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You pompous ignorant twerp. The phrase "free and fair elections" is *the* term used to describe legitimate elections, and has been ever since the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa in 1994. "Fairness" has always been a legitimate goal of an electoral system. It's why democracies have laws regulating election spending; vote counting; who can and cannot vote; etc etc.

Here's some help for you:
http://www.civicsacademy.co.za...
https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-...
http://archive.ipu.org/cnl-e/1...

I'm well aware of the *rationale* for the electoral college, although I'm not convinced you are -- you describe how the electoral college works (a bit) and assert it's better than a popular view, but you don't articulate why. In any event, whether you can articulate the rationale for an electoral college in any detail beyond "States!" or not, I am taking a different view from you on the soundness of the rationale.

Here is a dispassionate look at the arguments for and against an electoral college. I find the arguments against much more convincing.
https://uselectionatlas.org/IN...

The system was set up as a checks and balances system to keep the US policy from being dictated by people in large cities.

No, it wasn't. Well, preventing the people from large states (not cities) from dictating the choice was a small part of the rationale, but claiming it was the whole thing is like claiming that your house has plumbing so you can brush your teeth. Here's a decent (brief) overview of that rationale for and evolution of the electoral college: http://uselectionatlas.org/INF....

She did win the popular vote though.

According to my calculations, 24.34% of registered voters voted for Clinton and 24.08% for Trump (24.34+24.08=48.42). But 48.82% abstained from voting.

Looks to me as if more USAians couldn't be bothered who their next president is than those supporting Clinton or Trump. Just an observation from outside the USA...

(See http://uselectionatlas.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections.)

It's 46% by the most recent tally. Been going down ever since the election, as more votes are counted.

Did the founding fathers want that?

Yes, they specifically said they wanted that. Below is an excerpt from Origins of the Electoral College

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

No. I'm saying that the people who founded this country didn't want a direct vote. Nothing about the effects of the electoral college is unintentional.

The "Committee of Eleven", which included Benjamin Franklin, selected this method. They did consider and reject a direct popular vote. Reference

This is the weirdest election I can remember though, it is three right wingers versus the Green party (I don't know enough of their platform to say right or left). Hillary is way right, I am amazed that the Democratic party can even support her.

http://uselectionatlas.org/FOR...

I suppose you are referring to Nixon's "Southern Strategy" whereby he appealed to southern racists by actually working to desegregate southern schools (something which LBJ angered those same racists by refusing to do). I'm sorry, but the facts do not support your allegation that Nixon used some strategy to win the southern states, since he did not actually win them. They were won by George Wallace, who left the Democratic Party for that election and then returned to it.

I stand corrected. Thank you.

However, That doesn't invalidate my primary points:

it's the bigoted assholes of all stripes who try to judge people according to all kinds of stupid measures.

If you're a bigoted scumbag, it doesn't matter what your party affiliation is, nor do party affiliations really tell us anything about whether a person is good or bad.

Besides, these days both parties represent the Corporate Entities of America rather than the people of the United States.

Not sure where this site gets their data, but according to them Jill Stein won 427,047 total votes, which is 0.35% of the popular vote.

Basically, statistically 0 votes, which is what I would have guessed.

Got yer citation right here, bub...

98.47% of the voters do indeed love security theater.

I rest my case.

I'm sure all the Ross Perot voters thought that in '92. If 85% of those people had voted Bush and 15% had voted Clinton, Bush would have won. (I know it is unlikely, please bear with me) Your vote will not put Obama in office or keep him out but the sum of all the people influenced by Ron Paul and his supporters? Who knows?
Feel fee to check my math. http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1992&datatype=national&def=1&f=0&off=0&elect=0/

The margin was 7.26%

Obama 52.87%
McCain 45.61%
See here

Hear hear! For god's sake people, don't just go off half-cocked when you read an article. Go check the data! I've managed with little effort to pull up the county-by-county results for the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial election.

Look here for election results.

Look here for a map where the counties are labeled.

You'll notice the following: In Fulton county, the Democrat candidate won 62% to 35%. In Dekalb county, he won 74% to 24%.

I'll leave it to some other person to look up the senatorial election results. The results I've found suggest the following explanations:

• the CEO of Diebold is a Democrat
• the evil patch in question had a bug and didn't work as the CEO hoped
• the patch was benign (nah, can't possibly be true)

Either the patches failed to achieve the desired

Um - no he didn't.

Not popular or electoral. Don't know what gave you that idea.

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2000&f=1&off=0&elect=0&fips=6&submit=Retrieve

I hope you don't mind if I actually respond to your lunacy, besides the fact you didn't respond to a single thing I said, but only extended your own attacks.

Certainly. You know, the best way to help prevent personal attacks is to use your own personal attacks. It's like an anti-missile missile missile system.

I remember around the same time how the phrase "white devil" was exploding among black muslims, and Muslims leaders opining about the world of destruction that white man was causing the black community, and the need for groups like the black panthers to violently rise up against the white man considered "protected by the first amendment".

Yes, which, of course, justifies calling muslims names, and especially blank panthers, because well you know... they're calling us names so we have to do it too otherwise our anti-missile missile missile system will be overpowered.

Wow, that's a nice quote, can you please link the source?

Why I'd love to. Here's me blogging about it Sadly, the news site it was on took it down. It's good to know that even sometimes Republicans realize that their speech is a bit over the top. Like when Vox Day questioned Bush's assertion that we can't deport 11 million immigrants, considering after all the Nazi's got rid of six million Jews in only 4 years. They edited the op-ed over at WorldNetDaily, but plenty of people commented on their enthusiasm for the cause.

Oh, but hey, look at this... I found another person commenting on your friend saying how great it was for Africans to become Americans through slavery.

As I recall, it was the first Republican President Lincoln that used his executive powers to end slavery. And it was Republicans who were 79% in favor of the Civil Rights act of 1964, and Democrats who opposed it by 63%. Oh, and lets not forget than when Democrats tried to filibuster the bill, it was the 81% of Republicans that could have unilaterally ended the filibuster.


Obviously this proves that Democrats are all racists! HA! LOL! Where do you get this shit? Is there some sort of secret "How to be a moonbat" manual? If so, I'd love to read it.

Hey, you know. Back in 1964 it was a Republican who authored the Civil Rights Act, true. But it only passed with the aid of Democrats like Hubert H. Humphrey, Mike Mansfield, Lyndon B. Johnson and not to mention John F. Kennedy. Obviously, according to you this proves the Democrats were all racists.

But which party did Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond and the other filibusterers switch to later on? And which Republican Presidential candidate campaigned against the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Admittedly Goldwater did later in his life regret his involvement with that. But it's obvious from looking at the map which party opposed Civil Rights that year. The Republican party is no longer the party of Lincoln. It hasn't been since 1964. Abraham Lincoln today would be called a traitor to his country by the members of the modern GOP. :-(

You know for a fact why? Because Google issued a press release, or because the proprietor told you? Because we all know presumanbly political websites have no interest in exposure or fund raising.

Because he said so himself on his blog.

Anyway, feel free to call me a lunatic any time.

I'm not so sure. In 2004 about 56% of eligible voters voted for pro-war candidates, about 44% didn't even vote, and less than half a percent voted for candidates against the war.

If those who couldn't be bothered to even show up to vote, were against the war, they still have innocent blood on their hands. Those who were against the war but still voted for pro-war candidates because of some other reason - ditto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_e lection%2C_2004
http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/national.ph p?year=2004
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/a rchives/facts_for_features_special_editions/002957 .html

Of course, no Democrat has received a majority of the vote for president for almost 30 years, but anything can happen.

That's a complete fabrication, and you know it.

Kerry got 48.27%
Al Gore got 48.38%
Clinton got 49.23% in 1996
Clinton got 43.01% in 1992
Dukakis got 45.65%
Mondale got 40.56%
Carter got 41.01% in 1980
Carter got 50.08% in 1976 (A majority. Almost 30 years ago.)

Karl Rove fabricates my data for me and sticks it on this website. Thanks, Karl.

What planet do you live on? Check it out dude (2004 election results)

Republicans have a lot of costal support too. The midwest is a very strong democratic support area.

I find the whole red vs. blue thing amusing. For years the GOP was blue, and the Demos were red, you know red as in left wing. See: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, http://uselectionatlas.org/ "Note, this site uses Blue for Republicans and Red for Democrats. I know that most media outlets have adopted the opposite color key in recent years. However, due to the sheer volume of maps on this site, changing them to match the media's recent color choices requires a significant investment in time (I started creating the maps 11 years ago!). Please also note that the colors are just a key to the maps on this site. I could have just as easily chosen green and orange."

I was in favor of using Gore Grey, and Bush Brown for the 2000 election. Earth Tones are so much more stylish than boring blue, and routine red.

From the post you linked to:

Of the 3,258 names on the original list, therefore, the county concluded that more than 15 percent were in error. If that ratio held statewide, no fewer than 7,000 voters were incorrectly targeted for removal from voting rosters.

Bush's margin of victory in Florida in 2004 was 380,978 votes.

Disclaimer: I am a Republican, a neo-populist. Please note that populism originated in Lampasas Texas, and found its strongest support in the rural areas of the South, Midwest, and Western states. Populism in the U.S. was not, I repeat not a left oriented movement. In terms of cultural/social issues it was VERY conservative.

If you don't believe my assertion, then check out the Democratic nominee for the 1896 election. None other than William Jennings Bryan. You know the Scopes trial dude. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bryan

Now take a gander at the electoral map of 1896.

Goto http://uselectionatlas.org/

(NOTE: Red is used through out this web site to designate Democrats, and blue to designate Republicans.)

Click on the 'Election Results' tab
Click on the 'Menu' button
Scroll down to 1896 and select
Now carefully examine.

Follow the same procedure to get to the 2004 election results

Anything look familiar?

{It also can be very instructive to examine the election results county by county, or parish by parish in Louisiana. The county by county are available only back through the 1960 election.}

It is my contention that neo-populist sentiment is the driving force behind the GOP victories in the South, Midwest, and West in the last 30 years. George Wallace tapped into it to win the electoral votes of five Southern states in the 1968 election. This is the last time that a third party Presidential Candidate won any electoral votes.

{Inspection of the county by county map of Texas shows that Wallace won the popular vote in many East Texas counties. If one checks the tables of the election results one will find that had Wallace's votes gone to Nixon, that Nixon would have won Texas.}

Ok enough of the preliminaries. Here's the scoop.

Since WWII, with only one *special* exception, NO Democrat has been able to win the White House that was not a Southerner. Truman from MO, LBJ from TX, Carter from GA, and Clinton from AR.

The special exception was of course JFK, but that was only because LBJ was his running mate. Had JFK not picked LBJ as his running mate JFK would have lost the 1960 election. Only by balancing his ticket with the man who was in all probability the most powerful Senate Majority Leader in history, and a Southerner could JFK get elected.

My point is that Mark Warner is about the only potential Democratic Candidate who is has gubernatorial experience, and is a Southerner. His gubernatorial experience is important as the only President elected directly from the US Senate since WWII was JFK. Ike was president of Columbia University in 1952, all the other Presidents excepting Ike, and Kennedy were either Vice-Presidents, former Vice-Presidents, or governors, or former governors.

Clark might have a shot via the Ike method, but Warner, and Clark are the only two potential Democratic candidates that are in any way likely to be able to crack the South. Cracking the South is nearly an absolute necessity for a Democratic candidate. No Democratic candidate has ever won the White House without picking up electoral votes in the South.

Two years ago I was saying that I hoped that the Dems would pick Kerry, but I didn't think that they would be that stupid. A show-nuff MA liberal, they just couldn't be that foolish. They were. By choosing Kerry the Dems totally conceded the South. This allow the GOP to be able to focus most of its resources on FL, and OH, and have some resources left over to insure that CO, AZ, and NV stayed in the GOP fold.

If one examines the 2004 election one will also discover that the central core of states, ND south through TX voted for Bush by 60% or greater except for SD in which Bush only garnered 59.91% of the vote. Thus rounding to the nearest whole percentage Bush won all these state with 60% or more of the popular vote in each of these states.

If Hillary g

26 states have no-excuse mail-in absentee voting. All other states allow either early voting or mail-in absentee voting under certain circumstances.

I'm sure there's some correlation between voting turnout and availability of no-excuse absentee voting. At least for the last presidential election, though, I'm not sure the correlation is clear or significant. But I really don't know. I assume someone has done some research...

I don't know what you think No Child Left Behind actually does,... but there were virtually no critics of the law until the run-up to this last election.

Granted, some portions of the law might do good things, or at least attempt to do good things. Additional testing isn't one of them. This is yet another issue that has been needlessly federalized. The Federal Government really has no business telling my local school district how to operate itself. School boards exist because local control works best: if there are actually teachers or administrators who are underperforming, the local school board can take care of the problem.

At any rate, mark my words: Politicians want to kill public education. In my state, the state legislators have been at it for well over a few decades by underfunding the system so badly it'll collapse and they get to look like heroes "saving the taxpayers money" by eliminating the system altogether. Now the Federal government is trying to privatize the whole damn system by undermining public confidence in the system. ("Your child's school isn't meeting [our unrealistic] AYP!") But does the Federal Government's desire to privatize education surprise you considering BushCo wants to privatize everything else?

Basically, it comes down the rich lining their pockets at our expense. And guess what? (Get ready for this one...) Privatized schools don't actually work! Read this great editorial:

The buzzword throughout public education is accountability, the state's primary and secondary schools rigorously scrutinized on how much they spend and how well students score. In that kind of atmosphere, the rapid growth of charter schools is all the more remarkable. Charter schools cost the state more and more money, yet they produce test scores no better than public schools.

...

Once the profit motive was introduced to education, the obvious should have been anticipated. To follow charter schools means following the money.

Should it be a surprise that online charter schools, with drastically lower overhead costs, now enroll about one-fourth of all charter-school children? Or that the number of special education students in charter schools, bringing in more state money per pupil, has increased?

Its important to distinguish between "allegations" and "proven". Especially if you're going to title a post "True Lies". Its also important to realize that "facts" culled from the mainstream media may not be "facts" at all.

You, allege that Bush had some connection with the Swift Boat guys, who made their own allegations about Kerry.

None of that is proof of a connection. Said collusion would be illegal under the terms of a 527. While perhaps there was some backroom stuff, there was much more evidence of collusion between say, moveon.org and the Kerry campaign then there was between the Swift Vet guys and the Bush campaign.

Since anyone can allege anything, I'm unimpressed.

Nor can you blame the Swift Vet guys 100% on Bush, Kerry really pissed them off with his testimony. If you read their book, its pretty clear that's what they were most upset about. To them, Kerry was the poster child for the anti-solider faction of the anti-war movement. That's probably not fair, but that's how they felt. over 50% of the swift vet ads were paid for by small individual donations, vs. moveon.org which was 90% funded by George Soros...

As far as the vote count goes here's a link to the final official tally (which isn't available yet). http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral _college/2004/election_results.html

And you wrote 50M, not 60M. If you'd written 60, I wouldn't have bothered to correct you I'm not that much of a quibbler. This site reports it as 62M: http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/. The difference bewteen the 60M and the 62M is because of absentee and provisional ballots being counted since election day.

The armed forces being filled with the disadvantaged is a myth left over from the draft-era days. The armed forces are primarily filled with the middle class, not the disadvantaged or the advantaged. 96% of enlisted soldiers hold high schools diplomas as opposed to 75% of the equivalent civilian population, and they tend to score higher on verbal and math tests then the general populace.

"meatgrinder" doesn't seem particularly appropriate given that the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan are so far much, much smaller then Vietnam, and most soldiers in Iraq are still more in danger from not fastening their seatbelt then they are from an Iraqi insurgent.

As far as "hating me" goes, while I admire your passion for your beliefs, you're not going to convince anyone with hyperbole.

So far you've made:

1. Pointless irrelevant accusations about Bush and the Swift Vets when the topic was CBS...

2. You've basically insulted all of our men and women in uniform, quite baselessly.

3. You've gotten a number wrong.

4. You've called a war where we've lost about 1,200 servicemen and women a "meatgrinder".

5. You've accused me of hating America and the facts because I corrected you on a couple of items.

And I hate America and the facts? Please. I just would just like criticism of the President to be factual, and well-reasoned, not tired, emotion-laden rehashes of untrue allegations culled from the New York Times, the Washington Post, or CBS.

One of the reasons I got interested in politics was I started reading the transcripts of the administration briefings. I was shocked at the difference between what the administration said, and what got reported they said.

Bottom line, CBS, NYT and WP are all capitalist organizations organized for profit. They make that profit by getting you to consume their product, and they get you to do that by making the news more exciting. One need not look for liberal bias, one need only look for "conflict bias".

The news we see or read every day is more and more just "made up" in the newrooms. If Professional Wresting isn't a "Sport" but "Sports Entertainment", our media h

Like this map Its a bit more telling when you look at a county map than the state maps. 45% of California voted for Bush, thats not some little statistic to be ignored. Kerry beat Bush by less than half a percentage point in WI the fact is the nation is not divided by state its divided by Urban Vs. Sub-Urban. If thats too complicated a world view for you im sorry.

Ninety percent of the red states are welfare-client states of the federal government

Now whos pulling meaningless stats out of nowhere? Fact is if you look at a county map of the 'red' states you see that the large population centers (in AK look at little rock, in LA look at NO) voted for Kerry. So once you step out of your three year old mind set that California is Blue and Missipi is Red its not so simple to say that. That being said I dont know if red counties, and neighborhoods receive money but neither do you.

Wow you are comparing anti-abortionists to those who struggled against slavery, how noble a quest. You clearly have a very high opinion of yourself.

Yes I consider Killing babies to be *at least* as bad as slavery, and no I dont have a high opinion of myself.

What you say is all true, and well said, but you must also examine the other perspective. Of the 10.5 million voter increase over the 2000 election, bush got roughly 9 million more votes. Kerry got roughly 4.5 million more than Gore. SOURCE

What this basically means is that yeah, we (the nation in general, not a particular party) got out a lot more vote, but the increase in Bush's popular vote count absorbs most of that new vote above and beyond his numbers last election.

Kerry's increase over Gore's numbers has two components. First, his 4.5 million vote increase gets 1.5 million left over after you take Bush's votes out of the new voter total. The remainder of Kerry's bump over Gore's numbers seems to have come from the third-party contingent. Most of the third party vote went to Nader last cycle to the tune of about 3 million votes and this year those same people probably voted Kerry out of the "At least he might beat bush" mentality. You know there were lots of those folks out there. We certainly saw enough of them on /. this past year.

I think my analysis is probably fairly accurate given the conspicuous absence of nader voters this year. If that's the case, then the "new voters" broke nealry 9 to 1 bush. So Yeah... the margin was 52/48, but for the first time in 12 years the third parties were nowhere to be seen and came in at "nearly one percent" instead of the 3% of 2000. If my analysis is anywhere near correct regarding the new voters, that would have been a 52/45 split had the third parties made even a respectable showing. So yeah. That's pretty darn respectable and indicates that the people did speak loudly for Bush. Getting 9 million new voters out to the polls to vote for you is outstanding. When was the last time a Democrat ever increased their margin from 47.8% (yeah, I guess we'll make do with this guy) to 52% (Heck yeah! Give us more of that guy!) by absorbing almost the entire block of new voters?

Clinton increased his margin by a good percentage in the only election this past 20 years to actually see a drop in voter turnout. (republicans stayed home) He only got an additional 2.5 million votes his second term but increased his margin by 6% with 8.8 million less voters than the '92 election. To find a democrat who's made a showing like Bush's you have to go back at least to the forties. Maybe farther back than that since FDR was a fluke.

It's not that hard to find republicans who've done things like what bush has done. You have four examples after world war two. The lesson to be learned here is that while the democrats might have gotten lucky once or twice, conservative politics resonates with the majority of this country.

Ike, 2 terms. Increased popularity second term. Kennedy barely wins over Nixon, Johnson takes Kennedy's second term in a landslide (first lucky postwar democrat riding public sympathy for Kennedy into office) Nixon, two terms with massive popularity increase second term. Nixon gets the boot and nobody'll touch Ford with a ten foot pole. Carter, the second lucky postwar democrat can't scrape up a second term against the powerhouse of Regan after riding public distaste for Nixon into office. Even with hatred for nixon as high as it was, Carter barely got 50% of the vote. Regan's success was phenominal and anyone who denies it need only look at the blue/red map of the US from his reelection bid to see just how popular he was. Bush (HW) is somewhat of an anomoly being the only post-war republican to not get re-elected. You can thank Perot for that. Clinton never got half the popular vote. Being the third lucky postwar democrat, he had Perot running defense for him and won a second term without ever scoring 50% of the popular vote. He eeked out 49% when 9 million republicans stayed home out of disgust that Perot was going to spoil it for them anyway.

So yeah. It's worth noting that Bush did really well in his second election.

Here is 2000

Gore Congressional Districts: 207
Gore States: 19 (x2) -> : 38
Gore Total: 245


Bush Congressional Districts: 228
Bush States: 31 (x2) -> : 62
Bush Total: 290


This give the same win but even a larger electoral margin for Bush than his 271 - 266 Result. The two lost electoal votes are from distcits that were too close to call (1 in Fl, and 1 in Tenn).

source: District Map

It is very difficult to follow your logic. You've approached the argument with a predetermined outcome, and then spend the remaining effort slapping random conclusion segments together.

As eloquent as it is, your argument is not constructed using the standard "scientific method" that is taught to any U.S. public school grade schooler. Let's try to get back to that, shall we?

Since a picture says a thousand words: 2004 general election by county

So you're trying to tell me that if I were to change one of those counties from red to blue (ie. the Florida debacle), that Gore should have by all rights won the election? Give me a break!

The electoral college helps protect smaller states from being dominated by larger states. At one time, Americans identified more with their state than with their country; e.g., Thomas Jefferson declared that "I am a Virginian", not an American. The smaller states feared that the large population centers would swamp them and effectively reduce their voice in government. Therefore, the electoral college sometimes allows a candidate to win who did not win the collective majority.

In 2000, George W. Bush carried 30 states, though most of the most populous states did not favor him. This is truly an example of what the electoral college was designed to do.

These arguments people make today about stealing elections and the unfairness of the system really stem from an ignorance of American history. True, the electoral college system is not perfect and perhaps should be replaced with a simple absolute majority in this age when people no longer identify so strongly with their locales.

Someone else pointed out that there were several presidents who did not win an absolute majority of the vote, but very few actually lost the popular vote. Clinton did not win an absolute majority; more people wanted either GHW Bush or Perot than wanted Clinton by quite a large margin, i.e. about 57% to 43%. However the electoral college gave it to Clinton. Interestingly, no one talks about how unfair it was that Clinton got elected, perhaps because he was lucky enough to preside over a great economic boom that ended just as he was leaving office.

Right. Gore couldn't even win his home state. TN, which with 11 votes, would have given him 276 votes in the Electoral College, a majority, even without Florida. Gore couldn't win TN today, and that's likely why he didn't bother to run this time. Even with TN, since 2000 census has reallocated electoral votes, Gore would have a tough mountain to climb: http://www.uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ARTICLE S/pe2000ev_chg.php

But Ross Perot got 18.91% of the popular vote in the 1992 election and 8.40% in 1996, where he was running for the Reform party (see http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/. How far has that gone towards establishing a multi-party system??

Take a look at the elections for the past several years. California is nearly always caried by Democratic candidates, even with the democratic candidate isn't all that popular nationwide.

OK, let's look:

(source: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

Year Candidate who got CA electors
2000 Al Gore (D)
1996 Bill Clinton (D)
1992 Bill Clinton (D)
1988 George Bush, Sr (R)
1984 Ronald Reagan (R)
1980 Ronald Reagan (R)
1976 Gerald Ford (R)
1972 Richard Nixon (R)
1968 Richard Nixon (R)
1964 Lyndon Johnson (D)

I think 40 years is far enough for now. Anyone who's interested go back further on their own.

Now, what do we learn from this, kids? That California is just as likely to vote for a Republican as a Democrat. To state otherwise is foolish.

It's possible to vote for a write-in candidate with a touch-screen machine. I recently voted in the Democratic Presidential Primary in Virginia and there was an option on the machine to type in the name of a write-in candidate.

One that is true, however "An Evil Leader is typically not elected by a majority of the voters", happens to apply also to Bill Clinton, who did NOT get a majority in either of his elections.

Actually, he did, unless by "NOT get a majority" you really meant "NOT NOT get a majority".

Clinton won the majority during BOTH the 1992 and 1996 elections, in both the popular election and electoral colleges. Let's review:

During the 1992 election, Clinton received 43% of the popular votes, and 68.8% of the electoral college. Bush lost because he received less votes then Clinton, 37.45% of the total, and 31.2% electoral college. Clinton won the majority.

In 1996, Clinton received 49.24% of the popular votes, and 70.4% of the electoral system. Dole received 40.71% of the popular votes, and 29.6% in the electoral college. Again, Clinton won the majority.

By all counts, Clinton won the majority vote in both elections.

Let's compare that to the 2000 election, where Gore received a 48.38% majority of the popular vote, but only 49.4% of the electoral college. Bush lost the popular election, with a 47.87% minority, but he won in the electoral college with 50.4% of the electoral college.

One that is true, however "An Evil Leader is typically not elected by a majority of the voters", happens to apply also to Bill Clinton, who did NOT get a majority in either of his elections.

Actually, he did, unless by "NOT get a majority" you really meant "NOT NOT get a majority".

Clinton won the majority during BOTH the 1992 and 1996 elections, in both the popular election and electoral colleges. Let's review:

During the 1992 election, Clinton received 43% of the popular votes, and 68.8% of the electoral college. Bush lost because he received less votes then Clinton, 37.45% of the total, and 31.2% electoral college. Clinton won the majority.

In 1996, Clinton received 49.24% of the popular votes, and 70.4% of the electoral system. Dole received 40.71% of the popular votes, and 29.6% in the electoral college. Again, Clinton won the majority.

By all counts, Clinton won the majority vote in both elections.

Let's compare that to the 2000 election, where Gore received a 48.38% majority of the popular vote, but only 49.4% of the electoral college. Bush lost the popular election, with a 47.87% minority, but he won in the electoral college with 50.4% of the electoral college.

One that is true, however "An Evil Leader is typically not elected by a majority of the voters", happens to apply also to Bill Clinton, who did NOT get a majority in either of his elections.

Actually, he did, unless by "NOT get a majority" you really meant "NOT NOT get a majority".

Clinton won the majority during BOTH the 1992 and 1996 elections, in both the popular election and electoral colleges. Let's review:

During the 1992 election, Clinton received 43% of the popular votes, and 68.8% of the electoral college. Bush lost because he received less votes then Clinton, 37.45% of the total, and 31.2% electoral college. Clinton won the majority.

In 1996, Clinton received 49.24% of the popular votes, and 70.4% of the electoral system. Dole received 40.71% of the popular votes, and 29.6% in the electoral college. Again, Clinton won the majority.

By all counts, Clinton won the majority vote in both elections.

Let's compare that to the 2000 election, where Gore received a 48.38% majority of the popular vote, but only 49.4% of the electoral college. Bush lost the popular election, with a 47.87% minority, but he won in the electoral college with 50.4% of the electoral college.

Yes, more people voted for Bush in 2000 than for Clinton in 1992.

We live in a democratic system, so any government that takes power was elected, which means that more than 50% of people support them.

Should I point out the obvious, or not?

When you vote for Browne you are rejecting the mainstream big-government parties, and if enough people do that they will eventually take notice.

Your assertion that people will eventually take notice is not necessarily true. In the presidential campaign of 1992, H. Ross Perot recieved 18.91% of the popular vote. People may have noticed, but did the system really change? In 1996 Perot only received 8.4% of the popular vote with Nader receiving a mere 0.7%. See uselectionatlas.org for more election stats.

The current system does need an overhaul. I am of the opinion that we should get rid of the electoral college and open the elections to more than just the two parties. But just because a third-party candidate gets a good sized chunk of votes does not mean that the system will change. It would be much more effective to elect third-party candidates to congress, both at the national and at the state level. As lawmakers they would have more power affect real change.

Gore 2000