The Electoral College

[Tiberius]

Found some good videos on the Electoral College and why it sucks as a voting system. Not sure how accurate they are; maybe someone here can confirm / rebut the claims made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUS9mM8Xbbw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k

Not that our British system is actually any better.

[theVOID]

That's just retarded...

[downbeatplumb]

My understanding is the american system was designed from the outset to slow processes down and prevent one side gaining too much control.

[kılıç_mehmet]

I think that voting sucks.

[Minimalist]

This is meant to be a balanced view of the process.

http://www.votescount.com/books/elecoll.htm

Pro's:

¨ Requires a distribution of popular support to be elected president – the winning candidate must demonstrate both a sufficient popular support to govern as well as a sufficient distribution of that support to govern.

¨ Strengthens the status of minority groups – the votes of small minorities within a state may make the difference between winning all of a state’s electoral votes or none of them.

¨ Enhances the political stability of the nation by promoting a two-party system – protects that presidency from impassioned but transitory third-party movements and forces the major parties to absorb the interests of minorities.

¨ Maintains the federal system of government and representation.

Con's:

¨ There is a possibility of electing a president who does not have a majority of the support.

¨ There is a risk of having “faithless” Electors – Electors who won’t be loyal to their party or candidate.

¨ The Electoral College may depress voter turnout – because each state is only entitled to just so many electoral votes regardless of voter turnout, there is no incentive for states to encourage voter participation.

¨ Does not accurately reflect the national popular will because it does not elect a candidate by a direct popular vote.

In the past 125 years, there have been three occasions when a presidential candidate won the popular vote, but lost the election: in 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote, but Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote, and, therefore, the election; and in 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote, but Benjamin Harrison won the election. Most recently, in 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote, but George Bush was elected President.

Looking at most of the so-called "pros" I regard them as "cons." Particularly the 3d one, which in addition to being wrong, is completely absurd for the constitution which was written well in advance of the development of political parties so certainly the founding fathers had no idea of creating the rolling abortion that our 2-party system has become.

[5thHorseman]

2 party system sucks, who the fuck can real leftys vote for now?

Hold nose and X Obama?

[reverendjeremiah]

2 party system sucks, who the fuck can real leftys vote for now?

Hold nose and X Obama?

Yeah..the choices are Right wing, or extreme right wing.

the fucked up thing is that people are still screaming that Obama is a Marxist.

The american electorate is ignorant of basic terms.

[5thHorseman]

Still, right wing is better than extreme.

Russ Feingold 2016.

[Minimalist]

A far bigger problem with American politics than the electoral college is shown here:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/2012010...SVDO2.html

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - A Las Vegas billionaire has contributed $5 million to an independent group backing Newt Gingrich, bolstering the former House speaker's efforts to revive his presidential campaign and drawing renewed attention to the role of such groups in the 2012 contest.

A person familiar with the development said Sheldon Adelson, a casino mogul and longtime donor to Republican candidates, made the contribution Friday to Winning Our Future, a super PAC run by Gingrich allies.

It is nothing more than organized bribery with the blessing of the Supreme Court.