Popular Vs. Electorial

L

Landkiller

Guest
Oh, what is the drinking age in Canada?
<Landkiller wants to know if he should go on vacation to Canada>
 
J

Jaws10387

Guest
No I'm not from Tennessee.
A revision to my system: Each district with 1 million people gets 1 electoral vote. So for example: In Massachusetts where I live it would be something like this
Dist. 1 = Boston
Dist. 2 = 4 eastern most counties
Dist. 3 = Worceter and nearby areas
Dist. 4 = Western Counties

I'm not sure if this is exactry how it would work but this is close to it. One of the only major problems is that cities like New York would be worth more than some states because of its population.

Its not the best but it would work better than electoral college.

[Edited by Jaws10387 on 11-10-00 at 01:03 PM]
 
R

Ristik

Guest
Jaws: Why would it be a problem if a city gets more say than a state if the city is more populous than that state? I don't understand where the problem lies.
 
V

Volradon

Guest
About electorial college on equestion has still not been answered. Why? I mean it will take the same time to count the popular vote, its is more exact. The only argument i see for electorial (well actually two)
a: Not enough people care to change it
b: Small states dont have as much say and it is a UNION but so what i mean who cares? THe small states still get represented in congress so whats the problem?
 
N

nodnarb24

Guest
There are several reasons why the electoral college is used:
1. Not everyone has the chance to go out and vote.
2. Most of the people that actually do vote are uninformed on the issues.
3. It's more effiecient.
4. Less room for error and inaccuracies in voting.
 
Z

Zhaneel

Guest
I think that if it is switched to popular vote, people should be much more informed. I would have no clue what was going on if it wasn't for school, and most of the voters in the US do not attend school.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Apollo: How educated WAS the average or "normal" person back in the 1770s?

It was my understanding that the Electoral College was set up to prevent large states from overwheming small states with votes.

I don't really know enough about whether one system is better than the other. My instinct says the popular vote would be a better choice than electoral now, but I don't know anything about a parlimentary system to really comment on this.
 
R

Ristik

Guest
Here is a quick explanation of the parliamentary system, for those of you who do not know:

When you go to the voting booth, you do not vote for a particular candidate; you instead vote for a party. Then, at the end of the election, each party gets a percentage of seats roughly equal to the percentage of votes they got. Each party then chooses the people they want to serve on the seats. The parliament then votes for Prime Minister. It seems impersonal, but it works a lot better than an electoral system, and it gives third parties more of chance than in a popular vote.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
So what if the people the party chooses to serve are not the kind/type of people that the general public want to be represented by? Or does it matter?
 
R

Ristik

Guest
I think the party usually chooses someone they want before the election, but I'm not sure if it's required. And if the party chooses a bad person, then you choose not to re-elect him. Unfortunately, we have chosen to re-elect parties that choose bad leaders, such as Hitler and Winston Churchill, who is technically a carrot.
 
A

Apollo

Guest
Spidey: I never said the general public was smart back then. Nor did I say I disagreed with them. At the time, it was best for the nation, because the average person knew squat. Now, though, there are all kinds of news sources, and the average person knows more about George Bush's driving record than they do about their own financial situation.
 
N

nodnarb24

Guest
That is one thing that is why I think that we should keep the electoral college because who the hell cares if Bush got caught driving drunk when he was a teenager. Does that make him a bad leader? No it does not. Now your saying, "why didn't he tell us?" I tell you why, HE WAS DRUNK, he probably didn't even remember it. People are TOO well informed. People are influenced to change there vote over someones mistakes that happened 20-30(?) some odd years ago.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
That's right, you have it in print. Print it out and frame it... :)

Either that or I have too much time in my hands...

In Sunday's Washington Post, there's an article in the Outlook section that describes why we have an Electoral College.

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64979-2000Nov11.html

Basically, it says that because most of the South's population were slaves and thus not citizens, they could not vote and the South would be at a severe disadvantage. What was being considered were "regional interests, state jealousies, fear, and loathing".

Interesting enough, it is up to the states to decide how the popular vote should be reflected in the electoral votes, and that doesn't require amending the Constitution. However, 48 states use the "winner-take-all" system which awards ALL of the electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, leaving nothing for the others.

So with regards to Apollo, you could draw the conclusion that the Founders didn't want the average citizen to choose but I think that is a personal conclusion; it was not the underlying goal driving the decision to use the Electoral College.

Ristik: So are you saying the parties most likely already pick their people and then the general public votes on the parties, knowing the choices?
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
No, no... I was just trying to get it clear for myself, since I said I don't know anything about the parliamentary system.

So if we had it here, the political parties would still have most likely chosen their candidates, but we would vote for the parties themselves, not the candidates.
 
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