Should the popular vote be the ultimate decider?

[ph3iron]

The irony here:

"the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population"

--- is that this is literally what a straight popular vote would do. Without a middleman. And it would do it more effectively. In the case I cited of my own state that gave all of its 15 EVs to Rump even though he got less than 50% of the voters' votes, where I said it would have been more honest to award 8 EVs to Rump and 7 to Clinton, that still would not count the votes for Stein, Johnson et al. But a popular vote would.

Furthermore, as I pointed out directly to you and AFAIK you had no response, simply knowing that the vote would be taken that way would change the whole character of the vote, since now voters for a third (fourth, fifth, etc) party would actually count for something, and the Duopoly forcing most of the electorate to vote against one to block the other, would be eliminated.

if that was done the candidates would only campaign in 4 states Cal, NY, Tx, and FL. mostly in Cal and NY. Those two states could swing the vote if the rest of the country split 50/50.

I understand that you are pissed that the hildebeast lost, but she lost not because of the EC, but because she was/is an old, crooked, lying, unlikeable bitch who ran a stupid campaign.

If 2016 had been based on PV, then Trump would have held huge rallys in Cal and NY and none of us can predict what the outcome would have been.

You just need to get over the butthurt and realize that the EC is not going away, and that crooked Hillary will never be president.

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

Are there no reliable sources of info anymore?

Jo

Hildebeast, crooked? Why read any more?
This is the old white fart white supremist forum folks

 

[Redfish]

The irony here:

"the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population"

--- is that this is literally what a straight popular vote would do. Without a middleman. And it would do it more effectively. In the case I cited of my own state that gave all of its 15 EVs to Rump even though he got less than 50% of the voters' votes, where I said it would have been more honest to award 8 EVs to Rump and 7 to Clinton, that still would not count the votes for Stein, Johnson et al. But a popular vote would.

Furthermore, as I pointed out directly to you and AFAIK you had no response, simply knowing that the vote would be taken that way would change the whole character of the vote, since now voters for a third (fourth, fifth, etc) party would actually count for something, and the Duopoly forcing most of the electorate to vote against one to block the other, would be eliminated.

if that was done the candidates would only campaign in 4 states Cal, NY, Tx, and FL. mostly in Cal and NY. Those two states could swing the vote if the rest of the country split 50/50.

I understand that you are pissed that the hildebeast lost, but she lost not because of the EC, but because she was/is an old, crooked, lying, unlikeable bitch who ran a stupid campaign.

If 2016 had been based on PV, then Trump would have held huge rallys in Cal and NY and none of us can predict what the outcome would have been.

You just need to get over the butthurt and realize that the EC is not going away, and that crooked Hillary will never be president.

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

Are there no reliable sources of info anymore?

Jo

very few and hard to find

 

[Cecilie1200]

She's pretty much a lefty idiot. In case you haven't noticed.

Dum ass Issa is not a female name...it means jesus in Arabic you twat.

I don't know that she thought your name was feminine; I think she just thought YOU seemed kinda womanish.

Yup. Issa sounds like a female name.

Since I don't speak Arabic who knew.

Issa sure is an idiot though.

Does it.
Ever hear the name "Yeshua"? or its similar form, "Jesus"? See the similarities?

How ironic that this comes up right next to a troll calling himself "Marion".




Don't speak Arabic eh? Ever use coffee? With sugar? or al-cohol? How 'bout.... caravan?

Well said...
And she probably as a conservative doesnt know we muslims love Issa (Jesus) and the virgin mary....there is lot of ignorance amongst the conservatives, and that's why bigotry and racism thrives in their ranks unfortunately.

Yes, not knowing a foreign language DEFINITELY indicates a complete lack of information about all sorts of things, since Arabic is OBVIOUSLY one of those everyday things regular people around the world know, just like "water is wet". And yes, the fact that English has borrowed some words from Arabic OBVIOUSLY means that ALL Arabic words are common knowledge.

You're literally losing IQ points every time you speak, do you know that?

If you really want to preen yourself on how intellectually superior you are, try finding something that actually indicates intellectual superiority, rather than just cultural difference, Brain Trust.

 

[Pogo]

For Lefty losing is never an option....
They will all shut the hell up when one of theirs wins that way.

Jo

They want NYC, Chicago, and LA to elect our president.

And the SF Bay Area.

Geography is what it is. Highly populous areas already enjoy the benefit of more electoral votes....thankless pricks.....now they just want total, unopposed dominance.

Where and when did anyone, anywhere say, imply or even hint at that?

Hm?

And I mean in real life, not in the Echobubble where y'all walk around murmuring these Doublethinkian rosary beads to each other in self-delusional Confirmation.

If that's not mob rule....what is it? Might makes right rule?

It's called "one voter one vote". Why do summa y'all think you can just cherrypick votes you don't like and declare "this set over here doesn't count"?

Hm?

Why don't they count? Why do you want to FORCE people to leave where they choose to live? Isn't that their decision?

Hm?

If it wasn't for the agricultural production of those less populated areas the most highly populated areas would go hungry. Perhaps we should reconsider the basis upon which the electoral college votes are apportioned.

Jo

Complete non sequitur here. Hate to be the bearer of old news but voting has nothing to do with wealth or "what you make". If it wasn't for the technology of those more populated areas those agricultural areas would go fallow. So what's your point? And wtf does it have to do with voting?

Actually no it's not NS. Agricultural production is necessarily done in wide open spaces that discourage dense population centers. Why should an agricultural State be disadvantaged because they choose to provide for everyone else and it costs them population density?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. You just made up that idea. Hope your strawman came with disassembly instructions.


In reality it's not one person one vote just because it looks that way. Those who vote along with more densely populated voting blocs have many times more assured value for their vote and their ambient voting interests than a person who votes from a voting Bloc that is much less densely populated. On the face of it the votes appear to be equal but in reality they are not.

Jo

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

 

[boedicca]

They want NYC, Chicago, and LA to elect our president.

And the SF Bay Area.

Geography is what it is. Highly populous areas already enjoy the benefit of more electoral votes....thankless pricks.....now they just want total, unopposed dominance.

Where and when did anyone, anywhere say, imply or even hint at that?

Hm?

And I mean in real life, not in the Echobubble where y'all walk around murmuring these Doublethinkian rosary beads to each other in self-delusional Confirmation.

If that's not mob rule....what is it? Might makes right rule?

It's called "one voter one vote". Why do summa y'all think you can just cherrypick votes you don't like and declare "this set over here doesn't count"?

Hm?

Why don't they count? Why do you want to FORCE people to leave where they choose to live? Isn't that their decision?

Hm?

If it wasn't for the agricultural production of those less populated areas the most highly populated areas would go hungry. Perhaps we should reconsider the basis upon which the electoral college votes are apportioned.

Jo

Complete non sequitur here. Hate to be the bearer of old news but voting has nothing to do with wealth or "what you make". If it wasn't for the technology of those more populated areas those agricultural areas would go fallow. So what's your point? And wtf does it have to do with voting?

Actually no it's not NS. Agricultural production is necessarily done in wide open spaces that discourage dense population centers. Why should an agricultural State be disadvantaged because they choose to provide for everyone else and it costs them population density?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. You just made up that idea. Hope your strawman came with disassembly instructions.


In reality it's not one person one vote just because it looks that way. Those who vote along with more densely populated voting blocs have many times more assured value for their vote and their ambient voting interests than a person who votes from a voting Bloc that is much less densely populated. On the face of it the votes appear to be equal but in reality they are not.

Jo

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

Yes, the current system is perfectly justifiable. Our form of government is a Federal Republic of States...not One Unified Voting Precinct.

 

[Pogo]

But you think everyone in Cal, TX, NY and FL vote the same way or something?
I don't think that's true. I sure don't see how the EC is supposed to give states equal representation, since my state gets 4 and California gets 55. As a matter of fact, the states you listed are the 4 states with the most electoral votes.
So how does that make Maine equal with California, again? Somehow, I don't think it had anything to do with making it equal. That's the Senate's job.

you explained it and you don't even realize that you did, Cal has more people than several other states combined. the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population. the founders foresaw a situation where the more populous states could gang up on the smaller states and virtually vote them out of any say in the federal government.

I am sorry that you and gator don't understand that, its relatively simple.

The irony here:

"the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population"

--- is that this is literally what a straight popular vote would do. Without a middleman. And it would do it more effectively. In the case I cited of my own state that gave all of its 15 EVs to Rump even though he got less than 50% of the voters' votes, where I said it would have been more honest to award 8 EVs to Rump and 7 to Clinton, that still would not count the votes for Stein, Johnson et al. But a popular vote would.

Furthermore, as I pointed out directly to you and AFAIK you had no response, simply knowing that the vote would be taken that way would change the whole character of the vote, since now voters for a third (fourth, fifth, etc) party would actually count for something, and the Duopoly forcing most of the electorate to vote against one to block the other, would be eliminated.

if that was done the candidates would only campaign in 4 states Cal, NY, Tx, and FL. mostly in Cal and NY. Those two states could swing the vote if the rest of the country split 50/50.

I understand that you are pissed that the hildebeast lost, but she lost not because of the EC, but because she was/is an old, crooked, lying, unlikeable bitch who ran a stupid campaign.

If 2016 had been based on PV, then Trump would have held huge rallys in Cal and NY and none of us can predict what the outcome would have been.

You just need to get over the butthurt and realize that the EC is not going away, and that crooked Hillary will never be president.

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

not sure what your point was since your reply was a convoluted mess or unrelated words.

Yes, many times we vote against a candidate rather than for the other candidate, lessor of two evils in almost every election. Removing the EC would not change that.

I think it would. The EC as practiced (which is exactly why I keep calling it the "WTA/EC") perpetuates the Duopoly, ensuring that no third (fourth, fifth etc) party can possibly get a shot. Ross Perot pulled 19% of the popular vote in '92 yet got zero % of the Electoral vote. It just can't happen. As long as the shitstem continues as it is, voters in "red" states and "blue" states have no reason to vote at all since those states are predecided, which is most of them, and voters in so-called "swing" states --- a term that would not exist without the WTA/EC --- have no effect on anything UNLESS they vote for a red-to-block-blue or a blue-to-block-red, even if they don't want either one.

WHAT exactly does that leave for anything outside the Duopoly? NOTHING, that's what.

Let's break this down into the simplest possible equation.

• If you live in a "red" state and vote outside the Duopoly, your vote is wasted because your state is going "red".
• If you live in a "blue" state and vote outside the Duopoly, your vote is wasted because your state is going "blue".
• If you live in a "swing" state and vote outside the Duopoly, your vote is wasted because your state is going either "red" or "blue".

And what makes a state go either "red" or "blue"?
The WTA/EC. Without that, none of those terms would even exist.

Even those who run as third parties -- think Thurmond, Wallace, Anderson, Nader et al ---- have to do so NOT with the strategy of winning 270 EVs, but with the strategy of siphoning off enough from both sides of the Duopoly that neither of them achieves 270, thereby tossing the decision to the House of Reps ------ in other words they get that their only chance is to circumvent the system entirely.

But yanno what, let's just keep on doing the same thing, because it's working so well and shit.

I too have voted for third party candidates and wasted my vote, that's just a reality of life in a free democratic republic, and again removing the EC would not change that either.

So you're going to throw up your hands and give up, even though I've just explained how the system produces those wasted votes and you agreed with it. And yet, let's keep doing the same thing, expecting different results.


SMH

So you live in a state that gave its EC votes to Trump, so do I. If we lived in Cal our votes would have made no difference because all of Cal's votes went for crooked Hillary. And BTW the entire PV delta occurred in Cal and NY. Trump won based on the rules in affect since 1776, they all knew the rules. Stupid crooked Hillary decided not to campaign in MIch, Wisc, and Penn because she thought she had them in her crooked pocket. She was wrong. Its over.

We didn't have an election in 1776, and we didn't have a popular vote when the EC was dreamed up.

What Duopoly candidate X or Y did in 2016 ---- or any other election year ----- is irrelevant here. Once again you're building strawmen.

 

[Pogo]

But you think everyone in Cal, TX, NY and FL vote the same way or something?
I don't think that's true. I sure don't see how the EC is supposed to give states equal representation, since my state gets 4 and California gets 55. As a matter of fact, the states you listed are the 4 states with the most electoral votes.
So how does that make Maine equal with California, again? Somehow, I don't think it had anything to do with making it equal. That's the Senate's job.

you explained it and you don't even realize that you did, Cal has more people than several other states combined. the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population. the founders foresaw a situation where the more populous states could gang up on the smaller states and virtually vote them out of any say in the federal government.

I am sorry that you and gator don't understand that, its relatively simple.

The irony here:

"the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population"

--- is that this is literally what a straight popular vote would do. Without a middleman. And it would do it more effectively. In the case I cited of my own state that gave all of its 15 EVs to Rump even though he got less than 50% of the voters' votes, where I said it would have been more honest to award 8 EVs to Rump and 7 to Clinton, that still would not count the votes for Stein, Johnson et al. But a popular vote would.

Furthermore, as I pointed out directly to you and AFAIK you had no response, simply knowing that the vote would be taken that way would change the whole character of the vote, since now voters for a third (fourth, fifth, etc) party would actually count for something, and the Duopoly forcing most of the electorate to vote against one to block the other, would be eliminated.

if that was done the candidates would only campaign in 4 states Cal, NY, Tx, and FL. mostly in Cal and NY. Those two states could swing the vote if the rest of the country split 50/50.

I understand that you are pissed that the hildebeast lost, but she lost not because of the EC, but because she was/is an old, crooked, lying, unlikeable bitch who ran a stupid campaign.

If 2016 had been based on PV, then Trump would have held huge rallys in Cal and NY and none of us can predict what the outcome would have been.

You just need to get over the butthurt and realize that the EC is not going away, and that crooked Hillary will never be president.

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

The part where you note "no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump" is exactly the issue. If it's a foregone conclusion that D2 is going blue, then nobody who wants the red has any reason to go vote, and for that matter neither does anyone who wants the blue since it's already decided.

Maine is different from 48 of the states which cast their entire EVs for a single candidate, whoever got the most PVs in the state, even if, as in mine, most people didn't vote for any one. That's tossing more than half the voters of North Carolina directly into the garbage disposal.

None of that would be the case if the vote was direct, nobody's vote would be pushed through the shredder, third parties would actually have a path, and those who don't bother to show up to vote now, would finally have a reason to. Including those Rump voters in Maine-2 and in California and New York, including those Hillary voters in Texas and Alabama and Utah, all of whom know their vote at present means absolutely nothing.

 

[Pogo]

you explained it and you don't even realize that you did, Cal has more people than several other states combined. the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population. the founders foresaw a situation where the more populous states could gang up on the smaller states and virtually vote them out of any say in the federal government.

I am sorry that you and gator don't understand that, its relatively simple.

The irony here:

"the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population"

--- is that this is literally what a straight popular vote would do. Without a middleman. And it would do it more effectively. In the case I cited of my own state that gave all of its 15 EVs to Rump even though he got less than 50% of the voters' votes, where I said it would have been more honest to award 8 EVs to Rump and 7 to Clinton, that still would not count the votes for Stein, Johnson et al. But a popular vote would.

Furthermore, as I pointed out directly to you and AFAIK you had no response, simply knowing that the vote would be taken that way would change the whole character of the vote, since now voters for a third (fourth, fifth, etc) party would actually count for something, and the Duopoly forcing most of the electorate to vote against one to block the other, would be eliminated.

if that was done the candidates would only campaign in 4 states Cal, NY, Tx, and FL. mostly in Cal and NY. Those two states could swing the vote if the rest of the country split 50/50.

I understand that you are pissed that the hildebeast lost, but she lost not because of the EC, but because she was/is an old, crooked, lying, unlikeable bitch who ran a stupid campaign.

If 2016 had been based on PV, then Trump would have held huge rallys in Cal and NY and none of us can predict what the outcome would have been.

You just need to get over the butthurt and realize that the EC is not going away, and that crooked Hillary will never be president.

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

No poll if done ethically is "designed to influence public opinion". There are pseudo-polls that are set up for that purpose, but those are not "polls". The one that always comes to mind is George Bush calling South Carolina voters and "asking", "would you be less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". But that's not a poll -- that's a "push-poll". A device made to look like a poll, marinated in dishonesty.

But since you bring up polls, that's another pitfall of the WTA/EC as practiced now --- it makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting up on election day to vote at all. Because if your state's leaning 59% one way, then it's decided, and your single vote will get washed away, so stay home and learn to crochet. Only those states "too close to call" have a reason for voters to exercise their franchise at all, and even then it's by definition ---- as I already explained to you ---- limited to the "red" or the "blue", because one of them is going to prevail, and ONLY one of them will.

 

[Doc1]

They want NYC, Chicago, and LA to elect our president.

And the SF Bay Area.

Geography is what it is. Highly populous areas already enjoy the benefit of more electoral votes....thankless pricks.....now they just want total, unopposed dominance.

Where and when did anyone, anywhere say, imply or even hint at that?

Hm?

And I mean in real life, not in the Echobubble where y'all walk around murmuring these Doublethinkian rosary beads to each other in self-delusional Confirmation.

If that's not mob rule....what is it? Might makes right rule?

It's called "one voter one vote". Why do summa y'all think you can just cherrypick votes you don't like and declare "this set over here doesn't count"?

Hm?

Why don't they count? Why do you want to FORCE people to leave where they choose to live? Isn't that their decision?

Hm?

If it wasn't for the agricultural production of those less populated areas the most highly populated areas would go hungry. Perhaps we should reconsider the basis upon which the electoral college votes are apportioned.

Jo

Complete non sequitur here. Hate to be the bearer of old news but voting has nothing to do with wealth or "what you make". If it wasn't for the technology of those more populated areas those agricultural areas would go fallow. So what's your point? And wtf does it have to do with voting?

Actually no it's not NS. Agricultural production is necessarily done in wide open spaces that discourage dense population centers. Why should an agricultural State be disadvantaged because they choose to provide for everyone else and it costs them population density?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. You just made up that idea. Hope your strawman came with disassembly instructions.


In reality it's not one person one vote just because it looks that way. Those who vote along with more densely populated voting blocs have many times more assured value for their vote and their ambient voting interests than a person who votes from a voting Bloc that is much less densely populated. On the face of it the votes appear to be equal but in reality they are not.

Jo

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

Look at you whine like a petulant child. GET IT CHANGED.

 

[Pogo]

And the SF Bay Area.

Geography is what it is. Highly populous areas already enjoy the benefit of more electoral votes....thankless pricks.....now they just want total, unopposed dominance.

Where and when did anyone, anywhere say, imply or even hint at that?

Hm?

And I mean in real life, not in the Echobubble where y'all walk around murmuring these Doublethinkian rosary beads to each other in self-delusional Confirmation.

If that's not mob rule....what is it? Might makes right rule?

It's called "one voter one vote". Why do summa y'all think you can just cherrypick votes you don't like and declare "this set over here doesn't count"?

Hm?

Why don't they count? Why do you want to FORCE people to leave where they choose to live? Isn't that their decision?

Hm?

If it wasn't for the agricultural production of those less populated areas the most highly populated areas would go hungry. Perhaps we should reconsider the basis upon which the electoral college votes are apportioned.

Jo

Complete non sequitur here. Hate to be the bearer of old news but voting has nothing to do with wealth or "what you make". If it wasn't for the technology of those more populated areas those agricultural areas would go fallow. So what's your point? And wtf does it have to do with voting?

Actually no it's not NS. Agricultural production is necessarily done in wide open spaces that discourage dense population centers. Why should an agricultural State be disadvantaged because they choose to provide for everyone else and it costs them population density?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. You just made up that idea. Hope your strawman came with disassembly instructions.


In reality it's not one person one vote just because it looks that way. Those who vote along with more densely populated voting blocs have many times more assured value for their vote and their ambient voting interests than a person who votes from a voting Bloc that is much less densely populated. On the face of it the votes appear to be equal but in reality they are not.

Jo

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

Yes, the current system is perfectly justifiable. Our form of government is a Federal Republic of States...not One Unified Voting Precinct.

You didn't address what I said there's "no way to justify" at all.

Red herring on the field, fifteen yards, repeat second down.

 

[justoffal]

The irony here:

"the purpose of the EC is to give a voice to every state proportional to its population"

--- is that this is literally what a straight popular vote would do. Without a middleman. And it would do it more effectively. In the case I cited of my own state that gave all of its 15 EVs to Rump even though he got less than 50% of the voters' votes, where I said it would have been more honest to award 8 EVs to Rump and 7 to Clinton, that still would not count the votes for Stein, Johnson et al. But a popular vote would.

Furthermore, as I pointed out directly to you and AFAIK you had no response, simply knowing that the vote would be taken that way would change the whole character of the vote, since now voters for a third (fourth, fifth, etc) party would actually count for something, and the Duopoly forcing most of the electorate to vote against one to block the other, would be eliminated.

if that was done the candidates would only campaign in 4 states Cal, NY, Tx, and FL. mostly in Cal and NY. Those two states could swing the vote if the rest of the country split 50/50.

I understand that you are pissed that the hildebeast lost, but she lost not because of the EC, but because she was/is an old, crooked, lying, unlikeable bitch who ran a stupid campaign.

If 2016 had been based on PV, then Trump would have held huge rallys in Cal and NY and none of us can predict what the outcome would have been.

You just need to get over the butthurt and realize that the EC is not going away, and that crooked Hillary will never be president.

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

No poll if done ethically is "designed to influence public opinion". There are pseudo-polls that are set up for that purpose, but those are not "polls". The one that always comes to mind is George Bush calling South Carolina voters and "asking", "would you be less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". But that's not a poll -- that's a "push-poll". A device made to look like a poll, marinated in dishonesty.

But since you bring up polls, that's another pitfall of the WTA/EC as practiced now --- it makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting up on election day to vote at all. Because if your state's leaning 59% one way, then it's decided, and your single vote will get washed away, so stay home and learn to crochet. Only those states "too close to call" have a reason for voters to exercise their franchise at all, and even then it's by definition ---- as I already explained to you ---- limited to the "red" or the "blue", because one of them is going to prevail, and ONLY one of them will.

If you have any winner at all ... No matter how you get that winner.... He takes ALL.....
Those who did not vote for him/her will feel cheated as always and feel as though their vote was wasted. Unless we come up with a power sharing scheme which is probably just a short cut to civil war.

You cannot escape this.

Jo

 

[Pogo]

if that was done the candidates would only campaign in 4 states Cal, NY, Tx, and FL. mostly in Cal and NY. Those two states could swing the vote if the rest of the country split 50/50.

I understand that you are pissed that the hildebeast lost, but she lost not because of the EC, but because she was/is an old, crooked, lying, unlikeable bitch who ran a stupid campaign.

If 2016 had been based on PV, then Trump would have held huge rallys in Cal and NY and none of us can predict what the outcome would have been.

You just need to get over the butthurt and realize that the EC is not going away, and that crooked Hillary will never be president.

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

No poll if done ethically is "designed to influence public opinion". There are pseudo-polls that are set up for that purpose, but those are not "polls". The one that always comes to mind is George Bush calling South Carolina voters and "asking", "would you be less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". But that's not a poll -- that's a "push-poll". A device made to look like a poll, marinated in dishonesty.

But since you bring up polls, that's another pitfall of the WTA/EC as practiced now --- it makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting up on election day to vote at all. Because if your state's leaning 59% one way, then it's decided, and your single vote will get washed away, so stay home and learn to crochet. Only those states "too close to call" have a reason for voters to exercise their franchise at all, and even then it's by definition ---- as I already explained to you ---- limited to the "red" or the "blue", because one of them is going to prevail, and ONLY one of them will.

If you have any winner at all ... No matter how you get that winner.... He takes ALL.....
Those who did not vote for him/her will feel cheated as always and feel as though their vote was wasted. Unless we come up with a power sharing scheme which is probably just a short cut to civil war.

You cannot escape this.

Jo

If you and I and USMB vote on whether "JO" stands for "Jerkoff" and the vote is 51-48, then that's the vote, period. The 48 voters lost and they'll deal with it.

But if we take the same vote and some committee on our behalf goes to the mods and says "guess what, we all took a poll and ALL NINETY-NINE PEOPLE in the poll unanimously say JO is a jerkoff", that's a different thing.

Isn't it.

In my state in the last POTUS election nobody got as much as 50% of the vote. It was spread out among mostly Rump and Hillary, with smatterings of Steins and Johnsons and McMullins and Castles etc.

And yet our fifteen electors went out to Congress and lied through their teeth, telling them we ALL voted for Rump. Which was BULLSHIT.

Four years earlier they told Congress the same kind of lie, lying that "wow it's amazing, everybody in North Carolina voted for Romney". Which is BULLSHIT.

Four years before that they did the same thing, lying to Congress that "everybody in Carolina voted for O'bama". Which was BULLSHIT.

Stop me when you begin to see a pattern here.

 

[boedicca]

Geography is what it is. Highly populous areas already enjoy the benefit of more electoral votes....thankless pricks.....now they just want total, unopposed dominance.

Where and when did anyone, anywhere say, imply or even hint at that?

Hm?

And I mean in real life, not in the Echobubble where y'all walk around murmuring these Doublethinkian rosary beads to each other in self-delusional Confirmation.

If that's not mob rule....what is it? Might makes right rule?

It's called "one voter one vote". Why do summa y'all think you can just cherrypick votes you don't like and declare "this set over here doesn't count"?

Hm?

Why don't they count? Why do you want to FORCE people to leave where they choose to live? Isn't that their decision?

Hm?

If it wasn't for the agricultural production of those less populated areas the most highly populated areas would go hungry. Perhaps we should reconsider the basis upon which the electoral college votes are apportioned.

Jo

Complete non sequitur here. Hate to be the bearer of old news but voting has nothing to do with wealth or "what you make". If it wasn't for the technology of those more populated areas those agricultural areas would go fallow. So what's your point? And wtf does it have to do with voting?

Actually no it's not NS. Agricultural production is necessarily done in wide open spaces that discourage dense population centers. Why should an agricultural State be disadvantaged because they choose to provide for everyone else and it costs them population density?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. You just made up that idea. Hope your strawman came with disassembly instructions.


In reality it's not one person one vote just because it looks that way. Those who vote along with more densely populated voting blocs have many times more assured value for their vote and their ambient voting interests than a person who votes from a voting Bloc that is much less densely populated. On the face of it the votes appear to be equal but in reality they are not.

Jo

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

Yes, the current system is perfectly justifiable. Our form of government is a Federal Republic of States...not One Unified Voting Precinct.

You didn't address what I said there's "no way to justify" at all.

Red herring on the field, fifteen yards, repeat second down.

I did. "Federal Republic of STATES" says it all.

 

[Pogo]

Where and when did anyone, anywhere say, imply or even hint at that?

Hm?

And I mean in real life, not in the Echobubble where y'all walk around murmuring these Doublethinkian rosary beads to each other in self-delusional Confirmation.


It's called "one voter one vote". Why do summa y'all think you can just cherrypick votes you don't like and declare "this set over here doesn't count"?

Hm?

Why don't they count? Why do you want to FORCE people to leave where they choose to live? Isn't that their decision?

Hm?


Complete non sequitur here. Hate to be the bearer of old news but voting has nothing to do with wealth or "what you make". If it wasn't for the technology of those more populated areas those agricultural areas would go fallow. So what's your point? And wtf does it have to do with voting?

Actually no it's not NS. Agricultural production is necessarily done in wide open spaces that discourage dense population centers. Why should an agricultural State be disadvantaged because they choose to provide for everyone else and it costs them population density?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. You just made up that idea. Hope your strawman came with disassembly instructions.


In reality it's not one person one vote just because it looks that way. Those who vote along with more densely populated voting blocs have many times more assured value for their vote and their ambient voting interests than a person who votes from a voting Bloc that is much less densely populated. On the face of it the votes appear to be equal but in reality they are not.

Jo

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

Yes, the current system is perfectly justifiable. Our form of government is a Federal Republic of States...not One Unified Voting Precinct.

You didn't address what I said there's "no way to justify" at all.

Red herring on the field, fifteen yards, repeat second down.

I did. "Federal Republic of STATES" says it all.

No you did not. Whatever your definition of "federal republic of states" (it's not a proper name, no caps), it cannot mean "most voters get their ballot immediately tossed in the shitcan so what's the point".

 

[boedicca]

Actually no it's not NS. Agricultural production is necessarily done in wide open spaces that discourage dense population centers. Why should an agricultural State be disadvantaged because they choose to provide for everyone else and it costs them population density?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. You just made up that idea. Hope your strawman came with disassembly instructions.


In reality it's not one person one vote just because it looks that way. Those who vote along with more densely populated voting blocs have many times more assured value for their vote and their ambient voting interests than a person who votes from a voting Bloc that is much less densely populated. On the face of it the votes appear to be equal but in reality they are not.

Jo

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

Yes, the current system is perfectly justifiable. Our form of government is a Federal Republic of States...not One Unified Voting Precinct.

You didn't address what I said there's "no way to justify" at all.

Red herring on the field, fifteen yards, repeat second down.

I did. "Federal Republic of STATES" says it all.

No you did not. Whatever your definition of "federal republic of states" (it's not a proper name, no caps), it cannot mean "most voters get their ballot immediately tossed in the shitcan so what's the point".

Then condolences on your lack of education in Civics. We have a form of government in which powers are divided between the centralized Federal and State governments. Even Wikipedia groks it. We have a Federal Republic - not a Unitary one for very good reasons. One very important one is to prevent what Tocqueville identified as the "tyranny of the majority". The Left wants to impose such a tyrrany (although it's ideology is accepted by a minority of the population). So they use intimidation and manipulate the judicial system to undermine our Federal Republic.


A federal republic is a federation of states with a republican form of government.[1] At its core, the literal meaning of the word republic when used to reference a form of government means: "a country that is governed by elected representatives and by an elected leader (such as a president) rather than by a king or queen".

In a federal republic, there is a division of powers between the federal government, and the government of the individual subdivisions. While each federal republic manages this division of powers differently, common matters relating to security and defence, and monetary policy are usually handled at the federal level, while matters such as infrastructure maintenance and education policy are usually handled at the regional or local level. However, views differ on what issues should be a federal competence, and subdivisions usually have sovereignty in some matters where the federal government does not have jurisdiction. A federal republic is thus best defined in contrast to a unitary republic, whereby the central government has complete sovereignty over all aspects of political life. This more decentralized structure helps to explain the tendency for more populous countries to operate as federal republics.[2] Most federal republics codify the division of powers between orders of government in a written constitutional document....

Federal republic - Wikipedia

 

[Pogo]

Indeed they aren't, as it's practiced. Electoral Votes are apportioned on the basis of population, plus weighted for the state itself, which means it takes three-point-six Californians to muster the voting power of one voter in Wyoming. So yes, they already ARE unequal in practice ---- and this doesn't even take into account that that voter in California if he/she votes "red", or that voter in Wyoming if he/she votes "blue", is going to have their vote tossed directly in the shitcan anyway before the polls close, and they both know that, therefore neither one has any reason to bother to go to the polls in the first place.

There ain't no way to justify that. None. Zero.

>> The Electoral College was slapped together by the drafters of the Constitutions in 1789 as a sop to the smaller states, giving them some incentive to ratify the document. But that was an era when there was no popular vote for the election of presidents. The idea that the Electoral College would evolve into a sort of a stand-in for the popular vote would have shocked James Madison and the other drafters. Among its other vices, the Electoral College has distorted political campaigns. Candidates practically camp out in “swing states” and ignore the voters in the other “safe states” entirely. And it affects the way that issues are raised in the campaign. In years when the electoral votes of Iowa are in play, you can practically see the candidates inhaling the Ethanol fumes.

But the biggest vice of the Electoral College is its blatant unfairness to voters in the bigger states. As a resident of the largest state, California, I look at the residents of the smallest state, Wyoming, with particular envy during election season. Each vote cast in Wyoming is worth 3.6 as much as the same vote cast in California. How can that be, you might ask? It’s easy to see, when you do the math. Although Wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563,767, it gets 3 votes in the Electoral College based on its two Senators and one Congressman. California has 55 electoral votes. That sounds like a lot more, but it isn’t when you consider the size of the state. The population of California in the last census was 37,254,503, and that means that the electoral votes per capita in California are a lot less. To put it another way, the three electors in Wyoming represent an average of 187,923 residents each. The 55 electors in California represent an average of 677,355 each, and that’s a disparity of 3.6 to 1.<< --- Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have.​

Yes, the current system is perfectly justifiable. Our form of government is a Federal Republic of States...not One Unified Voting Precinct.

You didn't address what I said there's "no way to justify" at all.

Red herring on the field, fifteen yards, repeat second down.

I did. "Federal Republic of STATES" says it all.

No you did not. Whatever your definition of "federal republic of states" (it's not a proper name, no caps), it cannot mean "most voters get their ballot immediately tossed in the shitcan so what's the point".

Then condolences on your lack of education in Civics. We have a form of government in which powers are divided between the centralized Federal and State governments. Even Wikipedia groks it. We have a Federal Republic - not a Unitary one for very good reasons. One very important one is to prevent what Tocqueville identified as the "tyranny of the majority". The Left wants to impose such a tyrrany (although it's ideology is accepted by a minority of the population). So they use intimidation and manipulate the judicial system to undermine our Federal Republic.


A federal republic is a federation of states with a republican form of government.[1] At its core, the literal meaning of the word republic when used to reference a form of government means: "a country that is governed by elected representatives and by an elected leader (such as a president) rather than by a king or queen".

In a federal republic, there is a division of powers between the federal government, and the government of the individual subdivisions. While each federal republic manages this division of powers differently, common matters relating to security and defence, and monetary policy are usually handled at the federal level, while matters such as infrastructure maintenance and education policy are usually handled at the regional or local level. However, views differ on what issues should be a federal competence, and subdivisions usually have sovereignty in some matters where the federal government does not have jurisdiction. A federal republic is thus best defined in contrast to a unitary republic, whereby the central government has complete sovereignty over all aspects of political life. This more decentralized structure helps to explain the tendency for more populous countries to operate as federal republics.[2] Most federal republics codify the division of powers between orders of government in a written constitutional document....

Federal republic - Wikipedia

Again with this fixation on "federal republics", a concept I never brought up or hinted at at all.

My point was, is now, and will always be, that in the present WTA/EC system.... which has ZERO to do with "federal republics" .... most indivitual voters' votes are ignored, shitcanned, shredded, ground up and served to Rover for his evening meal and unsuspecting diners at Waffle House, never to be seen again except on the other end.

That's got Zero to do with "federal republics". It has Much to do with the WTA part of that term.

 

[justoffal]

Once AGAIN you completely whiff on my point about how the EC forces untold millions to vote against one of the Duopoly in order to block the only remaining realistic choice. Apparently you're afraid of that point.

"Hildebeast" was never my candidate and I voted against her. But the WTA/EC left me no way out. Every vote in my state that was against Rump was tossed in the shitcan. And that means the majority of the votes in the state.

DEAL with that.

You also conveniently ignore that I've been on this same rant about the WTA/EC for decades. Including here, WAY before 2016. So take your fantasies that you'd affix to me because you wish they were the case and shove them up your dishonest ass. Deal with what I post, not what you set up as your personal strawman because you're too much of a wimp to address what's on the page.

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

No poll if done ethically is "designed to influence public opinion". There are pseudo-polls that are set up for that purpose, but those are not "polls". The one that always comes to mind is George Bush calling South Carolina voters and "asking", "would you be less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". But that's not a poll -- that's a "push-poll". A device made to look like a poll, marinated in dishonesty.

But since you bring up polls, that's another pitfall of the WTA/EC as practiced now --- it makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting up on election day to vote at all. Because if your state's leaning 59% one way, then it's decided, and your single vote will get washed away, so stay home and learn to crochet. Only those states "too close to call" have a reason for voters to exercise their franchise at all, and even then it's by definition ---- as I already explained to you ---- limited to the "red" or the "blue", because one of them is going to prevail, and ONLY one of them will.

If you have any winner at all ... No matter how you get that winner.... He takes ALL.....
Those who did not vote for him/her will feel cheated as always and feel as though their vote was wasted. Unless we come up with a power sharing scheme which is probably just a short cut to civil war.

You cannot escape this.

Jo

If you and I and USMB vote on whether "JO" stands for "Jerkoff" and the vote is 51-48, then that's the vote, period. The 48 voters lost and they'll deal with it.

But if we take the same vote and some committee on our behalf goes to the mods and says "guess what, we all took a poll and ALL NINETY-NINE PEOPLE in the poll unanimously say JO is a jerkoff", that's a different thing.

Isn't it.

In my state in the last POTUS election nobody got as much as 50% of the vote. It was spread out among mostly Rump and Hillary, with smatterings of Steins and Johnsons and McMullins and Castles etc.

And yet our fifteen electors went out to Congress and lied through their teeth, telling them we ALL voted for Rump. Which was BULLSHIT.

Four years earlier they told Congress the same kind of lie, lying that "wow it's amazing, everybody in North Carolina voted for Romney". Which is BULLSHIT.

Four years before that they did the same thing, lying to Congress that "everybody in Carolina voted for O'bama". Which was BULLSHIT.

Stop me when you begin to see a pattern here.

Hmmm......

I see no pattern at all in the post though I read it numerous times.

I do see frustration, intolerance and condescension .... But no real reason on the issue.

You decry WTA..... Which means you don't want a winner.... At best your want power
Sharing.... Or another way of saying civil war.

Jo

 

[Pogo]

Being politically unsophisticated, I have never thought of my vote being wasted. I think of the 2000 election.
If we went with "projections," no one in the 2nd District here would have bothered showing up to vote for Trump, since Maine has elected Democratic presidents for a couple of decades now.
But the 2nd District DID vote for Trump, giving a Republican an EC vote for the first time in a long time.
There's always hope, Pogo.

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

No poll if done ethically is "designed to influence public opinion". There are pseudo-polls that are set up for that purpose, but those are not "polls". The one that always comes to mind is George Bush calling South Carolina voters and "asking", "would you be less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". But that's not a poll -- that's a "push-poll". A device made to look like a poll, marinated in dishonesty.

But since you bring up polls, that's another pitfall of the WTA/EC as practiced now --- it makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting up on election day to vote at all. Because if your state's leaning 59% one way, then it's decided, and your single vote will get washed away, so stay home and learn to crochet. Only those states "too close to call" have a reason for voters to exercise their franchise at all, and even then it's by definition ---- as I already explained to you ---- limited to the "red" or the "blue", because one of them is going to prevail, and ONLY one of them will.

If you have any winner at all ... No matter how you get that winner.... He takes ALL.....
Those who did not vote for him/her will feel cheated as always and feel as though their vote was wasted. Unless we come up with a power sharing scheme which is probably just a short cut to civil war.

You cannot escape this.

Jo

If you and I and USMB vote on whether "JO" stands for "Jerkoff" and the vote is 51-48, then that's the vote, period. The 48 voters lost and they'll deal with it.

But if we take the same vote and some committee on our behalf goes to the mods and says "guess what, we all took a poll and ALL NINETY-NINE PEOPLE in the poll unanimously say JO is a jerkoff", that's a different thing.

Isn't it.

In my state in the last POTUS election nobody got as much as 50% of the vote. It was spread out among mostly Rump and Hillary, with smatterings of Steins and Johnsons and McMullins and Castles etc.

And yet our fifteen electors went out to Congress and lied through their teeth, telling them we ALL voted for Rump. Which was BULLSHIT.

Four years earlier they told Congress the same kind of lie, lying that "wow it's amazing, everybody in North Carolina voted for Romney". Which is BULLSHIT.

Four years before that they did the same thing, lying to Congress that "everybody in Carolina voted for O'bama". Which was BULLSHIT.

Stop me when you begin to see a pattern here.

Hmmm......

I see no pattern at all in the post though I read it numerous times.

I do see frustration, intolerance and condescension .... But no real reason on the issue.

You decry WTA..... Which means you don't want a winner.... At best your want power
Sharing.... Or another way of saying civil war.

Jo

Here's ^^ the most nonsequituresque red herring strawman in the fewest number of words that I've seen for many a day.

Yyyyyyyeah, "power sharing" --- which has nothing to do with my point --- is "another way of saying civil war". Go tell that to all the bicameral legislatures and parliaments around the globe. Collect the whole set of guffaws.

If my point is indisputable, just say so. Don't flail around with absurdities.

SMFH --- the hoops people will jump through just to avoid admitting they can't refute an argument...

 

[justoffal]

What you are really pointing out here is that the pollsters lied to us. We need to accept the reality that the polls today are not designed to report on public opinion, they are designed to influence public opinion. As you said, if you believed the polls you and others would have stayed home on election day-----------exactly what the pollsters were trying to get you to do.

No poll if done ethically is "designed to influence public opinion". There are pseudo-polls that are set up for that purpose, but those are not "polls". The one that always comes to mind is George Bush calling South Carolina voters and "asking", "would you be less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". But that's not a poll -- that's a "push-poll". A device made to look like a poll, marinated in dishonesty.

But since you bring up polls, that's another pitfall of the WTA/EC as practiced now --- it makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting up on election day to vote at all. Because if your state's leaning 59% one way, then it's decided, and your single vote will get washed away, so stay home and learn to crochet. Only those states "too close to call" have a reason for voters to exercise their franchise at all, and even then it's by definition ---- as I already explained to you ---- limited to the "red" or the "blue", because one of them is going to prevail, and ONLY one of them will.

If you have any winner at all ... No matter how you get that winner.... He takes ALL.....
Those who did not vote for him/her will feel cheated as always and feel as though their vote was wasted. Unless we come up with a power sharing scheme which is probably just a short cut to civil war.

You cannot escape this.

Jo

If you and I and USMB vote on whether "JO" stands for "Jerkoff" and the vote is 51-48, then that's the vote, period. The 48 voters lost and they'll deal with it.

But if we take the same vote and some committee on our behalf goes to the mods and says "guess what, we all took a poll and ALL NINETY-NINE PEOPLE in the poll unanimously say JO is a jerkoff", that's a different thing.

Isn't it.

In my state in the last POTUS election nobody got as much as 50% of the vote. It was spread out among mostly Rump and Hillary, with smatterings of Steins and Johnsons and McMullins and Castles etc.

And yet our fifteen electors went out to Congress and lied through their teeth, telling them we ALL voted for Rump. Which was BULLSHIT.

Four years earlier they told Congress the same kind of lie, lying that "wow it's amazing, everybody in North Carolina voted for Romney". Which is BULLSHIT.

Four years before that they did the same thing, lying to Congress that "everybody in Carolina voted for O'bama". Which was BULLSHIT.

Stop me when you begin to see a pattern here.

Hmmm......

I see no pattern at all in the post though I read it numerous times.

I do see frustration, intolerance and condescension .... But no real reason on the issue.

You decry WTA..... Which means you don't want a winner.... At best your want power
Sharing.... Or another way of saying civil war.

Jo

Here's ^^ the most nonsequituresque red herring strawman in the fewest number of words that I've seen for many a day.

Yyyyyyyeah, "power sharing" --- which has nothing to do with my point --- is "another way of saying civil war". Go tell that to all the bicameral legislatures and parliaments around the globe. Collect the whole set of guffaws.

If my point is indisputable, just say so. Don't flail around with absurdities.

SMFH --- the hoops people will jump through just to avoid admitting they can't refute an argument...

The only thing absurd is your refusal to admit that in any system, save the few dysfunctional power sharing fiasco's, ( and frankly even they have a senior partner) the winner always takes all. There is no other kind of winner. THAT is what is indisputable. As to your argument.... Your don't have one. I mean dude... There's nothing to refute.


Jo

 

[Redfish]

Not one demolib would be screaming to do away with the EC if crooked Hillary had won. This whole discussion is just another example of left wing hypocrisy.

Over, done, Trump won, Hillary lost, 2016 is history, get the fuck over it and move on.