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Pennsylvania is not the only northeastern state that has closed primaries.

Unlike other new england/midatlantic states, Pennsylvania's Primary system is restricted by party registration. Democrats voting in the primary can only select who the democrat nominee is, and Republican can only select the republican, and third party selects third party, etc.

Care to cite that? According to this list, Vermont is the only New England state with open primaries, although most states allow independents to select one party at the poll. Most of the states with open primaries are in the south and midwest.

Nebraska also uses the same method as Maine to distribute their electoral votes. I think that if more states used such a system we would see more 50-state campaigns and platforms, rather than two candidates slugging it out over 1% of the vote in Ohio & Pennsylvania.

See: http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/me_ne.htm

Like I said, there are some states (Nebraska and Maine) who divide them depending on the proportional vote within the state; there are also the OCCASIONAL "faithless electors", but they've rarely - if ever - mattered, particularly in recent history.

http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/faithless.htm has a list and breakdown. It's really a non-issue, and I believe there are several states that may have laws against doing it.

The term "pro-choice" is not just rhetoric.

That's exactly what it is. Pro aborts are constantly saying that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare". Have you ever wondered why it should be rare? Because they know it's wrong.

If human cells are growing inside my body and have no brain or intelligence, then why should you be the one to tell me if I can remove them?

Many aborted fetuses in fact do have brains.

Whether the cells are a tumor or a fetus, what non-religious right, within the bounds of the constitution does the government have for removing my freedom to choose?

Equal protection. The unborn child can be classified as a person and thus covered by laws preventing homicide.

Yes they have, but the law in question isn't attempting to overturn said Supreme Court decision, it is trying to ignore that decision and is thus unconstitutional.

Unless you're justice Kennedy acting undercover, you have no authority to make such a declaration.

Fine, you still haven't presented any secular grounds for such a law.

See above. Each state has the right to decide how to define personhood. If a state defines an unborn child as a person, that state has to regulate homicide as it relates to such a person.

You don't need to join a party to vote and have our vote counted.

When was the last time a President was elected without the backing of a major party?

Actually, exactly half of states currently have open primaries.

If that were true, it would mean that half of states do not. In reality only have open primaries.

I look at individuals, regardless of party affiliation, and choose from those running. I'm not a member of any party, but my vote counts exactly the same as yours (well maybe more since I'm in a swing state).

I'm in Pennsylvania, that's certainly a swing state.

Your argument is for why a politician should join a party to increase their chances of success and has nothing to do with why an individual voter should.

Because most voters are in states that do not have open primaries. If you want to increase the number of choices you have in elections, the vast majority of voters have to be a member of a party.

LK

Our election system is a joke, and the people with the power to fix it rely on it being broken to stay in power.

-----

If you are committed to more democracy voting for 3rd parties is normally the best action -UNLESS (see below )

Presidential Frontrunners Support Instant Runoff Voting

The two frontrunners for their party's nominations, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, are both active backers of instant runoff voting (IRV). In 2002, Sen. McCain recorded a message for backers of IRV in Alaska, while that year Sen. Obama was the lead sponsor of legislation to implement IRV for certain Illinois elections. With most third party candidates also supporting IRV, we may see a rare issue of consensus this November, although neither McCain nor Obama have yet secured their party's nomination.

I_Voter

The Political Power of the U.S. Citizen

A feature of all first past the post electoral systems.

I know you're talking about the advantages of Instant Runoff Voting, but I read your post as:

A feature of all first post electoral systems.

I've been on Slashdot too long.

This would fail if the Republican primary requires you to have been registered as a Republican for at least X period of time, where X > time between now and the Florida Republican primary.

This reference confirms that the Florida Republican primary does have some such requirement, but does not specify the value of X. Anyone know what that value is?

Iowa has an independent, "nonpartisan" commission that does the re-districting, along with strict guidelines to make sure districts are "equal." The point is to keep elected officials out of drawing the lines that will elect those elected officials. Seems pretty smart.

However, the incumbency rate in Iowa is still 97%. I used to think fixing gerrymandering and mid-census re-districting and the like would fix our obviously broken system. I'm far less convinced of that now. I voted for the re-districting initiative, as I think it would be better to not even have the issue to worry about. However, I think the proposition overload in CA is what did this in, too many propositions every election that are often times difficult to parse correctly even for the most informed. I (and I think many others) default to a 'no' vote and have to be convinced otherwise.

-Ted

Wasn't that road crossed back in 1998, with far less justification than there is now? Is it your opinion that impeachment ought never be used under any circumstances? If not, when should it be used?

We need a 3rd party...

Agreed... in fact, we ought to have several. Unfortunately, until a few procedural issues (like the spoiler problem and the media lockout of 3rd party candidates from Presidential debates) are solved, it isn't going to happen, no matter how much we need it.

If Gore had won the 2000 election, we wouldn't HAVE to hate Diebold as much, because asshats like you would be doing it for us.

"Hatred for anything Republican" is not just a property of Slashdot, Anonymous Coward. Take a look around. If it wasn't for the amazing redistricting done by the Republican congress, we'd be looking at a huge Democratic victory next Tuesday.

If you don't believe me, check out this article from the Economist:
www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_ id=1099030

and spend a few minutes at http://www.fairvote.org./ They've got some very interesting articles on the ways redistricting and electoral rules changes have been implemented to give the GOP a "permanent majority".

That the coming election is even going to be close given this fundamentally rigged system is an indication of just how widespread the hatred of Republicans really is.

It's interesting that in a place like Slashdot, where you find people who are likely to have read something besides the bible and the Limbaugh Letter, there's a huge Progressive bias. But as we all know, technology, like reality, has a well-known liberal bias.

You do get to choose between more than two people. The current problem is that if you choose anyone other than the top two candidates, you effectively remove a vote from the candidate you prefer of the top two.

The solution is a mechanism in which you can express your preference for the candidates you believe in and still express your preference for the guy who has a chance but isn't your favorite over the one other guy who has a chance who you really can't stand.

This mechanism is called Preferential Voting, Ranked Voting, or Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV). Where we to have had it in the 2000 presidential election, Nader supporters wouldn't have put Bush in office. If your politics are on the other pole, consider that if this were in place in 1992, Perot supporters wouldn't have put Clinton in office.

It's a no-brainer. Get involved.

You do get to choose between more than two people. The current problem is that if you choose anyone other than the top two candidates, you effectively remove a vote from the candidate you prefer of the top two.

The solution is a mechanism in which you can express your preference for the candidates you believe in and still express your preference for the guy who has a chance but isn't your favorite over the one other guy who has a chance who you really can't stand.

This mechanism is called Preferential Voting, Ranked Voting, or Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV). Where we to have had it in the 2000 presidential election, Nader supporters wouldn't have put Bush in office. If your politics are on the other pole, consider that if this were in place in 1992, Perot supporters wouldn't have put Clinton in office.

It's a no-brainer. Get involved.

The recall of Gary Davis was just about as dirty a move as I've seen in politics

Congratulations on learning to read and write at such an early age.

By the standards of American politics, the recall of Gary Davis was squeaky clean. He was very unpopular; California law provides for recall elections; the procedure was followed, and he was duly recalled. The voting system (which the ACLU attacked) was exactly the same as the voting system under which Gary Davis had been elected.

You might find it interesting to research some truly dirty moves in American politics, all of which, I assume, occurred before you were born:

1. Chicago Mayor Daley's role in the 1960 presidential election. I couldn't find a nonpartisan American source on this; the BBC has an article, though. Incidentally, even many pro-Democrat accounts, e.g. this, conclude that "fraud clearly occurred in Cook County".
2. Gerrymandering, by both parties, in all House elections in some states. Here is a short account of gerrymandering in Texas - by the Democrats in 1991 and by the Republicans in 2003. Perfectly legal. Happens in several other states.
3. Voting irregularities in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election. I don't have a URL, but since you're obviously a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat I'm sure you'll believe it without one. My recollection of the news at the time is that in districts which were likely to vote overwhelmingly for Kerry, there weren't enough voting stations, so people had to queue for several hours to cast their votes. Not surprisingly, many of them gave up.

There is LOTS more dirt in American politics. By the time you're old enough to vote, a smart kid like you will have figured that out, I'm sure.

Yes, by all means, get politically aware. Something we who live in "free" and "democratic" societies often seem to forget is that freedom comes with responsibility. That responsibility is not just to exercise our freedoms in a "responsible" manner, it also includes active participation in the workings of government. Voting is just the most obvious "responsibility" we have in this regard. Far more important is the habitual awareness and involvement with current events and politics... Not only will your vote be more "informed," you'll also be better equipped to influence the "debate" at the dinner table, the pub, the church, etc..

Here are the five most fundamental and important changes, which I think provide the best leverage to make American democracy work better:

1. End "personhood" for corporations.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtm l

2. End the War On Drugs.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

3. Open the televised debates to 3rd party candidates.
http://debatethis.org/

4. Ensure transparent ballot counting and elections.
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/

5. Require proportional delegation in the Electoral College (ie: no more winner-takes-all)
http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/reform.htm#propo rtional

These issues are not in the news much, but they have a common-sense appeal to most people, regardless of their political orientation. These are "systemic" issues, with the potential to have broad effects throughout the society. There are many other things I'd wish for as well, but these five are a good starting point, for beating back the encroachment of Big-Brother government.

--jrd

I think what he's suggesting is the system used in Colorado. A candidate with 51% of a state's popular vote would get only 51% of the state's electoral votes, not 100% as it is now.

I can't see how any such contract is remotely enforceable, given that what is actually being chosen are electors- people who have pledged to vote in a particular way. There generally isn't anything keeping an elector from actually voting for the person for whom they pledged to vote; in fact, there have been situations when they voted in some other way. These situations are called "faithless electors" and are described at this fairvote.org link. So far, there haven't been any elections whose outcome has been influenced by faithless electors, but in principle, they could. It is possible that in the US, there could be a 100% electoral landslide for Candidate A, and upon actually voting, the electors all decided to vote for candidate B, or even person C, who was not even a candidate in any state. Unlikely, but certainly possible. There are some states that require electors to vote in the manner in which they pledge (most, I think it's about half) but the punishments are feeble- small fines for example.

Maine and Nebraska both use an alternative method of distributing their electoral votes, called the Congressional District Method. Currently, these two states are the only two in the union that diverge from the traditional winner-take-all method of electoral vote allocation. With the district method, a state divides itself into a number of districts, allocating one of its state-wide electoral votes to each district. The winner of each district is awarded that district's electoral vote, and the winner of the state-wide vote is then awarded the state's remaining two electoral votes. This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though since both states have adopted this modification, the statewide winners have consistently swept all of the state's districts as well. Consequently, neither state has ever split its electoral votes. Although this method still fails to reach the full ideal of one-man one-vote, it has been proposed as a nationwide reform for the way in which Electoral votes are distributed.

1. Ends the red-washing / blue washing that introduces significant rounding error to Electoral voting
2. Allows for a third political party to show up on the "big map" on election night
3. Could lead to the balkanization of larger states, California a prime example of a state that should be 2 or 3 states (and picks up additional Senate seats in the bargain)

Ah, you mean the way Maine(since 1972) and Nebraska(1996) do it.

Of course, given the small number of districts, and Nebraska's tendency to vote close to 80% Republican, neither have ever split.

This would likely make a bigger difference in states that have large urban populations as well as rural areas (think Pensylvania, where Pittsburgh and Philly were "blue" and most of the rest of the state was "red" - check out this map.

That mentality is a perfectly rational response to how the system is designed. Look at it from a game theory point of view: if you know that it is overwhelmingly likely that either the Democrat or the Republican is going to win, then you have your choice of either (a) affecting the decision of which of the two gets in by voting for one or the other, or (b) not affecting the decision at all (either by not voting, or by voting for someone else who stands no chance of being elected, which is really the same thing). There is a small benefit to (a), but no benefit to (b). That's why people end up voting strategically instead of voting their true interests: because that is what the system rewards.

This is a real problem, but the problem is with the system, not with the voters. The voters are only making the best of a bad situation. If you want to change "the mentality", the only way to do that is to change the voting system to one that can fairly represent the will of the voters when there are more than two candidates in the race. IRV is one such voting system; there are others as well. In a system that does not penalize people for voting their true wishes (by ignoring their vote), people will do so.

What, exactly, would "voting in support of the constitution" consist of?

If you mean voting for some third party candidate, I don't see how that would help. Until the US adopts a more sophisticated voting system, or a third party somehow rises to rival one of the two major parties, voting third party is about as useful as not voting, as far as the results go. It's a sad state of affairs, but true nonetheless.

Excellent summary, that's why I have much more respect for European parliaments that have proportional representation such that Greens, etc, have at least some voice in making policy. Obviously that isn't happening in the U.S. the best we can hope for is instant run off voting that would allow people to vote for third parties without worrying so much about something like a Nader spoiler factor. If we truly want to open up American politics towards BOTH Green left and Libertarian right ideas it's perhaps right up there with campaign finance reform as the most important reform to be made to our increasingly corrupt unrepresentative political ssystem we have in the U.S.

See for example: http://www.fairvote.org/irv/

http://www.instantrunoff.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Much of this could be solved by Instant Runoff Voting. The rest could be solved by the complete re-engineering of human nature to vote for what they see gives them the greatest short term benefits.

Nothing, except that "1 person, 1 vote" isn't necessarily the best voting scheme to use. It's what the US has now, but that doesn't mean it can't change.

Have you heard of Instant Runoff Voting?

More info at fairvote.org and instantrunoff.com.

You've described Instant Runoff Voting:

http://www.fairvote.org/?page=178

You rank the candidates in order of preference. If the candidate that you picked as #1 didn't beat everyone, then it doe to the #2 candidate, etc.

It's worth considering.

Tom

http://www.fairvote.org/irv/vermont/glossary.htm

Actually, most Americans want an intact Constitution.

How can the "public" know what it wants to do when most people don't even know how congress WORKS?

What a wonderfully typical Anonymous stupid Coward. If you don't vote, you don't get represented. Instead of now, where if you don't vote, you get represented by your neighbors' choice. Which lets people off the hook, with consequences too easily hidden by the media. If you had less representation in proportion to your representation of yourself at the polls, the other representatives would take advantage of you in the full government body. Which you could correct, merely by showing up at the polls. Or, get what you really deserve. If only Wisconsiners show up to vote, they should be the ones making the decisions. Actually, that would more likely be Minnesotans or Mainers, the leaders in 2000 turnout, though Wisconsin was #3.

I'll admit to only having read the abstract, but I think they're missing the point. They compared the tendency to vote Republican with having touchscreens. I'd compare the tendency to have the vote say Republican and the exit poll say Democrat with having particular brands of touch screens. The paper-ballot states had dead-on exit polls; the hotly contested states with Diebold had very large pro-Republican variations. To me, that's the killer info. [Note: I don't think this needed to be a large or powerful conspiracy, I'm more than willing to believe it was a "Lone Gunman" ]

More on the parent's topic, here (US) we usually call that "IRV" - Instant Runoff Voting - and we're using it in some local elections.
http://www.fairvote.org/index.php?page=19

And in response to one of the sibling posts, I strongly believe it does make a difference. Not in how much somebody can "game the system", but on how much the two parties matter - it gives a mostly fair shake to a third party candidate. Politicians here vote along party lines with reckless disregard to what they think about issues - like in the recent Bolton stuff. Because the parties have all the control.

I'd rate the partisan stranglehold as the top problem in US politics today.

I'd rate the elimination of most journalistic integrity from the popular media second.

I'd rate the ability of corporations to outvote citizens third. This is partly weak campaign finance laws and partly citizen apathy.

I believe that if we fixed these three problems most of the details would start to fix themselves.

The parties aren't the problem. The root of the problem is that each voter can only vote for one candidate. Since we have two very strong parties, third parties are almost guarenteed to loose. The herd behavior is to not 'waste' the vote on an almost sure looser.

You could say 'people just need to get a spine and vote how they want', but that is simply not how change happens in a large society.

The solution is instant runoff voting, where each voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. This allows people like myself who would prefer a libertarian candidate over a dem or repub to vote for them, without loosing my chance to also express my vote about which of the the favorites is prefered (in reality I vote libertarian anyway, because as noted in another post, the other two are essentially equally evil, so it doesn't matter anyway. I consider my vote not a vote toward who is to be President, but a vote against our existing voting system).

All voting systems have quirks, so there is a trade-off when choosing one over another, but so far I think instant runoff is the most optimal. Visit the FairVote website for more information.

If you haven't learned anything since the 6th grade, then I pity you.

I didn't say I haven't learned anything since 6th grade, I said that I've KNOWN this since 6th grade. Did anyone else misunderstand this? And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that all liberals think the same thing I do, so I take back the comment that I'm a liberal.

I was referring to the geography of where one lives, and to small POPULATION states, of course. I thought that would have been obvious by my reference to Wyoming, Montana, and especially Alaska as small states. And it is only PARTLY based on population, which is my probem with the system. The other part of the equation is that every state gets an extra two electors regardless of its population.

I think that idea is un-Constitutional at best.

No, it's not. As I said, some states do it already. Since you won't take my word for it, I had to go and look it up. The two states that do it now are Maine and Nebraska. The Constitution simply leaves it up to the states to decide how to select electors. In theory, a state could just appoint them without even HAVING a presidential election. (Though I doubt that would go over so well in the next state legislative election.)

Candidates hit every state, with Hawaii and Alaska getting visits from VP candidates

I reiterate, they HARDLY ever visit small (population) states now. Maybe an hour or two here or there. Doing away with the electoral college wouldn't change that, it would be pretty much the same.

And I still don't see any convincing argument as to what is wrong with this concept: If more voters vote for a Republican presidential candidate (as they did in 2004), then that Republican should be President. If more voters vote for a Democratic presidential candidate (as they did in 2000), then that Democrat should be President. It doesn't matter whether those voters live in New York, Texas, Alaska, Wyoming, or a U.S. military base in Germany. This is a NATIONAL election; if you are an eligible voter and choose to exercise that right, then your vote for President should count just like any other.

That kind of system--everyone's vote counting equally--IS unConstitutional, and it needs to be changed. But as long as people don't feel like they're being screwed, it won't. In 2000, the Democrats (rightfully) felt like they were screwed out of the election, but it didn't do any good since the Republicans were in control. If Kerry had won the electoral vote and Bush the popular vote in 2004, then the Republicans would have (rightfully) felt like they were screwed out of the election. With almost everyone feeling screwed, the system would have finally been fixed. But no, the Republicans eeked by in Ohio, and because most don't have the brains to realize how close they were to being bitten (nor do most Democrats, but they now have firsthand knowledge), everyone has to keep living with this harebrained idea until yet more people get screwed. :-(

How about getting good candidates to run before you try to fix a non-broken system to elect them.

Is there any particular reason we can't do both?

Like the other respondant pointed out, PV isn't practical for the Presidency, and I never liked how it takes the power to select individual representatives away from voters. You vote for a party, not a person, and the party gets to select which person goes in, even you think that particular person is a scumbag. So I'm sure it works fine for parliamentary systems, but it wouldn't here.

Instant run-off voting, on the other hand, might instantly cure the worst of what ails our system. The two-party duopoly is the source of almost all things bad, and, together with winner-take-all electoral votes, it guarantees that no 3rd party will ever win the Presidency. IRV turns the system on its head by eliminating the fear of "throwing away your vote". It would break the duopoly, and make the system much more fluid again. And since voting rules are defined state-by-state, there's at least a snowball's chance in hell of getting a few states to try it.

Sorry, but things will never change under the current system - the current system is broken.

How can a system which awards 100% of the representation to a 50.1% majority be fair? An alternative system called "Proportional representation" is much fairer and has been shown to work in one form or another in many countries throughout the world. If 10% of the electorate vote for the Greens or the Libertarians shouldn't that percentage be reflected in the corridors of power?

"The only way to solve this problem is to reduce the size of government."

No, because then unelected corporations take over those areas. The real problem is that the USAs "winner takes all" voting system (which awards 100% of the representation to a 50.1% majority) leads to a political system which does not fairly reflect the wishes of the voters.

Proportional representation is what we should be arguing for, not smaller government (and more unelected corporate power). Compare the US with Scandinavia to see what I mean...

Personally, I think that the people are uninformed, and just don't realize how uninformed they are. The political duopoly here in the US has cemented itself in, and they deliberately encourage voter ignorance by trying to polarize debate into "us vs. them". This distracts the voters long enough that they can pull crap like gerrymandering and big-money bribery ^W^W campaign fundraising.

If you're a Libertarian, please vote for Libertarian candidates or stay home. Anything else is harmful to the Libertarian movement.

What nonsense. The U.S. first-past-the-post elections suffer from the "spoiler effect," because of which most third-party voters are effectivly voting for the opposite of what they want.

If you really care about your third party, or accuracy in any "spoiled" election (i.e., with any third party participant), then support instant runoff voting (IRV) with all of your political might, because any voting you do in a U.S. election before IRV is implemented is usually a vote for the other side.

Not feasable given the current structure. To vote your hopes instead of your fears: Instant Runoff Voting (specifically
Condorcet Voting with Clone Proof Schwartz Sequential Dropping Cyclic Ambiguity Resolution
("majority prefers" is not transitive)).

Anyone who thinks that electors might change their votes have another thing coming.

Electors are hand picked, not by the states, but by the representative parties. These are generally party loyalists, so keyed up about their candidates that they'd vote for them even if it was proven that the election was rigged.

There have been some electors who do change their minds. Read up on "Faithless Electors". You'll notice that almost none of them changed their party allegiance to the other side, however (although a few gave their vote to an independent party). Most of them simply changed *who* they wanted as president -- in one case, for example, voting for Reagan instead of Gerald Ford.

• The election rules for Baltimore City blatantly favor the two major parties -- election judges are recruited from the two majors, and then, if they are unable to fill the number of slots with Republicans and Democrats, they start choosing from third-party/unaffiliated voters. Also, the Chief Judges for each precinct are always a Republican and a Democrat.
• The entire state has mandatory use of touch-screen voting machines with no paper receipt. Various court challenges to the DRE machines themselves or to the lack of a receipt, or the lack of a paper-ballot alternative, have been struck down. You must use a touch-screen machine if one is available to you, or your vote will not be counted.

I'm not holding out much hope of a truly fair and secure election here.

Sorry, man... as long as we still use the archaic, undemocratic FPTP voting scheme, I will NOT throw away my vote. I might consider using something like VotePair, but I actually really like the democratic candidate thsi time (my only beef is his views on Isreal, but hey, Dean said what I felt, and got slammed by AIPAC).

Seriously, the only way to really get any 3rd parites involved is to update the horribly unrepresentative vote counting system in this country.... but before we do anything *really* profound like oh, say, instituting IRV, for example... I think we first have to look at other forms of electoraly dysfunction like Diebold and vote-disenchranchisement.

We don't have a 'winner takes all' system. You must be in that 99%!

Florida should be able to split its votes, as only Maine and Nebraska can now.

The flaw, however, was not Florida's but the winner-take-all electoral system used by 48 of the 50 states in presidential elections

Florida is a good example of what I'm talking about -- not because that state turned out to make the decisive difference in this week's election, but because more than 2 million voters -- nearly as many as will go to the winning candidate -- had no say in the outcome. All of Florida's 25 electoral votes will go to the other guy.

You have a winner-take-all system for senate and house of representatives as well... and thats even worse than the presidential election... this way you make sure that all minorities (anyone not pro-republican or pro-democrat) are completely disenfranchised...

High voter turnout doesn't guarantee a good election result. Why is it prized so much?

ahhh... the mysteries of democracy :)
seriously haven't you got some kind of civics education in school? how old are you... oh well... here we go.
One good reason that having a large voter turnout is good is that it increases stability. People feel like they had some say in who rules over them . Another good reason for having a high voter turnout is that it helps protect peoples rights. If people can make an informed decision they can vote for the people that will represent them and fight for their rights. If people don't make the effort to understand politics and the underlying reason they have the freedoms they do, they will be apt to lose their rights and freedom. People might one day wake up and find that their rights have been taken from them by a president only actively supported by 20% of the population.
Democracy is not something that is god given, it is something you have to fight for. If you are not willing to fight for your freedom (or just taking the small effort to make an informed decision and voting) you, in my mind, deserve to have it taken away... and you probably will.

essentially voter turn-out is a litmus test for determining if the american people (or indeed any people) understand and appreciate the rights and freedoms their ancestors fought and died to give them.

I'm willing to give the american people the benefit of the doubt and say that they are not ignorant and that they do understand the responsibilities that democracy stows upon them, but that they are merely unfortunate to live in a system that was the first of its kind, and therefore not able to learn from the mistakes of others.

You are right... the european leaders are not perfect, but at least they were elected in a democracy. I'm going out on a limb here, but I take it you are talking about the war on iraq when you talk about europeans "not being able to find their arse with both hands in the dark". You might think that Schroeder and Chirac were acting out of petty ecnomical concerns when they were against the war in Iraq, but the fact is that they were supported in their decisions (by a very large margin) by the people who elected them. You might disagree with the europeans on the war, but you can't claim that the french and german leaders had an ulterior motive.
If you were realy trying to compare the EU with the US then you have probably misunderstood one or two things about europe... the EU is a collection of sovereign nations, that sovereign nations often disagree has NOTHING to do with the failings of democracies.
before you go criticize democracies outside of the united states, maybe you should try to understand how your own country works.

"Because then all the states would scramble to come up with a system that would give their state more sway in the presidential elecion than the others."

I wasn't referring to elections of the Electoral College, I was thinking of Congress (the election of which Congress can control without a constitutional amendment). If certain federal laws weren't in the way, the states themselves could decide to use new voting methods or even set up multi-seat districts without having to drag states that don't want to along for the ride.

Election of members of the House of Representatives is done with single-member districts, which can leave up to 49% of the population without representation. We're using single-member districts because of a Nineteenth Century federal law. Before that law, most states went with the "winner-takes-all" party slate elections, like what's usually done with the Electoral College today. But instead of Congress saying "Don't do that," they went so far as to say "You will be doing it this way instead."

Do you think offering cash prizes will make elections more popular and effective?

Yes, I actually do... not 100% voter turnout. I also think it's a rather unfortunate state of affairs if my thoughts and assumptions are true and would more potential voters come on down. (shudder) You would get a lot mor uninformed voters at the polls (you know, kids asking their friends and parents who they voted for) just to see if they can win some "bling".

What I think would be a more intelligent way to spend our time working towards if Instant Run-off voting. I think it's the most palletable and the most logical way to make my voice count (not living in a swing state). It would give me to vote for a Third or Fourth party candidate and have my second choice for the more likely winner.

In the past two elections, we've seen the effect of having states use a "winner take all" approach. The candidates wear out the highways in the swing states like Ohio but completely ignore states where they either have a lock or know they have absolutely no chance.

If states went to making their electors proportional to the popular vote in the state, all states would be "in play" and candidates couldn't take any state for granted. This is something each state can do without federal approval or interference. Colorado has a referendum to do this in November. Maine and Nebraska already do.

Here's where third party candidates come in. Lets say that you get a situation where it's nearly split between two candidates, with a small number of electoral votes to candidates like Nader and Badnarik. Those electors are not committed by law to their candidates (barring state law that says otherwise), and could swing to one of the likely victors in return for various concessions such as policy changes.

This would have the potential to eliminate the headlock the two major parties have on the process. Now every person's vote could have a lot more weight, even a Republican in New York or a Democrat in Wyoming. Voting for a third party candidate wouldn't be "throwing away your vote" because they could bargain with the major candidates to get concessions.

BTW, good info on the Electoral College and reforms.

"So the map was drawn by a nonpartisan panel of federal judges, based on the 2000 Census figures"

That is not totally true, and quite misleading. First of all, two of the Judges on the 3 judge panel were Democrat appointments.

Second, the judge's drew up their own House map, but accepted the Senate map.

Third, They approved the new map that the BBC is reporting on.

Fourth, even though Texas voted more then 60% Republican in 2000, 17 out of our 32 seats went to Democrats.( Before U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall of Rockwall switched to the Republican Party.)

"As a Texan, I have to say that is a totally false and highly partisan mischaracterization of the situation prior to the Republican's abusive redistricting."

Ok, then how do you reconcile the fact that a majority of Texans voted Republican, yet a majority of the US Reps. were Democrat? Last time I checked, the 53% majority enjoyed by the Democrats was a hell of a lot farther from the 39.1% they received in the Presidential campaign then the 65% majority the Republicans would receive from the best case scenario as a result of the redistricting is from their 60%. (All stats in that last statement have been referenced somewhere else in my post, find them.)
Who's being partisan now? Oh, and by the way, I'm not a Republican. I plan on voting for Badnarik.

If anyone doubted /.'s slant, this parent is proof of it.

"So the map was drawn by a nonpartisan panel of federal judges, based on the 2000 Census figures"

That is not totally true, and quite misleading. First of all, two of the Judges on the 3 judge panel were Democrat appointments.

Second, the judge's drew up their own House map, but accepted the Senate map.

Third, They approved the new map that the BBC is reporting on.

Fourth, even though Texas voted more then 60% Republican in 2000, 17 out of our 32 seats went to Democrats.( Before U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall of Rockwall switched to the Republican Party.)

"As a Texan, I have to say that is a totally false and highly partisan mischaracterization of the situation prior to the Republican's abusive redistricting."

Ok, then how do you reconcile the fact that a majority of Texans voted Republican, yet a majority of the US Reps. were Democrat? Last time I checked, the 53% majority enjoyed by the Democrats was a hell of a lot farther from the 39.1% they received in the Presidential campaign then the 65% majority the Republicans would receive from the best case scenario as a result of the redistricting is from their 60%. (All stats in that last statement have been referenced somewhere else in my post, find them.)
Who's being partisan now? Oh, and by the way, I'm not a Republican. I plan on voting for Badnarik.

If anyone doubted /.'s slant, this parent is proof of it.

"So the map was drawn by a nonpartisan panel of federal judges, based on the 2000 Census figures"

That is not totally true, and quite misleading. First of all, two of the Judges on the 3 judge panel were Democrat appointments.

Second, the judge's drew up their own House map, but accepted the Senate map.

Third, They approved the new map that the BBC is reporting on.

Fourth, even though Texas voted more then 60% Republican in 2000, 17 out of our 32 seats went to Democrats.( Before U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall of Rockwall switched to the Republican Party.)

"As a Texan, I have to say that is a totally false and highly partisan mischaracterization of the situation prior to the Republican's abusive redistricting."

Ok, then how do you reconcile the fact that a majority of Texans voted Republican, yet a majority of the US Reps. were Democrat? Last time I checked, the 53% majority enjoyed by the Democrats was a hell of a lot farther from the 39.1% they received in the Presidential campaign then the 65% majority the Republicans would receive from the best case scenario as a result of the redistricting is from their 60%. (All stats in that last statement have been referenced somewhere else in my post, find them.)
Who's being partisan now? Oh, and by the way, I'm not a Republican. I plan on voting for Badnarik.

If anyone doubted /.'s slant, this parent is proof of it.

You're right that the source wasn't the best ever, there are plenty of other sources one can google for. The real point is that the Republicans took a (somewhat imperfect) districting scheme which was laid out by a non-partisan panel and turned it into extreme partisan gerrymandering.

The 2000 Census brought the need for redistricting. There was a lot of conflict over the redistricting, so a non-partisan panel of federal judges made the final mapbased solely on Census data without poitical consideration. A year later, spurred on by Tom DeLay, the Republicans decided to override the fair redistricting in a wholly partisan fashion as described in various articles on your site such as this one.

We now have an new level of absolutely insane gerrymandering that simply dwarfs anything that the Dems. ever tried. I live in Austin. Our city was chopped into slivers by the Republicans' redistricting to try to dilute our votes.

The BBC is talking about this as if this were the Republicans in Texas coming out of the blue and just turning this on the Democrats. What a load of shit.

For those of you who don't remember, or don't care, Texas was a Democrat state a rather short period of time ago (about 20 years). Most of the uproar is from the Republicans trying to reverse the grossly partisan gerrymandering that took place just a little while ago to keep the Republicans from coming to power.

The Texas Constitution requires new boundaries to be drawn every 10 years. In 1991, the last redistricting, both the Senate and the House were strongly controlled by Democrats ( 77% in the Senate and 62 % in the House). http://www.fairvote.org/redistricting/reports/rema nual/tx.htm
That explains very well with maps what exactly happened in 1991, and even further back.

Take my area for example. US District 21 extends from San Antonio all the way to El Paso, making it one of the largest districts in Texas. This was created to make a very strong Republican District so that the rest of the districts in the area could feed off of the Democrats.

Even though the Bexar County Area is about 65% Republican, our representation in the state legislature is 70% Democrat. And one of those 3 Republicans is a moderate.

Another interesting fact is that while it is illegal to redistrict based on race, it is perfectly legal to do it based on Political Parties.

I guess that means that an overwhelming majority of the population shares these same opinions and values, with the remaining points of disagreement occurring at the edges of the two groups.

You know, you really shouldn't get into your condescending little rant when you say something as patently clueless as this. Your "overwhelming majority" was 51% in 2000. Yep, a whopping 2% more than the people who are, collectively, too lazy, too stupid, too apathetic, or too disillusioned to even give a rat's ass. Quite a landslide, that.

Overwhelming majority indeed.