2012 Elections results finally in US officially applies 4 Banana Republic status @ UN

[Tiberius]

...that would definitely strip the electoral power away from the big states like New York, California, and Texas to make the governing process more fair to everyone else in the nation.

Those states actually hold very little electoral power, due to the fact that votes in the electoral college are unevenly distributed. Votes are supposed to reflect the population of the state. With the total population of the US being ~315,000,000, and the number of electoral college votes being set to 538, each vote is representative of ~585,500 people.

However, the electoral college also stipulates that every state gets 3 votes to start with. That meant that states with very low populations (i.e. Wyoming with its 576,412 people) have two more votes than they should have. Consequently, larger states have less votes than they should have. California has 55 electoral college votes. With its population of 38,041,430, it should actually have 65.

[A Theist]

Yes, that was the gist of my point too when I was responding to TSG's comment regarding the popular vote,...

I'm agreeing with you, silly

Oops!..I'm not used to that!..sorry....

[DeistPaladin]

...as was the case with G.W. Bush who lost the popular vote to Al Gore by over 500,000 votes, but still won the presidency....and to TSG who said, "Well, if Obama had lost it, you wouldn't have heard the end of it,..."....the dems and leftist news outlets screamed bloody murder when Bush lost it, but was still elected POTUS.

Actually, the screaming from the left was over the fact that he neither won the popular vote nor did he definitely win the electoral college since the Florida recount had been arbitrarily shut down. He won the Supreme Court by a 5/4 margin.

I wasn't aware the Supreme Court could simply appoint a president because Florida, even 12 years later, can't get their shit together on how to run an election, but obviously I missed that part of the Constitution.

The Supremes themselves admitted this was a biased, partisan decision, by stating that this ruling was not to be used as precedent for any future decisions. In other words, it's the kind of judicial activism that conservatives normally despise.

Now you can say that W. Bush likely won Florida but we'll never know for sure (and I'm not big on leaps of faith). The recount, required in such a close election, was shut down.

As a side issue, I just love how in the recent election....

FLORIDA: "Duh-uh, we still don't know who won our state... days later. Counting hard. Duhhhhh."
AMERICA: "That's OK. We've determined the results without you."

[Violet]

In a country of children, Santa Claus is elected.

To the horror of parents everywhere.

Impeach Santa 2013!

[Something completely different]

No, popular vote should only determine the presidency when there are two candidates. That is the only circumstance when popular vote is a fair method of determining a winner.


With more than two candidates, a person can still win the Presidency with less than 50% of the popular vote. For example, if two candidates got 30% of the vote each, and the third candidate got 40%.

In almoust every single European democracy in which the president is more than a ceremonial figure (France, Poland....), there are mainly 2 elections held. In the first, in which all candidates are on the ballot, the 2 candidates with the most votes are decided.
If neighter of them reaches over the 50% limit another election is held in which only the two canidates who had the most votes in the past election are on the ballot.
France has been a functioning democracy ever since our troops had enought of their arrogant habits and cheese and therefor left, and so far I havent noticed anything "unfair" about their electoral system.
The popular vote should be the deciding factor since a elected official should represent the majority of the population and not some bürocratic institutions.

[Tiberius]

In almoust every single European democracy in which the president is more than a ceremonial figure (France, Poland....), there are mainly 2 elections held. In the first, in which all candidates are on the ballot, the 2 candidates with the most votes are decided.
If neighter of them reaches over the 50% limit another election is held in which only the two canidates who had the most votes in the past election are on the ballot.
France has been a functioning democracy ever since our troops had enought of their arrogant habits and cheese and therefor left, and so far I havent noticed anything "unfair" about their electoral system.
The popular vote should be the deciding factor since a elected official should represent the majority of the population and not some bürocratic institutions.

That is a flawed electoral system as well, just not as flawed as the standard single election. For instance, if we have 5 candidates and the votes in the first election are spread this way:

A: 21%
B: 20.5%
C: 19.5%
D: 19.5%
E: 19.5%

By the French system, nobody gets over 50%, so A and B are the only two candidates in the second election. However, the combined votes of A and B equal 41.5%, a minority of the electorate. 58.5% of people's votes are effectively discounted.

I personally prefer AV, which is similar to the French model, but rather than having multiple elections, all of the electorate can rank candidates in order of preference, voting for as many (or as few) candidates as they like. In the first round of voting, only the first preference votes are counted. If nobody wins more than 50%, the candidate with the least amount of votes is disqualified, and the votes that went to them are divided amongst the remainder, according to the 2nd preference votes. The process continues, eliminating and re-distributing votes until one candidate has over 50% of the vote.

[Something completely different]

There is nothing flawd about that. And your example is a theoretical one which hasn`t jet been seen within political reality.
And even if it would happen. C, D and E voters would have to pick another candidate which they feel would represent them better.

In France, "moderat" Front National (fashist) voters usualy vote conservative in the second round, and communists usualy vote for the socialist party.

In the 2002 French election, socialists voted conservative after the (fashist) front national candidate got more votes that the socialist candidate and made it into the second round.


What do you mean by "the votes are devided between the remaining candidates"?????
And who has the authority to devide the votes and assign them to candidates without the voters concent?

[Tiberius]

There is nothing flawd about that.

It is flawed if the votes of more than 50% of the people effectively count for nothing.

And your example is a theoretical one which hasn`t jet been seen within political reality.

Absolutely 100% irrelevant. A system's flaws aren't judged on whether they have been seen in practice, but whether they could ever happen. A lot of flaws in electoral systems are made unlikely due to other flaws, such as when the entire state of affairs tends towards a two party system (as happened in the US, and to a lesser extent in the UK and other parts of Europe).

And even if it would happen. C, D and E voters would have to pick another candidate which they feel would represent them better.

That isn't the point of a vote. The point of voting is that you have already picked the candidate that represented you the best. To say to 60% of the electorate that they have to choose again doesn't seem unfair to you? Why do 40% of the people get preferential treatment over 60%?

What do you mean by "the votes are devided between the remaining candidates"?????
And who has the authority to devide the votes and assign them to candidates without the voters concent?

I'll explain. The authority is given by the voters; they give their consent in their vote:

Let's imagine 4 candidates: A, B, C, D.

A is a strong conservative who appeals to right wingers.
B is a strong liberal who appeals to those on the left.
C is a moderate, combining values of the right with the left.
D is an independent candidate.

On election day, voters rank these candidates in order of preference. Note that the ranking is very much up to them; they can rank as little as one candidate, or as many as all four of them. For instance, a ballot from a liberal may look like this:

A: 3
B: 1
C: 2
D: 4

Whilst a ballot from a staunch supporter of the independent might look like this:

A:
B:
C:
D: 1

Once all the ballots are collected, all the first preference votes (i.e. those marked with a '1') are counted. The results are as follows:

A: 35%
B: 30%
C: 25%
D: 10%

So, nobody won an overall majority. If A was declared the winner, you'd effectively be rejecting the votes of 65% of the population. Instead, the candidates with the least amount of votes (D) gets eliminated.

However, rather than discounting 10% of the electorate's votes, as happens in the French system, the second preference votes (i.e. those marked with a '2') of those 10% are now counted and distributed amongst the remaining candidates. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that all 10% of D's supporters preferred the moderate policies of C over the political extremes of A and B. So, after this redistribution, the votes now look like this:

A: 35%
B: 30%
C: 35%

Again, nobody won an overall majority, but the moderate actually overtook the liberal candidate through the extra votes from D's supporters. The candidate with the least amount of votes (B) now gets eliminated, and the second preference votes of those that voted for B get distributed amongst the remaining candidates. Note that if any of B's votes are already second preference (as some of C's are), the third preference votes of those ballots would be counted instead. For simplicities sake again, let's say that all 30% of B's voters also preferred the moderate candidate (likely since he supports some left wing policies, whilst the conservative does not). After this redistribution, the votes now look like this:

A: 35%
C: 65%

We are left with two candidates, and candidate C has the most votes, winning him the election.

The benefits of AV are numerous, but the more obvious and important are the fact that nobody has a wasted vote, since each voter can participate in each round (by ranking all candidates), or choose simply to vote for one candidate only, as they had done before. It also effectively nulls tactical voting, where a voter votes for a candidate who doesn't really represent their views, because they want to keep out another candidate who represents their views even less. It also makes so-called "safe seats" less safe, which means the politicians who fill those seats have to actually work for the vote of the people they represent.

[BGChuckLee]

This is exactly why I don't like people taking my money, I don't want my stolen money to be auctioned by people in the first place.

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

This person wants my money? Fuck off.

[Violet]

This is exactly why I don't like people taking my money, I don't want my stolen money to be auctioned by people in the first place.

This person wants my money? Fuck off.

Tiberlicious, I'm curious. Why is this still here?

Is it so we can have a grand old time with it, or is there some deeper meaning to it?

Maybe this is Syna's fault? You can never trust that guy