Electoral College

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Which system do you prefer?

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The EC is more fun to predict, it makes this forum much more interesting, but a popular vote makes more sense, since the US is so much of a unit.

Agreed.  The popular vote should decide the election.  No, I'm not a whiny Gore supporter here either, I think the popular vote is the way to decide elections.

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But bush would have campaigned differently if the system used the popular vote to elect presidents.  Candidates would probably concentrate on increasing voter turnoutin their strong areas (Bush in the south; Gore in the northeast)

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In 2000, a vote in Wyoming counted 3 times as much as a vote in New York.  That goes against the principles of Democracy if you ask me.

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In 2000, a vote in Wyoming counted 3 times as much as a vote in New York.  That goes against the principles of Democracy if you ask me.

It makes perfect sense in the context of a federal system. The question is whether the US should really be one.

Again-I don't understand what you are trying to say.

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In 2000, a vote in Wyoming counted 3 times as much as a vote in New York.  That goes against the principles of Democracy if you ask me.

It makes perfect sense in the context of a federal system. The question is whether the US should really be one.

Again-I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Language barriers...

If you have a union, the member states are supposedly political units who have agree to join. This is obviously not beneficial to smaller states, since they will have little influence on the decisions and be subject to influence instead. So in order to convince them you have to give them an unproportional amount of power. This is logical.

Okay, I get it...
But still, Wyoming isn't going to form an independent nation.

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In 2000, a vote in Wyoming counted 3 times as much as a vote in New York.  That goes against the principles of Democracy if you ask me.

It makes perfect sense in the context of a federal system. The question is whether the US should really be one.

Again-I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Language barriers...

If you have a union, the member states are supposedly political units who have agree to join. This is obviously not beneficial to smaller states, since they will have little influence on the decisions and be subject to influence instead. So in order to convince them you have to give them an unproportional amount of power. This is logical.

Okay, I get it...
But still, Wyoming isn't going to form an independent nation.

No, that is exactly what I think. Since you are not really a union made up of Wyomingans or Rhode Islanders, or whatever you would call these people, but one nation of Americans, I think the system should be scrapped. I am just pointing out what I beleieve is the only true argument in favour of the current system. Otherwise it doesn't make sense.

Okay then...
Being from NY, a healily populated state (especially the area I live in), it bothers me when I thing I could go out to the mountain west and my vote would matter 3x as much in deciding the president.

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I think that the electoral college is unfair. I don't think direct popular vote is necessarily the best option, however. There are many ways to reform the current system. One that I like is the idea of giving the popular vote winner a bonus of a certain number of electors. For example 45.

That always throws the election to the PV winner, there will never be a 45EV gap.

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61 votes.  Looks like a record.

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76 Votes!  To all who haven't voted keep it running!

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2 More votes.  

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Bumped w/poll restoration.

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Christopher Michael brought up an interesting point earlier in the thread about a voter signing his computer printout. On that subject, why can't we just go back to an optical scan system where you fill in the bubbles and scan it through a machine. Then you are 100% sure you voted correctly and 100% sure your vote counted.

Christopher Michael wasn't 100% sane.  Nice guy I guess, but a little nuts.

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For some reason the vote was much closer when this poll opened for the first time back in 2003.

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I love this thread.

I have an emotional connection to it that I simply can't put into words.

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Only 28 votes for a 10-page thread that is two years old?  Weird.

The original poll had ~85 votes, but it got wiped out when the forum got screwed up.  I restored the poll last summer.

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Only 28 votes for a 10-page thread that is two years old?  Weird.

The original poll had ~85 votes, but it got wiped out when the forum got screwed up.  I restored the poll last summer.

Oh, OK.  What was the break-down for the last poll?

It was a similar ratio to this actually.  Around 60 for electoral college to 30 for PV.