"Super Tuesday"

[Zoranon]

Question is, is it not broken? People who dont live in a swingstate end up with votes that are useless.
The obvious thing would be to devide the electoral votes according to the election results and not, winner takes it all.

Swing states? Tell that to Mondale after he carried exactly 1 state and DC. Anyhow this was the least important of the points I raised.

[Bakis]

From an outsider, I think the most astonishing thing about the U.S political process is the amount of involvement money has. Couple that with the ability to buy T.V adverts and I think you have a serious problem.

Remember, money is never neutral. Money + Politics = Corruption.

Campaign gifts The president are in debt to whatever lobby org./part of industry supported him and he becomes their lapdog.

[Tygor]

Electoral vote essentially makes each individual voter worth more in some states than others. If that makes sense to someone, please educate me on this. The argument that each state gets 3 votes so there is representation makes little sense to me since 3/536 or whatever is enough to ignore most elections. The presidential election basically comes down to about 5 states most elections, negating probably 85% of the populace. I'm guessing 30%-40% of Americans votes don't even matter in the current system for those who live in a state where it leans heavily blue or red since your candidate will lose your state anyhow (I live in Texas and there's no way I'm voting for Romney/Santorum, so my vote for Obama is essentially wasted). It really isn't that fair a system.

[kohler]

Direct presidential elections would just shift the presidential campaigns into most populous states, the states with smallest population would simply not be worth the money to campaign there, so nothing would change. The electoral college is fine as it is.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, will not reach out to about 76% of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only the current handful of closely divided "battleground" states and their voters. There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win. 9 of the original 13 states are considered “fly-over” now. In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree already, that, at most, only 12 states and their voters will matter. They will decide the election. None of the 10 most rural states will matter, as usual. About 76% of the country will be ignored --including 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. This will be more obscene than the 2008 campaign, when candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.

More than 2/3rds of the states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That's more than 85 million voters ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.

The number and population of battleground states is shrinking as the U.S. population grows.

Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state, presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections. Voters in states that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK -70%, DC -76%, DE --75%, ID -77%, ME - 77%, MT- 72%, NE - 74%, NH--69%, NE - 72%, NM - 76%, RI - 74%, SD- 71%, UT- 70%, VT - 75%, WV- 81%, and WY- 69%.

In the lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 3 jurisdictions.

Of the 22 medium-lowest population states (those with 3,4,5, or 6 electoral votes), only 3 have been battleground states in recent elections-- NH, NM, and NV. These three states contain only 14 (8%) of the 22 medium-lowest population states' total 166 electoral votes.

Nationwide, voters in more than 2/3rds of the states are not worth the money to campaign there.

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency -- that is, a mere 26% of the nation's votes.

A nationwide presidential campaign, with every vote equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.

The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every vote is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

When every vote is equal, everywhere, it makes sense to try and elevate your share where you are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in California or Texas, or for a Republican to try it in Texas or California.

[ptwonline]

Electoral vote essentially makes each individual voter worth more in some states than others. If that makes sense to someone, please educate me on this. The argument that each state gets 3 votes so there is representation makes little sense to me since 3/536 or whatever is enough to ignore most elections. The presidential election basically comes down to about 5 states most elections, negating probably 85% of the populace. I'm guessing 30%-40% of Americans votes don't even matter in the current system for those who live in a state where it leans heavily blue or red since your candidate will lose your state anyhow (I live in Texas and there's no way I'm voting for Romney/Santorum, so my vote for Obama is essentially wasted). It really isn't that fair a system.

The US still has strong ideas about States' rights and representation, and not just representing the population as a whole. Look at the Senate: 2 senators from each state, no matter the population. Representation is highly disproportional, but it's not going to change because there are enough of these smaller states to block that change from ever going through, and it is within their interests to maintain this disproportional clout.

[Peacemoon]

Campaign gifts The president are in debt to whatever lobby org./part of industry supported him and he becomes their lapdog.

I heard somewhere that U.S delegates spend at least 40% of their time making calls trying get money and support. You get to a point where you must wonder why they bother with the façade of elections at all. Why not just have a 12 month competition to see who can acquire the most amount of money from backers and the public, and whoever raises the most "buys" the White House.

Also I think its just a fact of democracy that when you need a 'majority' in order to take a decision, the minority of neutrals who could swing either way become the most important people. In the U.K we have that at the moment with our Coalition government of Conservatives + Liberal Democrats. Even though the Conservatives are the much much larger party in Parliament, the Lib Dems hold the deciding vote and as they are more likely to rebel, they must be appeased and thus get more concessions. Ideally we'd have a proportional representation voting system, but then all you'd get is the 3% far right, or a small collection of 'leftie' parts having the deciding vote, who no one really voted for.

[kohler]

A whole host of reasons actually, for example:
1) If it is not broken, do not fix it
2) Changing it would mean amending the constitution, which is not an easy process
3) It would greatly increase chance of any candidate not getting a majority in the electoral college - thus resulting in the president beeing chosen by House and the vp by Senate.
etc.

1) (see above)
More than 2/3rds of the states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That's more than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans, ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.

Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
The number and population of battleground states is shrinking as the U.S. population grows.

A candidate has won the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide in 4 of the nation's 56 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008). A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.

2) The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.

The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution, and enacting National Popular Vote would not need an amendment. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.

Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation's first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.

Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.

In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.

The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.

The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state's electoral votes.

As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Maine and Nebraska do not use the winner-take-all method– a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.

The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.

3) The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored.

When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.

The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.

The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via nationalpopularvoteinc

---------- Post added 2012-03-07 at 09:47 AM ----------

The US still has strong ideas about States' rights and representation, and not just representing the population as a whole. Look at the Senate: 2 senators from each state, no matter the population. Representation is highly disproportional, but it's not going to change because there are enough of these smaller states to block that change from ever going through, and it is within their interests to maintain this disproportional clout.

Now presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections. Voters in states that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK -70%, DC -76%, DE --75%, ID -77%, ME - 77%, MT- 72%, NE - 74%, NH--69%, NE - 72%, NM - 76%, RI - 74%, SD- 71%, UT- 70%, VT - 75%, WV- 81%, and WY- 69%.

In the lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 3 jurisdictions.

Nationwide, the bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

NationalPopularVote

[Zoranon]

I heard somewhere that U.S delegates spend at least 40% of their time making calls trying get money and support. You get to a point where you must wonder why they bother with the façade of elections at all. Why not just have a 12 month competition to see who can acquire the most amount of money from backers and the public, and whoever raises the most "buys" the White House.

Also I think its just a fact of democracy that when you need a 'majority' in order to take a decision, the minority of neutrals who could swing either way become the most important people. In the U.K we have that at the moment with our Coalition government of Conservatives + Liberal Democrats. Even though the Conservatives are the much much larger party in Parliament, the Lib Dems hold the deciding vote and as they are more likely to rebel, they must be appeased and thus get more concessions. Ideally we'd have a proportional representation voting system, but then all you'd get is the 3% far right, or a small collection of 'leftie' parts having the deciding vote, who no one really voted for.

Actually Meg Ryan (I hope I got the name correct) tried to "buy" the seat of governor in California in the last gubernatorial elections, she failed miserably, so no money in itself is not enough.

That is the biggest peeve I got with proportional representation, because the system gives hugely disproportional (ironic eh?) power to small parties in the government, this is even gets even more pronounced as the number of the parties in the ruling coalition increases. A good example of this is West Germany during cold war: For most of the period FDP ruled as a partner of either SDP or CDU-CSU and thus they held power completely out of league with their share of the voters.

[Bakis]

That is the biggest peeve I got with proportional representation, because the system gives hugely disproportional (ironic eh?) power to small parties in the government, this is even gets even more pronounced as the number of the parties in the ruling coalition increases. A good example of this is West Germany during cold war: For most of the period FDP ruled as a partner of either SDP or CDU-CSU and thus they held power completely out of league with their share of the voters.

You consider that worse than letting peoples votes actually matter? All coalition governments risk to have to negotitate with tip-scaling party or the other majory party(which is more common), unless they get a majority of the seats.
That is though vastly superior since every voter know he or she matters. When 2/3 of the voters feel they are being ignored just begs for distrust towards the government (a pretty common feeling in the US btw). Most EU countries are in the position of havign to negotiate and work over party blocks and democracy wise we seem to do just fine. So there is no real argument in "smaller parties might get unproportioned influence", cos its A: nothappening to every single issue, just some, B: unproiportional influence as a reason make me ask: how come a few states in the US becomes just that? It is the exact same thing in the US todays except it is even before it has anything about political decions to do

[Zoranon]

You consider that worse than letting peoples votes actually matter? All coalition governments risk to have to negotitate with tip-scaling party or (which is more common) the other majory party, unless they get a majority of the seats.
That is though vastly superior since every voter know he or she matters. When 2/3 of the voters feel they are being ignored just begs for distrust towards the government (a pretty common feeling in the US btw). Most EU countries are in the position of havign to negotiate and work over party blocks and democracy wise we seem to do just fine. So there is no real argument in "smaller parties might get unproportioned influence", cos its A: nothappening to every single issue, just some, B: unproiportional influence as a reason make me ask: how come a few states in the US becomes just that? It is the exact same thing in the US todays except it is even before it has anything about political decions to do

You do realise, that under PR the end effect is the same? Some votes get discarded because of the closing clause (the minimum % required to get into parliament) and then a ruling coalition is formed, which will usually lead to about 45% (at the best, often lower) votes casted having all the decision making power, all the other votes, be they for the opposition of parties that have not even gotten to the parliament are pretty much irrelevant, as long as the coalition holds.

So you end up in the exactly the same place + you have a government that is much less stable and able to act than a single party government. Also you have to pander to minority interests that are actually opposed by most of the voters, typical example of this would be the pensioners parties which flourished during 1990s in the ex-soviet block countries. Or perhaps green parties. At worst, PR leaves the government depended on the support of extremist parties.

PS: I read it 5 times, but I simply cannot understand the last sentence of your post, less smilies, more cleanliness in your writing please.

[Bakis]

mm MMO champ is messing with me today, cant use breakline enter

The government dont get weaker except in some extreme cases (depending on country). The outcome of a "weaker" government party is that the nogeotiations across the partylines are more frequent, hence the decisions are more widely founded among the population. The weakness as you portray is not really that prominent as you want to make it.

---------- Post added 2012-03-07 at 07:37 PM ----------

Worth mentioning is also this. Did not the US show extreme political system weakness when the debt cealing had to get raised? That is without the "weakness" that coalition governments have to deal with still it got even worse than anything I can think of in recent history. Not even the greek parlament had such a hard time when they were totally devided about the conditions of the loans and what to do.

[Zoranon]

mm MMO champ is messing with me today, cant use breakline enter

The government dont get weaker except in some extreme cases (depending on country). The outcome of a "weaker" government party is that the nogeotiations across the partylines are more frequent, hence the decisions are more widely founded among the population. The weakness as you portray is not really that prominent as you want to make it.

---------- Post added 2012-03-07 at 07:37 PM ----------

Worth mentioning is also this. Did not the US show extreme political system weakness when the debt cealing had to get raised? That is without the "weakness" that coalition governments have to deal with still it got even worse than anything I can think of in recent history. Not even the greek parlament had such a hard time when they were totally devided about the conditions of the loans and what to do.

Is it not? Denmark before 2011 comes to mind instantly, or perhaps Netherlands at the moment, or many others in the past? Or perhaps the best case against coalition governments lately: Australia - Labour leader Gillard made a pre-election pledge to NOT institute a carbon tax, she promptly reneged on that promise to secure the vote of 1! green mp.

That was political posturing, nothing more.