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Post by leftturnonly on Nov 9, 2016 21:55:34 GMT
Oh, FFS, I wasn't crying. That was meant as in crying out and not the derogative it comes across as. My apology.
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Post by pealikecrazy on Nov 9, 2016 22:24:38 GMT
I'm a Democrat and while I would have benefited from a popular vote system in this election I stand by my statement here just a few days ago. The electoral college is needed so we aren't fussing over every close race in precincts all over the country. We would never get a result in anything except a complete blowout if not for the electoral college system. OK, I don't get what you mean. FTR, I am not stupid by any means, it's just that I have been up most of the night and I'm at work right now and I can't make complete sentences any longer because I am so tired! Are you referring to the presidential race or...??
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Post by lisae on Nov 9, 2016 22:47:16 GMT
I'm a Democrat and while I would have benefited from a popular vote system in this election I stand by my statement here just a few days ago. The electoral college is needed so we aren't fussing over every close race in precincts all over the country. We would never get a result in anything except a complete blowout if not for the electoral college system. OK, I don't get what you mean. FTR, I am not stupid by any means, it's just that I have been up most of the night and I'm at work right now and I can't make complete sentences any longer because I am so tired! Are you referring to the presidential race or...?? Oh, I understand. I didn't get to bed until 12:30 and then tossed and turned, got up at 4 and read some more stuff online. It's a wonder I'm functioning at all. What I'm referring to is Election 2000 and the Florida hanging chads. Everything came down to who won Florida so every vote in the state counted and they recounted many in one area where there were concerns. We spent 7 weeks and a couple of trips to the Supreme Court before George W. Bush became President Elect. And all of it was over one or two precincts (can't remember the specifics) in one state. My contention is that if the vote is based on the popular vote then it doesn't matter if just one state is close, every precinct counts. For example, in NC yesterday there were some issues at one of the polling places. Provisional ballots were handed out, people left for work and then maybe returned later because they stayed open late. Maybe they didn't get to vote at all and could make the case that their vote was suppressed. This may be an issue in our governor's race that is very close and has yet to be called, but in the Presidential race, it does not matter. Trump won NC by 150,000. No amount of recounting is going to flip this state. However if the vote is based on the popular vote and it is close, then every precinct all over the country gets scrutinized. Maybe those precincts in NC would have come out differently. Add those precincts to some in other states and you might be recount until you got a different outcome. My contention is that kind of scrutiny would lead to election results that took weeks or months to finalize. While we want everything to be fair and we want every vote to count, the reality is there may be clerical errors, their may be voting machines that don't work. We would never get it perfect enough to satisfy whichever candidate was behind in a popular vote system.
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PLurker
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,744
Location: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
Jun 28, 2014 3:48:49 GMT
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Post by PLurker on Nov 9, 2016 22:58:57 GMT
I get the reasoning behind it and the electoral college has failed us (as in not popular vote) 5 times, is that correct? The only concern I have if, for whatever reason, it continues to happen at a more regular basis. 2000 was one and now 2016. That's not a huge expanse of years. So if THAT frequency continues I could surely see cause for concern. As it is now, I think I'm still good. Not sure about tons today, though.
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Post by mlynn on Nov 10, 2016 1:00:01 GMT
It was rigged in the sense that voting districts were changed so white candidates would have the advantage. It has been going on for years. In NC where I live a judge recently said it was done with "surgical precision" to discriminate against black voters. Also remember the Voters Right Act was dismantled in 2013 which meant less polling places in minority populations making it much harder for them to vote. In our town, the districts were changed specifically to favor the Hispanic community. If it was done to favor whites, holy hell would have been raised. And it was done openly...as in the stated purpose.
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Post by pealikecrazy on Nov 10, 2016 1:01:06 GMT
~Lauren~ I love your comments and knowledge and I have a question for you if you have time. What do you say to those who want the popular vote to be the law? I have a cousin who's mad. She says it's not fair and should be done by popular vote but wouldn't that be by state? Or???
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 17, 2024 23:38:51 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2016 1:08:04 GMT
Hmmm, Trumpers so silent now about popular vote versus electoral college. I didn't vote for Trump, and I'm happy Clinton didn't win either. That said, I still support eliminating the Electoral College. Yes, I realize had this election been based on the popular vote I would not be happy with the outcome. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad and support the process.
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~Lauren~
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,876
Jun 26, 2014 3:33:18 GMT
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Post by ~Lauren~ on Nov 10, 2016 2:42:13 GMT
~Lauren~ I love your comments and knowledge and I have a question for you if you have time. What do you say to those who want the popular vote to be the law? I have a cousin who's mad. She says it's not fair and should be done by popular vote but wouldn't that be by state? Or??? Hi. As I've stated on other threads, our country is not and was never intended to be a strict "Democracy" where there is a direct election of leaders based on popular vote. Tell your cousin to do some research on our system of government. During the formation of the country, the individual states were very protective of their individual sovereignty and very reluctant to give it up to the federal government or to risk their state rights being adversely impacted by the actions of other states. There was a great deal of divisiveness between the (then) "big" or highly populated states and the smaller (less populated) states. The bigger states wanted representation based on the size of the population. Obviously, this would give them a big advantage any time there was a vote. The smaller states wanted each state to have the same voting power. The compromise was the two houses of Congress; the Senate, where each state had two Senators and the House of Representatives where each state had a number of representatives based upon population. The key to this working required that a majority of both houses had to approve any bills/laws etc. With respect to the executive branch (ie, the presidency), the same concerns and debates surfaced between the larger states and the smaller. The electoral college was created as the solution. Rather than directly electing a president based on popular vote (which highly favored the more populous areas), each state received "electors' equal in number to the number of Senators and Representatives that state had. So, at a minimum, each state had 3 electors since each state had a minimum of 2 Senators and 1 Representative. Rather than a direct popular vote, it was the "electors" that actually elected the President. Why is this better? Well, think about the late 1700s. There were a few coastal cities that had very large (for the time) populations. The rest of the states were very sparsely populated. A direct election would mean that those coastal cities determined every presidential election. The problem with that is all candidates would focus only on the urban areas and would ignore the needs and concerns of the less populated areas and states. The smaller states refused to agree to this situation (and I'm sure you could see why). So, in order to form the union (ie, the United States), the compromise was that rather than a direct popular vote (as happens in a strict democracy) the people of each state vote and based on the popular vote in the State, the electors then vote for the President. (This is what makes us a Republic). The individual States each retained the power to determine the rules under which their electors would cast their votes (ie, winner-take-all or proportionately; whether or not electors are bound by the popular vote of the state etc.). The impact of this electoral system is that smaller states can band together to compete with the larger states. This insures that Presidential candidates pay attention to ALL the states and not just the heavily populated ones. The interests of all the states are thus taken into consideration. Even though we now have 50 states instead of 13, the fact that our country is over 3000 miles wide and about 1500 miles high means there are many states with low density populations, the geographics of the country vary from one part of the country to another, the concerns of the various geographic locales are different (and sometimes conflicting). In other words, the very factors that caused the creation of the EC in the first place still exist today. The surfer in CA, the corn farmer in Kansas and the fisherman in Massachusetts and the NYC stockbroker all have very different issues that concern them, different geographic areas they concern themselves with, different concerns about issues like public services etc. A strictly popular vote would result in less than 10 heavily populated states determining every president even though their demographics represent only a small portion of the country. Just as in the late 1700s, the EC insures that "all" states have an opportunity to have a say in the election of the President and that all states are insured that candidates will campaign in their state, consider the concerns of their people and hopefully represent the cross-section of America.
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maurchclt
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,623
Jul 4, 2014 16:53:27 GMT
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Post by maurchclt on Nov 10, 2016 2:54:28 GMT
I am trying to understand, but if we had a popular vote, where every person's vote counted, wouldn't it actually encourage more people to vote? If I live in an area that has always voted red, what is my incentive to vote if I know my vote will never "count"?
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Post by leftturnonly on Nov 10, 2016 3:02:10 GMT
I get the reasoning behind it and the electoral college has failed us (as in not popular vote) 5 times, is that correct? The only concern I have if, for whatever reason, it continues to happen at a more regular basis. 2000 was one and now 2016. That's not a huge expanse of years. So if THAT frequency continues I could surely see cause for concern. As it is now, I think I'm still good. Not sure about tons today, though. The 2000 and 2016 election results are not a fault of the electoral college. All you're seeing is the difference between the Electoral College results and the total popular votes. Throw out the Electoral College and only people voting in the largest metro areas of California, Pennsylvania, New York, etc. will have much say as to who the president of all the states is.
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~Lauren~
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,876
Jun 26, 2014 3:33:18 GMT
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Post by ~Lauren~ on Nov 10, 2016 18:33:38 GMT
Oh but don't you know, liberals are now calling the central part of our country "Dumbfuckistan" and others are offering it back to France. As usual, if you don't agree with them.....
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Post by leftturnonly on Nov 10, 2016 23:18:14 GMT
Oh but don't you know, liberals are now calling the central part of our country "Dumbfuckistan" and others are offering it back to France. As usual, if you don't agree with them..... But but but...... Just imagine the hate if Trump had lost!
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