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US Electoral System is broken..

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FakeAndyStuart
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US Electoral System is broken..

Post by FakeAndyStuart » Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:52 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/a ... =share-url

Apologies for the long URL, but I think this gets everyone past the paywall.

TL;DR: In the current Electoral College, One Wyoming voter has the same power as 7 Alabamans, or 18 Michiganders, or 59 Californians.
Please explain to me how this can possibly be maintained.



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TC Talks
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by TC Talks » Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:30 pm

It has always been this way. Its why Republicans prey on lowly educated rural folk.


“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all of the people.”
― Noam Chomsky

Posting Content © 2024 TC Talks Holdings LP.

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Bryce
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Bryce » Mon Sep 19, 2022 10:10 pm

FakeAndyStuart wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:52 pm
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/a ... =share-url

Apologies for the long URL, but I think this gets everyone past the paywall.

TL;DR: In the current Electoral College, One Wyoming voter has the same power as 7 Alabamans, or 18 Michiganders, or 59 Californians.
Please explain to me how this can possibly be maintained.
I know this is tough to grasp for the average lib, but our country is made up of more than just people, it is also made up of land mass. And made up of INDIVIDUAL STATES that are sovereign in their own right. These sovereign states need the same protections as the people that reside there.

Frankly, I think we should abolish the 17th amendment and go back to the framers original design.


New York and Chicago were all in with respect to their sanctuary status — until they were hit with the challenge of actually providing sanctuary. In other words, typical liberal hypocrisy.

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Rate This
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Rate This » Mon Sep 19, 2022 10:40 pm

Bryce wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 10:10 pm
FakeAndyStuart wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:52 pm
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/a ... =share-url

Apologies for the long URL, but I think this gets everyone past the paywall.

TL;DR: In the current Electoral College, One Wyoming voter has the same power as 7 Alabamans, or 18 Michiganders, or 59 Californians.
Please explain to me how this can possibly be maintained.
I know this is tough to grasp for the average lib, but our country is made up of more than just people, it is also made up of land mass. And made up of INDIVIDUAL STATES that are sovereign in their own right. These sovereign states need the same protections as the people that reside there.

Frankly, I think we should abolish the 17th amendment and go back to the framers original design.
The design is so great NOBODY on EARTH replicated it.



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Bryce
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Bryce » Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:13 pm

Rate This wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 10:40 pm

The design is so great NOBODY on EARTH replicated it.
And no country has done so well, in such a short period of time, before or since.

I notice you aren't trying to leave and sneak into another country.


New York and Chicago were all in with respect to their sanctuary status — until they were hit with the challenge of actually providing sanctuary. In other words, typical liberal hypocrisy.

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Rate This
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Rate This » Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:19 pm

Bryce wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:13 pm
Rate This wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 10:40 pm

The design is so great NOBODY on EARTH replicated it.
And no country has done so well, in such a short period of time, before or since.

I notice you aren't trying to leave and sneak into another country.
Windsor is only over there… and I have an enhanced drivers license… in I go. Maybe I’ll like it and decide to immigrate.

Not liking the way the system is set up isn’t a crime. It’s the foundation of the country. We were founded by rebels with an incredibly radical philosophy.

But the biggest problem with the Electoral College is that it eliminates true competition, props up one political party artificially and causes a dozen or so states to be the focus. If the candidates had to criss cross the country trying to get everybody’s votes the system would equal out. If the Democrats were the party being artificially propped up by the EC Conservatives would be ready to give it the heave ho so fast your head would spin. If they had to compete on a nationwide scale the Republican Party would either have to alter its positions or it would die. They’ve won 1 presidential contest outright since 1992 (2004). They have no incentive to adapt because this screwy system lets them carry on and gives them outsized results relative to the size of their support.

News flash: Buffalo don’t vote…. Land area doesn’t vote. People vote. All of those votes should be a 1:1 ratio. If someone in Montana has ideas… convince your fellow citizens of your idea and get it adopted nationwide. Don’t expect to shove it down somebody’s throat when the majority of the folks rejected the idea.



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Bryce
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Bryce » Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:37 pm

Rate This wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:19 pm


News flash: Buffalo don’t vote…. Land area doesn’t vote. People vote. All of those votes should be a 1:1 ratio. If someone in Montana has ideas… convince your fellow citizens of your idea and get it adopted nationwide. Don’t expect to shove it down somebody’s throat when the majority of the folks rejected the idea.
Nope. If I lived in Montana I don't want the people of New York and California to be able to easily dictate what happens in my state or the land mass.

If not for the electoral college system, the COTUS would have never been ratified for the very reason I've stated.


New York and Chicago were all in with respect to their sanctuary status — until they were hit with the challenge of actually providing sanctuary. In other words, typical liberal hypocrisy.

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Rate This
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Rate This » Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:03 am

Bryce wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:37 pm
Rate This wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:19 pm


News flash: Buffalo don’t vote…. Land area doesn’t vote. People vote. All of those votes should be a 1:1 ratio. If someone in Montana has ideas… convince your fellow citizens of your idea and get it adopted nationwide. Don’t expect to shove it down somebody’s throat when the majority of the folks rejected the idea.
Nope. If I lived in Montana I don't want the people of New York and California to be able to easily dictate what happens in my state or the land mass.

If not for the electoral college system, the COTUS would have never been ratified for the very reason I've stated.
They would not be able to easily dictate what happens. All the voters at the presidential level would be in a pool. If you have conservative views you could easily get a conservative president... you have to convince 50.1% of the voters that your ideas are better. Right now you get about 46% or so at the most. The Republican Party uses the EC as such a crutch they didn't even bother to have a party platform in 2020. Actually that arrangement will only work for another 1 or two presidential elections... once enough Baby Boomers shuffle off that mortal coil the math to get to 270 won't add up. It barely does now. Only a dozen states actually decided anything last time. A Republicans vote in Hawaii was meaningless as was a Democrats in Montana. The whole thing no longer makes any sense and needlessly divides everybody. It might have made sense in 1789 but not in 2022. We can figure things out as a country.

Alternatively I suggest we simply dissolve the union into 4 or 5 regional countries with similar cultural features. For all their supposed wisdom and going on about "people should have the freedom to choose their own destiny and form this union" I have always found it bizarre that the freedom to leave the union isn't anywhere to be found.



MotorCityRadioFreak
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by MotorCityRadioFreak » Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:12 am

I usually make those in my party upset, but I favor the electoral college.


They/them, non-binary and proud.

Remember that “2000 Mules” was concocted by a circus of elephants.
The right needs to stop worry about what’s between people’s legs. Instead, they should focus on what’s between their ears.
Audacity sucks.

bmw
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by bmw » Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:14 am

FakeAndyStuart wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:52 pm
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/a ... =share-url

Apologies for the long URL, but I think this gets everyone past the paywall.

TL;DR: In the current Electoral College, One Wyoming voter has the same power as 7 Alabamans, or 18 Michiganders, or 59 Californians.
Please explain to me how this can possibly be maintained.
I tried to read through the entire article, but I just couldn't do it. This guy is a political hack. Just a few points I'd like to address that confirm this:
The Democratic Party is in the midst of a historic winning streak. In seven of the past eight presidential elections, stretching back to Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, the Democratic nominee has won the popular vote. Over more than two centuries of American democracy, no party has previously fared so well over such an extended period. Yet the current period is hardly a dominant Democratic age.
Allow me to translate: He believes Democrats should hold the office of the President in perpetuity and is upset that they have not.

Now perhaps the worst example of political hackery:
A growing number of Republican officials are questioning a basic premise of democracy: That the losers of an election are willing to accept defeat. The roots of the modern election-denier movement stretch back to 2008. When Mr. Obama was running for president and after he won, some of his critics falsely claimed that his victory was illegitimate because he was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii.
His claim that this "movement" began in 2008 is complete and utter bullshit. He was born in 1973, so he was more than old enough to remember what happened in 2000 - you know, when Al Gore sued after he lost. This from a Gallup article in July of 2001:

-17% of Americans believe George W. Bush "stole the election" (nearly all Democrats - just over a third of them)
-52% of blacks believe Bush stole the election
-Only 48% of Americans feel Bush won the election "fair and square" (1/3 believe he won only on a technicality)
-15% say they do not accept Bush as the legitimate president now, but might in the future
-11% of the public says they will never accept Bush as the legitimate president.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/4687/seven ... ident.aspx

Yeah, so don't tell me that this started in 2008 with birtherism. It started in 2000 with a lawsuit from Al Gore after he wouldn't accept the results. And throughout George W. Bush's presidency, there was always a segment of Americans who believed he was illegitimate.



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Rate This
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Rate This » Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:38 am

bmw wrote:
Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:14 am
FakeAndyStuart wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:52 pm
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/a ... =share-url

Apologies for the long URL, but I think this gets everyone past the paywall.

TL;DR: In the current Electoral College, One Wyoming voter has the same power as 7 Alabamans, or 18 Michiganders, or 59 Californians.
Please explain to me how this can possibly be maintained.
I tried to read through the entire article, but I just couldn't do it. This guy is a political hack. Just a few points I'd like to address that confirm this:
The Democratic Party is in the midst of a historic winning streak. In seven of the past eight presidential elections, stretching back to Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, the Democratic nominee has won the popular vote. Over more than two centuries of American democracy, no party has previously fared so well over such an extended period. Yet the current period is hardly a dominant Democratic age.
Allow me to translate: He believes Democrats should hold the office of the President in perpetuity and is upset that they have not.

Now perhaps the worst example of political hackery:
A growing number of Republican officials are questioning a basic premise of democracy: That the losers of an election are willing to accept defeat. The roots of the modern election-denier movement stretch back to 2008. When Mr. Obama was running for president and after he won, some of his critics falsely claimed that his victory was illegitimate because he was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii.
His claim that this "movement" began in 2008 is complete and utter bullshit. He was born in 1973, so he was more than old enough to remember what happened in 2000 - you know, when Al Gore sued after he lost. This from a Gallup article in July of 2001:

-17% of Americans believe George W. Bush "stole the election" (nearly all Democrats - just over a third of them)
-52% of blacks believe Bush stole the election
-Only 48% of Americans feel Bush won the election "fair and square" (1/3 believe he won only on a technicality)
-15% say they do not accept Bush as the legitimate president now, but might in the future
-11% of the public says they will never accept Bush as the legitimate president.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/4687/seven ... ident.aspx

Yeah, so don't tell me that this started in 2008 with birtherism. It started in 2000 with a lawsuit from Al Gore after he wouldn't accept the results. And throughout George W. Bush's presidency, there was always a segment of Americans who believed he was illegitimate.
In 2000 though the results were in question and because of the ballot design some Gore voters unwittingly voted for... Pat Buchanan. The whole thing was infamously up in the air. Nobody was saying "Gore lost fair and square and he's a sore loser"... it was utter chaos. What's worse is that Gore probably did win if the Buchanan votes had been voted correctly using a normal ballot. The Supreme Court stepped in and shut the recount down and that was that. Gore didn't keep fighting after that. He immediately yielded. To compare 2000 to 2020 is just wrong. Its apples and giraffes.

There is no comparison between 2000 and 2020 with Trump making things up in a desperate attempt to cling to power. I would say this "Movement" began at 2am the night of the election in 2020. Prior to that the idea of conceding was a formality when you lost. Now there may be hundreds of Republicans this year who may claim they lost because of fraud.

I think I get where he is going with the 2008 reference... essentially there is a cohort of Republicans that could never accept a black president and they went to great lengths to make up a conspiracy theory to argue that he wasn't legitimate. Then it spiraled from there. Trump was on that train fairly early on. It's no surprise they would view any election they lost as illegitimate. For many of them they are disaffected by all the changes in the country... looking for somebody to blame for their being screwed over or at least what they perceive as wronged in some way. So the same imaginary entity that has wronged them also prevents their candidates from winning and so to fight that they simply deny the results. They can never provide evidence of fraud or gross errors that would swing an election. Only wild claims with no basis in facts. Our system relies on everybody accepting election results. Trump came in and trashed that. Elections were not denied en masse after 2000... literally NONE of them until the presidential election in 2020. And that involves a person who quite clearly lost. Not ambiguous... there are no butterfly ballots or anything to cite. It's literally one mans inability to admit defeat because of an outsized ego. It also may speak to a broader fact about the Republican Party as currently constituted: They refuse to accept that the America of 1950 or 1980 simply isn't coming back. Time, progress and history only move forward. If you're in a rural area where things move slowly and change happens rarely then all the changes in the country coming at a faster pace are probably scary as hell. But change is the only constant in the universe... we either adapt or we perish. You aren't going to stop it.



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FakeAndyStuart
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by FakeAndyStuart » Tue Sep 20, 2022 9:15 am

Allow me to elaborate..
Bryce wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 10:10 pm
I know this is tough to grasp for the average lib, but our country is made up of more than just people, it is also made up of land mass. And made up of INDIVIDUAL STATES that are sovereign in their own right. These sovereign states need the same protections as the people that reside there.
Perhaps the "average lib" is smart enough to realize that your argument here is without foundation. Protection? Protection from what? Wyoming gets more than 150% return in federal funding compared to what is paid in federal income tax. Almost 50% of the "land mass" of Wyoming is owned and controlled by the federal government. Wyoming is a state with one of the lowest child poverty rates in America.. something achieved with 100% Federal funds. Wyoming has no state income tax. Wyoming is living off the federal government teat, and got there by the overrepresentation of their population in federal government.

bmw wrote:Yeah, so don't tell me that this started in 2008 with birtherism. It started in 2000 with a lawsuit from Al Gore after he wouldn't accept the results. And throughout George W. Bush's presidency, there was always a segment of Americans who believed he was illegitimate.
Perhaps the trend to disbelieve election results did start earlier. However, remind me when Al Gore didn't concede, and spent the next two years attempting to overturn the election and collected a mob of people to help him do so by any means necessary? That's right, he didn't.
Bryce wrote:If I lived in Montana I don't want the people of New York and California to be able to easily dictate what happens in my state or the land mass.
And the folks in NY and Cali don't want the buffalo and sheep in Wyoming to dictate what happens to them. Which is what's happening today.
Bryce wrote:If not for the electoral college system, the COTUS would have never been ratified
At a time where every state had it's own army, own currency and might actually have been considered a "sovereign state" your comment above is probably right. But it ain't that way now...



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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by Deleted User 15846 » Wed Sep 21, 2022 10:06 am





This is honestly a good explanation.



paul8539
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by paul8539 » Fri Sep 23, 2022 1:03 am

The democrats complained about the election in 2000; the republicans complained about the election in 2020. OK, so they are even. Stop complaining about it. Start looking forward.



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FakeAndyStuart
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Re: US Electoral System is broken..

Post by FakeAndyStuart » Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:33 am

paul8539 wrote:
Fri Sep 23, 2022 1:03 am
The democrats complained about the election in 2000; the republicans complained about the election in 2020. OK, so they are even. Stop complaining about it. Start looking forward.
As the OP, that is exactly what I'm doing. I can't help the fact that cobbleheads have hijacked the thread. I do want to look forward, and change the system.



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