both parties will fight to reclassify each district for their gain. Most likely this could be more trouble in the long run than it is worth...which brings,

A way to break the two party hold (3) Breaking the Electoral Votes of each State down on the precent of the total vote of the State. Say Texas with 32 votes for the College and the State vote resulted in a three way finish of 33.2%, 33.1% and 33%. In this case 11, 11, 10 should be given.

I admit in some States the cities would decide, but I believe this already happens now.


Further note on (3) I believe the breaking part would allow the smaller parties a better chance of building a viable base. Once the base is built the hold of the two party system will be gone. This I consider good, the bad..we will one day hit a point where no person has the amount of votes needed (at this time 270 votes) at the end to win.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weasel @Fable, how would this work with only one President? I can see it working in Congress.

A smart President plays the polls, but the polls can only show so much. If you could look at the final vote tally and discover more about how people truly felt concerning a range of issues, you might have a better indicator of how the country truly felt, and how you should govern. For example, if a Democrat got into office with almost no showing on a federal or state level for Green candidates, environmental issues would likely remain a relatively low priority; not so, if Green candidates did well. But I expect that if proportional representation caught on, we'd see a lot more issue-oriented parties starting up, so that it would be possible to follow the vote far more closely on individual issues.

[Morril]

As a European I must admit that I don't know so much about US politic system. But for us it seems that you only have 2 parties you can vote for - is that true?
If you have more parties - how many procents of the votes must they have to come in fx Congress, parlament??

[fable]

We have two major parties, Morril. It is almost unheard of for anybody to get elected to either the felderal or any of the state legislatures unless they're a member of one of these two parties. That's because of the winner-take-all system we employ in the US. Very, very occasionally in our history, a third party has formed which momentarily achieved power. Invariably, it dropped out of sight very quickly, or assumed a place among the two powers, causing one of the old guard to drop out of sight.

Legislative elections in the US are determined by a majority of all votes cast. There is no minimum threshold to the balloting; a good thing, seeing how disspirited the voting has been both at the federal level and in many state elections, over time.

[Morril]

But doesn't that mean in "reality" that:
1. It is almost not possible to get selcted if you don't have a "big party" to support your finansiel and with organisation?
2. Risk that you always have almost the same politic, because you always must get so big comprimise that everybody is satisfyid and you can only "afford" to make "middleroad-politic" ? Hope that last sentence made any sense

[fable]

No offense meant, but did you read the thread, above? This is what I wrote yesterday, and it pretty much agrees with your conclusions:

"I think much of the voter apathy in the US is traceable to this. If a US citizen had opinions that most nearly coincided with the Green party, for instance, and these could actually gain federal representation with (let's say) 5% of the national vote, I think you'd see Green supporters eager to vote. As much can be said for Libertarians, Socialists, and Right Wing religious parties. Right now, people who aren't represented by the Republicans or Democrats can 1) forego voting completely, 2) vote for a party that represents their votes, and find their vote discarded, or 3) vote for one of the two mainstream parties, and find their vote misrepresented. Proportional representation would galvanize the populace, I think. Just my POV."

[Morril]

Yes, Fable, I already read that before.
I am aware that our two comments have a good degree of similarity. But I wanted to state my thoughts and comments on the issue.
But that doesn't mean you have to talk down to me and "copy and paste" it again, and because I agree with you doesn't necessarily mean that I am correct

[fable]

I wouldn't talk down to you, @Morril--that's not my way. You're welcome to ask anybody else, here, about that. I sometimes grump, go off on tangents, or provide more information than anybody could possibly want, but I treat everyone with the respect they innately deserve as human beings, at least, until they abuse that attitude.

I pasted what I wrote because I wanted to save you the trouble of looking it up, and because you asked me a question. I had provided the answer before.

No offense meant, and none taken.

[Morril]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fable I wouldn't talk down to you, @Morril--that's not my way. You're welcome to ask anybody else, here, about that. I sometimes grump, go off on tangents, or provide more information than anybody could possibly want, but I treat everyone with the respect they innately deserve as human beings, at least, until they abuse that attitude. I pasted what I wrote because I wanted to save you the trouble of looking it up, and because you asked me a question. I had provided the answer before. No offense meant, and none taken.

Ok. Thanks. I sometimes get carried away in the discussions and maybe says things a little hard. But I love to discuss and I can't stop writing what I think I know it can seems irritating for some people.... but I believe it is important that people stand up for their opinions. I respect almost all people, no matter what opion they have - as long as they can argue for it