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Should the Electoral College system in the USA be; ditched for another system ?
Topic Started: Nov 5 2008, 07:01 AM (907 Views)
ds9074
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Admiral
Say California did change on its own, that could nationally be unfair to the Democrats if other states didnt follow. Perhaps if a big (presidentially) Republican state joined California in the change, say Texas, and you both tried it for an election or two :)
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RTW
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Vice Admiral
I don't mind standing aside and letting the Democrats lead the way on this one. ;)
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
ds9074
Nov 12 2008, 10:11 AM
If the purpose of the electoral college is to ensure that campaigning in not just concentrated in a few areas it doesnt really work well at present. Yes in theory it protects small states from being overlooked. Thing is as mentioned earlier in the thread there was little campaigning in safe states compared with swing states. So what actually seems to happen is safe states effectively end up getting bypassed under the current system.
That is an ill analyses of the system.

First) a Safe sate is only safe because the opinions and views of the constituency already align more closely with a particular candidate. They aren’t being ignored, their views are tantamount to the candidate in question.

Second) A safe state is only safe because the citizens of that state decided to alien them selves with a particular party platform; they are doing it to themselves rather than the system systematically harming them.
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ds9074
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^^^
But the effective outcome is that campaigning does tend to concentrate on a few states.
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Admiralbill_gomec
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ds9074
Nov 13 2008, 06:31 AM
^^^
But the effective outcome is that campaigning does tend to concentrate on a few states.
No, not really. Just the "safe" states.

For example, there was little campaigning in Texas or California. On the other hand, states like Iowa, West Virginia, Colorado, and even tiny New Hampshire were heavily campaigned. None have more than nine electoral votes.
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
ds9074
Nov 13 2008, 06:31 AM
^^^
But the effective outcome is that campaigning does tend to concentrate on a few states.
Its not "campaigning" that is the problem, even we in the safe states get an ear full of campaigning. In fact my criticisms of or overall election process is that there is to much campaigning.


The problem is with issues; will a particular state in the union gets its issues addressed, "Safe" states by virtue of their alignment with a candidate or a party platform by default get their issues addressed. And once again they chose to have their issues align with the candidate and party platform.
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Scotty
Cadet 4th Year
Dandandat
Nov 12 2008, 09:08 AM
Scotty
Nov 11 2008, 06:38 PM
The majority of this country voted McCain, but he didn't get the big numbers. It shows that McCain was the better man weather he lost.
How do you figure that?

How do you say McCain got the majority vote in the country when the vote count shows he clearly did not?
The majority of the states were red, but Obama still got it, to big states. I saw the map somewhere where it showed who got what state.
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RTW
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Dandandat
Nov 13 2008, 09:01 AM
Its not "campaigning" that is the problem, even we in the safe states get an ear full of campaigning. In fact my criticisms of our overall election process is that there is to much campaigning.
No way! Don't even fib and tell me that you're not in withdrawal already! Just think ... it's going to be over a year, maybe close to two years, until we get to do all this again! How will we cope?
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Scotty
Nov 13 2008, 01:49 PM
Dandandat
Nov 12 2008, 09:08 AM
Scotty
Nov 11 2008, 06:38 PM
The majority of this country voted McCain, but he didn't get the big numbers. It shows that McCain was the better man weather he lost.
How do you figure that?

How do you say McCain got the majority vote in the country when the vote count shows he clearly did not?
The majority of the states were red, but Obama still got it, to big states. I saw the map somewhere where it showed who got what state.
Who cares who wins the majority of the states?
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ds9074
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Scotty
Nov 13 2008, 01:49 PM
Dandandat
Nov 12 2008, 09:08 AM
Scotty
Nov 11 2008, 06:38 PM
The majority of this country voted McCain, but he didn't get the big numbers. It shows that McCain was the better man weather he lost.
How do you figure that?

How do you say McCain got the majority vote in the country when the vote count shows he clearly did not?
The majority of the states were red, but Obama still got it, to big states. I saw the map somewhere where it showed who got what state.
I believe for what its worth Obama actually won more states than McCain as well as more popular votes and more electoral college votes. There was a clear winner. Even if each State only had one vote Obama would have won.

You could however be thinking of the county by county map where McCain seems to have more geographic coverage, presumably due to lower populations in counties he won (map).

Edited by ds9074, Nov 13 2008, 05:03 PM.
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Admiralbill_gomec
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The end result of the five pages of back-and-forth here is this:

The electoral college is not perfect, but it is the best we can do at this time and should not be changed.

We should be working to ensuring that the voter fraud we've seen increasing over the past few years is quashed. Quashed? More like crushed, and the perpetrators JAILED. There were, at any number of estimates, up to a million fraudulent votes during this campaign. Was it enough to change the presidential election? No. But... possibly congressional elections.
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Admiralbill_gomec
Nov 13 2008, 06:06 PM
The end result of the five pages of back-and-forth here is this:
five pages?

Its not even one, you need to up the displayed number of posts on your UCP, its a lot more conveanet.


Quote:
 
We should be working to ensuring that the voter fraud we've seen increasing over the past few years is quashed. Quashed? More like crushed, and the perpetrators JAILED. There were, at any number of estimates, up to a million fraudulent votes during this campaign. Was it enough to change the presidential election? No. But... possibly congressional elections.


Yea look at the Minnesota
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fireh8er
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I'm Captain Kirk!
Admiralbill_gomec
Nov 13 2008, 06:06 PM
The end result of the five pages of back-and-forth here is this:

The electoral college is not perfect, but it is the best we can do at this time and should not be changed.

We should be working to ensuring that the voter fraud we've seen increasing over the past few years is quashed. Quashed? More like crushed, and the perpetrators JAILED. There were, at any number of estimates, up to a million fraudulent votes during this campaign. Was it enough to change the presidential election? No. But... possibly congressional elections.
:clap: :clap: :clap:
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