Voting in US - What's the point?

[Deleted]

It's not a democracy and never claimed to be?

the USA is a constitutional republic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.69b91ea8986c

Educate yourself.

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Tue united states isnt a democracy. It never has been and hopefully never will be.

So many people misinformed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.69b91ea8986c educate yourself.

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It's not a democracy.

It is a Representative Republic.

Are you not a US citizen? If you are, didn't your High School make the class "Government" a mandatory part of your curriculum?

It is a Republic and a democracy. Educate yourself https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.69b91ea8986c. I don't want to be spamming this link but people don't know what they are talking about.

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it is actually really simple


America is NOT a democracy.

it is a Constitutional Republic

The more you know, less stupid you look. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.69b91ea8986c read it.

[Teebone]

Jesus Christ how is it people do not understand this already? In order for the popular vote to matter it would need to make VOTING MANDATORY. It is as much a right to not vote or abstain as it is TO vote. Would you like that? Be forced to vote like they do in places like, say... North Korea? Know what the next step is?

Being told HOW to vote.

No thanks. People need to understand that freedom isn't about what you choose to do, but also about what you choose to not do. And until you do understand this? Your opinion means nothing.

[Endus]

Would you like that? Be forced to vote like they do in places like, say... North Korea?

Or, like, Australia. If you don't want to push your Fearmonger 9000™ up to 11 right out of the gate.

[Zantos]

Jesus Christ how is it people do not understand this already? In order for the popular vote to matter it would need to make VOTING MANDATORY..

Sounds like you don't understand. The reason we don't "understand" is because this statement of yours is just flat out Wrong. If we do go with your logic, voting should already be mandatory for the electoral college to have a better view of just how people feel.

[Teebone]

Or, like, Australia. If you don't want to push your Fearmonger 9000™ up to 11 right out of the gate.

We all know they're a bit special... down under. Read my sig in the last year? =)

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Sounds like you don't understand. The reason we don't "understand" is because this statement of yours is just flat out Wrong. If we do go with your logic, voting should already be mandatory for the electoral college to have a better view of just how people feel.

And you probably should have read my entire post. But hey, give it another go. Maybe something will click =)

[kyoloco]

its there to keep us from revolting

[Zantos]

And you probably should have read my entire post. But hey, give it another go. Maybe something will click =)

Nope. You go on a triad from that point on. You make the false statement that we would be Forced to vote in order to make a true democracy work. That is wrong. Nothing you say beyond that statement lends any reasoning or thoughts as to why you think this way. You just go on about how you believe in having a choice to not vote while not elaborating on the whole "forced to vote for it to work" statement.

[Oktoberfest]

It is truly a joke. How is it a democracy when the decision made by majority of the people doesn't count?

People curious about this stuff should read the Federalist Papers

Heres some relevant quotes not in the Federalist Papers


"We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments."
– Alexander Hamilton, debates of the Federal Convention, June 26, 1787


" It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." - Alexander Hamilton Ratification Speech in New York June 21 1788


"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes"- James Madison, Ratification Speech to Virginia

[oxymoronic]

Or, like, Australia. If you don't want to push your Fearmonger 9000™ up to 11 right out of the gate.

australia forces their people to vote? wow thats fucked up

nor would i want every citizen to vote, most people just dgaf.

[Mormolyce]

No you dont know what the fuck you're talking about.


As a constitutional republic, the United States government is controlled by its Constitution, which sets forth the relative political power of the people, the federal government and the state governments. As a federal republic, the power ultimately sits with the people through their ability to elect their federal and state representatives. The federal government is restricted by the sharing of power with the states as delineated in the Constitution. Although some people like to call the United States a democracy, this is technically not the case because people do not directly control legislation, but only do so through their elected representatives.

Democracy is just a fancy name for Mob Rule. It has never since its inception been a Democracy. Hell even the pledge tells you that the US of A is a Republic. Some of us paid attention in Civics class and even had several college level Pol-Sci classes. This is not hard stuff like math with letters.

It doesn't stop being a democracy because you elect representatives. The vast majority of democracies do that.

You've gotten a lot of different ideas confused. America is a democracy. Your understanding of what democracy means is why you're off base on that.

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australia forces their people to vote? wow thats fucked up

If you don't vote, there's a fine. Voter turnout is like 93%.

Funny part is, so many people go along with it because it's "compulsory", but the actual fine is only $20 and from what I hear, they often don't bother to enforce it. Power of suggestion.

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why should it change and we allow cali and nyc to decide every election?

As opposed to Florida and Ohio?

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The EC was intended as the balance between popular vote and congress. The system can be revised and it has been so in the past; every 10 years we reorganize the votes. But in no case is it worthless to vote in the US.

The only thing that changes every 10 years is that the census reassesses the number of lower house representatives and therefore the number of EC votes per state is also updated (each state gets one EC vote per representative in the lower house plus 2 each to represent the senators, the former is updated but the latter obviously stays the same), the actual system doesn't change.

If you vote Republican in California, your vote literally doesn't count. If you vote third party pretty much anywhere your vote literally doesn't count. The WTA rule is to blame for this.

It doesn't matter a state is won by 99.99999% or 50.000001%, the winner takes all your EC votes regardless. Anyone on the losing side might as well have stayed home.

[sethman75]

Dont they teach you how to accept defeat in uni? Oh thats right they give you play do and a crying room.

[Mayhem]

No you dont know what the fuck you're talking about.


As a constitutional republic, the United States government is controlled by its Constitution, which sets forth the relative political power of the people, the federal government and the state governments. As a federal republic, the power ultimately sits with the people through their ability to elect their federal and state representatives. The federal government is restricted by the sharing of power with the states as delineated in the Constitution. Although some people like to call the United States a democracy, this is technically not the case because people do not directly control legislation, but only do so through their elected representatives.

Democracy is just a fancy name for Mob Rule. It has never since its inception been a Democracy. Hell even the pledge tells you that the US of A is a Republic. Some of us paid attention in Civics class and even had several college level Pol-Sci classes. This is not hard stuff like math with letters.

Great comedy, thanks for the lulz.

People curious about this stuff should read the Federalist Papers

Heres some relevant quotes not in the Federalist Papers


"We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments."
– Alexander Hamilton, debates of the Federal Convention, June 26, 1787


" It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." - Alexander Hamilton Ratification Speech in New York June 21 1788


"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes"- James Madison, Ratification Speech to Virginia

No body is arguing that the country should change to being a pure democracy. Senate and House is fine in representing states matters, but why in the world should they be represented in electing the president who is representing all of the country?

[Deleted]

Isnt democracy one big fail anyway?

You elect people that should represent the people and the first thing they do is work on their own career.

[Zarc]

The US is a Republic not a Democracy.

No, the US is a Republic AND a democracy. The two are not mutually exclusive. Specifically you are a liberal democracy, which is a form of representative democracy.

A liberal democracy may take various constitutional forms: it may be a constitutional monarchy (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom) or a republic (France, India, Ireland, the United States). It may have a parliamentary system (Australia, India, Italy, the United Kingdom), a presidential system (Indonesia, the United States), or a semi-presidential system (France, Ireland, Taiwan).

You are probobly confused because of this:

"Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?" "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Which is sometimes misquoted as "a Republic or a Democracy?".

Then there is of course people like Thomas Jefferson who critiqued democracy. What you must understand, though, is that in those days, in 18th century United States, "democracy" commonly referred to direct democracy. Which is what they had in Ancient Greece. Today "democracy" commonly refers to liberal democracy, which is what we have throughout the Western world be they monarchies or republics. Meaning of words change, another example being how "liberal" is used in contemporary America to refer to Modern liberalism as opposed to Classical liberalism as would have been the case before the 20th century.

@Creamy Flames: Team Trump and the Republicans would be very happy if people started to think like you. That's what they want. Suppress the vote in both hard and soft ways. Making people loose faith in the electoral process is a soft way of doing it. Making it harder to vote by reducing polling locations and having certain voter ID laws is hard ways of doing it.https://twitter.com/SenSanders/statu...28784161767424

[Deleted]

Jesus Christ how is it people do not understand this already? In order for the popular vote to matter it would need to make VOTING MANDATORY. It is as much a right to not vote or abstain as it is TO vote. Would you like that? Be forced to vote like they do in places like, say... North Korea? Know what the next step is?

Being told HOW to vote.

No thanks. People need to understand that freedom isn't about what you choose to do, but also about what you choose to not do. And until you do understand this? Your opinion means nothing.

Uh, what?

No, you need to deal with voter disenfranchisement and have a better result system. You don't need mandatory voting. No-one is calling for a 100% turnout, or suggestions of HOW to vote.

[Zelorra]

So are we better off with a dictator or monarchy? Which system do you suggest?

I suggest a system where only people that can prove are not retarded can vote. That means anyone that wants to vote must register and also must pass a test, that way we ensure that not every fucking moron that has absolutely no clue about what he's voting for is actually permitted to vote. 90% of those that vote have no fucking idea about the role of the president, parliament or what's in the constitution for any random country out there. But they happily vote for those that promise them the most phantastmagoric crap imaginable or not...

Sure this system has no use if you have two candidates that are both professional liars, so there should also be this rule that anyone caught lying is out

[Deleted]

I'm not the one whining, I'm just pointing out how illogical your points are. You seem to be the one whining about the people you call "whiners". In the end, I'm not telling everyone to, and I quote you here "shut the hell up" or calling you and people like you "whiny bitches" because, you know, that's generally what a whiner does, like you whining over people discussing in disagreement with the electoral colleges.

Of course Obama did not want to change it, he won through a similar situation once.
However, you continue showing how uninformed you are, Trump actually did say he was against the electoral colleges. At the last election, when Obama won:
https://storify.com/cmgnationalnews/...ut-the-elector
He only changed his opinion now because he won. So, guess what, at least one of the three did care... until it worked in his favor.
And even before winning, he never said he agrees with the rules, asked if he'd try to contest the results if he lost he said he'll keep everyone in suspense:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7372066.html

Oh, and Hillary actually asked for a recount in certain swing states. So, I guess she doesn't agree on how things went either.

And this is not about current elections, but about further ones. So, "whining" now might change stuff for the future.

And my last point, I won't start a movement to change the way the USA presidential election works because I'm not a US citizen. My country works on a popular vote, as it should. And it does so after the people made a revolution in 1989.

Last but not least, I will agree with you on one point, that I'm wasting my time with you. By putting those 3 in your frontline when 1 fully contested the electoral colleges a few years back and one is contesting the vote now, you showed how ignorant you are.
But, alas, I had already written half of my reply when I realized that so I thought to finish it. If you read it, I'm glad to have wasted your time too

So you want me to repeat myself with that, all they did was simple type a tweet of what they feel? Where is trump's actions towards the votes?, link me a video of where he states that he wants to do something about it, instead of what you read on twitter tweet.

i don't know how many times i've to tell you, that its pointless of what ever people feel or does not feel. the only thing that matters is actions, i've yet to see trump or obama or even hillary to state that people should vote for them or support them towards taking the shitty vote system down.

this is not uninformed, this is just me not caring about people's blogs and w.e bullshit they post. I care about taken actions. Obama could say that he would find a cure for cancer, but until he does i would not care cuz guess what we already 9999 churches, i mean donation founds which will one day cure cancer. Kappa.

[Macaquerie]

It's worth voting just to stay aware and engaged in the political process. Once enough people slip into indifference and apathy, it's virtually impossible for democratic systems to function properly regardless of how the parameters of the constitution are set up. It's perhaps trite, but people need to find something to be FOR, not just something to be AGAINST.

[Mayhem]

Isnt democracy one big fail anyway?

You elect people that should represent the people and the first thing they do is work on their own career.

As opposed to what?

[Osmeric]

Isnt democracy one big fail anyway?

It's the worst system of government except for all the others.