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New Hampshire Primaries Follow-Up Analysis
Dr. Eggman writes "Ars Technica has posted a lengthy follow up analysis of the 2008 New Hampshire Primaries outcome. The article deals with the O'Dell machine/hand-count table that has been circulating through emails. It also points out the combination of factors that resulted in such an odd symmetry of numbers, although the article notes that these numbers have been corrected. The corrections still indicate a discrepancy among the tallies. The article also goes on to talk about the nature of the communities that arrived at these numbers and what/how the handcounts proceeds. This process has been inconclusive; something that does not bode well for the rest of the primaries and indeed the election itself, as only 16 states currently mandate both a voter-verified paper trail (VVPT) and a random manual audit of election results."
That's not insightful. You need to convince the citizens that the outcome is legitimate or there will be rioting in the streets. Tampering with ballots preserves the illusion of legitimacy. Buying electoral college votes puts the fraud right out in the open, it's basically a big "fuck you!" to the American people. That's the last thing anyone in power wants, the entire electorate questioning their legitimacy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Most states give all electoral votes to whoever won the popular vote in that state. You can't just "buy" a few votes.
Gone!
Faithless electors can be punished in 24 states. Furthermore, most electoral college voters are established party faithful -- it'd cost an awful lot of money to start swinging their votes since their political career would be destroyed.
At $1 million each, buying enough would cost $270 million. For that kind of money, why not just run for president and sink it in your campaign like Mitt Romney. How many politically connected folks would throw away their career, their connections, and their source of future income for less than a mil?
Support a few technologists in Washington.
That's not insightful. You need to convince the citizens that the outcome is legitimate or there will be rioting in the streets. Tampering with ballots preserves the illusion of legitimacy. Buying electoral college votes puts the fraud right out in the open, it's basically a big "fuck you!" to the American people.
You forgot that when you're caught committing fraud (or caught for being completely incompetent), you haul the court system into it. Then, no matter how pissed people are, you can blow them off by saying, "sorry, the courts say *I* won."
Please help metamoderate.
The GDP is GROSS domestic product. Someone who "owned" the US wouldn't be able to pull a profit anywhere close to $13 trillion per year. The slaves have to eat something.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
The Electoral College mitigates the effects of mob rule, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. It gives the least-populous states slightly more power than they would otherwise have, and gives the most-populous states stlightly less power than they would otherwise have. I don't see it as "screwing" anybody out of the Presidency at all. The issue only arises in closely-contested elections where one or both candidates are having difficulty appealing to a broad majority of different regional voter blocs. North Dakota's Electors rarely matter, but when they do, and you fail to sway a majority of North Dakotans...
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
The effect of the Electoral College is that smaller jurisdictions MUST be considered when campaigning. Otherwise, a candidate would just hit a dozen major metro areas and they'd have the numerical advantage sewed up.
Instead, they have to take into consideration (somewhat) what happens in KY, WY, and MT, even though these states don't have enough numerical population to make a significant diff without the EC.
Elections are one of the most visible embodiments of state's rights. As long as my state doesn't violate federally guaranteed rights, we can make all the weirdo election laws we want, or choose our reps for the EC by flipping a coin. It's up to my state to determine these things, and the other states can't say (or do) squat about it. - Tim
Given the fact we are a federation of states... YES