The United States invented the Electoral College. But while many nations have incorporated other features of the United States system into their own, not a single one has used the Electoral College idea. it is a bad idea whose only practical purpose was enabling the Founding Fathers to create one entity from a diverse collection of large and small, rural and urban states.
I wish they, the Founding Fathers, had included a sunset clause, this is one feature that needs to be reevaluated. But there is no incentive other than fairness for the majority to vote for it, and when has that mattered when the race is tight?
"As a Canadian, I would add: Make the presidential voting day only about electing the president. I.e. no other votes on bills or other referenda. Save those for a different day. I would allow, perhaps, votes for Congress/Senate seats, but that's about it. Don't mix up the issues."
Why?
"I also think the voting devices should be paper-based, and exactly the same across the entire country."
Why?
I hate unsupported opinions, especially such as these that create unnecessary inefficiencies. But, you are Canadian, maybe you are not interested in improving the US system.
It isn't designed to use the popular vote to determine the presidency, not on a national level. The popular vote in each state determines how each state casts its electoral votes. You may have issues with the Electoral College, but the popular vote thingy is a false issue.
Problem is that under current law, only the individual state has the power to change the awarding of its electorial votes to proportional rather than all to the winner. Since in each particular state, the majority of voters voted for the winner, you would be asking then to give up some EC votes. The minority doesn't have the power to make the majority give up some of its power.
Unless more people are willing to give up some power without getting something in return than I think they are, changes will need to take place at the national level which would require an ammendment to the constitution.
In my precinct, the bottleneck was the guy checking IDs. The voter list was divided into 3 printouts with 3 pollworkers manning them. But, you had to get your ID checked first. Why couldn't the pollworkers with the voter list check ID? We had 10 machines, but only 5 were necessary. Or maybe we just needed a faster guy.
Instead of using the plastic key cards at the polling place, they should have mailed us smart versions of our voter registration card that would enable voting at any polling place in the state. The biggest crowds are before and after work. In my metro, the average 1 way commute is 40 minutes, so voting near the residence is inconvenient for people with inflexible jobs.
But it does, those 4 don't add up to 270 and none of the other coastal states have more than 15. Even with sarcasm, your math needs to make sense. that's the difference in a dumb joke and a clever joke.
Heartland? Like California, Texas, Florida and New York???
You need to go to that site and look at the map. The four states you mention are coastal states. Heartland statees by definition aren't on the coast and as a group, they represent a lot of electorial votes.
They don't realize that there is enough of them to swing an election? they are too idealistic to vote for the lessor of two evils? no draft? too busy?
I'm sure they can come up with too many reasons not to vote. It's a shame, but it's been awhile since we've had some truly engaging issues. They need to latch on to electorial reform or something, like a younger hipper Nader.
"User Error" indicates a problem with the design, not a problem with the user. Every engineering student knows that, I wish these political excuse makers realized how lame an excuse it it.
You can't redesign the user, the best you can do is educate him and you can't do that in a voting booth. I go so tired of people who think "User Error" is a valid excuse for a bad design.
It's more likely that some one would come out with a receipt that would entitle him to be compensated. The cops would never find out. It's possible in some situations that a person could be beaten up, but the threat is probably enough that it isn't necessary to carry it out. I don't know of it ever happening, but if you assume the worst is possible right from the start, that the place holding the elections is barely civilized or overrun with gangs or warlords or mafia, then you are ready to handle the worst case if it should ever happen. It's better to plan for bad things while it doesn't seem necessary rather than waiting for things to get nasty before making an effort to clean things up.
Then all we need is some politicians we can trust.
Our voting system should never rely on unverifiable trust of our politicians, the poll workers, even the voters. There are many motivations to cheat and it only takes a very small number of successful cheaters to throw an election. Even if we live in a society where only honest people participate in the manufacture, programming, and operation of voting apparatus, we have no way of knowing it will always be that way. Who knows, this could be the beginning of the end of the American Era. All great powers of the past have collapsed, maybe the best we can do is postpone the inevitable.
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The United States invented the Electoral College. But while many nations have incorporated other features of the United States system into their own, not a single one has used the Electoral College idea. it is a bad idea whose only practical purpose was enabling the Founding Fathers to create one entity from a diverse collection of large and small, rural and urban states.
I wish they, the Founding Fathers, had included a sunset clause, this is one feature that needs to be reevaluated. But there is no incentive other than fairness for the majority to vote for it, and when has that mattered when the race is tight?
"As a Canadian, I would add: Make the presidential voting day only about electing the president. I.e. no other votes on bills or other referenda. Save those for a different day. I would allow, perhaps, votes for Congress/Senate seats, but that's about it. Don't mix up the issues."
Why?
"I also think the voting devices should be paper-based, and exactly the same across the entire country."
Why?
I hate unsupported opinions, especially such as these that create unnecessary inefficiencies. But, you are Canadian, maybe you are not interested in improving the US system.
It isn't designed to use the popular vote to determine the presidency, not on a national level. The popular vote in each state determines how each state casts its electoral votes. You may have issues with the Electoral College, but the popular vote thingy is a false issue.
Call in the middle of the night. The guy who works at night must be bored because he's always been very helpful.
Ban districts with concave shapes unless the lack of convexity is due to a use of a natural feature (river, ocean, mountain ridge) as a boundary.
Problem is that under current law, only the individual state has the power to change the awarding of its electorial votes to proportional rather than all to the winner. Since in each particular state, the majority of voters voted for the winner, you would be asking then to give up some EC votes. The minority doesn't have the power to make the majority give up some of its power.
Unless more people are willing to give up some power without getting something in return than I think they are, changes will need to take place at the national level which would require an ammendment to the constitution.
In my precinct, the bottleneck was the guy checking IDs. The voter list was divided into 3 printouts with 3 pollworkers manning them. But, you had to get your ID checked first. Why couldn't the pollworkers with the voter list check ID? We had 10 machines, but only 5 were necessary. Or maybe we just needed a faster guy.
Instead of using the plastic key cards at the polling place, they should have mailed us smart versions of our voter registration card that would enable voting at any polling place in the state. The biggest crowds are before and after work. In my metro, the average 1 way commute is 40 minutes, so voting near the residence is inconvenient for people with inflexible jobs.
I typed something kinda bassackards. The majority would be for the current system because it (the current system) only disenfranchises the minority.
What a shame, it's such a neat idea, but it's obvious how the majority would be against it since it only disenfranshises the minority.
Of course we can, but can we expect them to look after ourinterests?
Kerry's political career isn't over, conceding an election he may have won doesn't hurt it as much as prolonged legal battles would.
On a related note: what happened to that admentment that would split the electoral vote?
Bush's best grade was in Japanese????
I knew what you meant
Look at his list. Florida is on it, therefore it isn't one of the OTHER states.
But seriously, can you imagine California and Texas ever going the same way in this election?
but someone modded me funny
But it does, those 4 don't add up to 270 and none of the other coastal states have more than 15. Even with sarcasm, your math needs to make sense. that's the difference in a dumb joke and a clever joke.
I haven't had any problem loading it, and check out the: http://www.electoral-vote.com/info/graph.html, that's quite a surge Kerry is showing recently.
You need to go to that site and look at the map. The four states you mention are coastal states. Heartland statees by definition aren't on the coast and as a group, they represent a lot of electorial votes.
They don't realize that there is enough of them to swing an election? they are too idealistic to vote for the lessor of two evils? no draft? too busy?
I'm sure they can come up with too many reasons not to vote. It's a shame, but it's been awhile since we've had some truly engaging issues. They need to latch on to electorial reform or something, like a younger hipper Nader.
That's what I want to know.
Who made these machines?
"User Error" indicates a problem with the design, not a problem with the user. Every engineering student knows that, I wish these political excuse makers realized how lame an excuse it it.
You can't redesign the user, the best you can do is educate him and you can't do that in a voting booth. I go so tired of people who think "User Error" is a valid excuse for a bad design.
It's more likely that some one would come out with a receipt that would entitle him to be compensated. The cops would never find out. It's possible in some situations that a person could be beaten up, but the threat is probably enough that it isn't necessary to carry it out. I don't know of it ever happening, but if you assume the worst is possible right from the start, that the place holding the elections is barely civilized or overrun with gangs or warlords or mafia, then you are ready to handle the worst case if it should ever happen. It's better to plan for bad things while it doesn't seem necessary rather than waiting for things to get nasty before making an effort to clean things up.
http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2004/1
Then all we need is some politicians we can trust.
Our voting system should never rely on unverifiable trust of our politicians, the poll workers, even the voters. There are many motivations to cheat and it only takes a very small number of successful cheaters to throw an election. Even if we live in a society where only honest people participate in the manufacture, programming, and operation of voting apparatus, we have no way of knowing it will always be that way. Who knows, this could be the beginning of the end of the American Era. All great powers of the past have collapsed, maybe the best we can do is postpone the inevitable.