exerpts from a conversation on the unutilized potential of the american electoral college
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Max:
It bothers me that everyone has the same voting privlages dispite ability to use logic or comprehend issues.
I think we should have a test that determines your voting status... (*SNIP*)
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Me:
you do not have more rights because you're more logical or intelligent.
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Maxx (later):
I think this testing would structure society in ways, but it may not be a bad thing as long as the people making up the tests were honorable and uncorrupt.
Voting on laws if you don't know anything about them is wasteful and takes away from the votes of people who are more aware of the subject.
-----------------------------------------------
me:
the solution the founders came up for that was actually that most modernly-loathed institution: the electoral college. electors, unlike the first president and supreme court justices, they never asserted themselves really. now most states have laws binding them to vote as the general electorate does, but originally, the idea is that we'd nominate a local person to make an informed decision for us.
population's a lot denser now, communities less connected, yet communication more global. it'd be a lot harder to create now than then.
it'd be an interesting idea, imagine if we elected not the president, but the person in our city who'll make the choice. it'd make for interesting ads.. people contesting not just their political compass, but how informed they are ^^
shadowlord>Maybe for women, shorter women have more voting power? ;-P
all doorways would suck, and cars would be uncomfortable due to the powerful midget lobby
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Maxx:
hahahaha, midget lobby... lol
I never said it would be easy and the electoral college may have been a good idea at some point but I think many people today feel like their vote doesn't matter (which it doesn't).
It may be difficult to figure out what kind of qualities make the best candidate but it's far from impossible. We have over 200 years of data to research in order to find the most relevant set of questions.
If the test (and resulting voting privlages) was broken up into sections it would be much easier to judge on the whole. For instance, we could decide how much each particular issue matters in this day and age (perhaps by popular vote).
I realize that it's not something that can just take place overnight, but the electoral college seems kind of unfair to people participating in the popular vote.
Also... I was wondering....
If each state has a certain amount of electoral college representatives and they vote for their own party 99.5% of the time, don't we generally already know who's going to win an election before all the popular vote hoo ha?
Also... you ever get the feeling that they tally the popular vote based on the results of the real one?
-----------------------------------------------
me:
>but I think many people today feel like their vote
>doesn't matter (which it doesn't).
erhm, it's not the argument i wanna have, but i disagree.
>For instance, we could decide how much each particular
>issue matters in this day and age (perhaps by popular vote).
Still, creating a voting test to please everyone, or even just a majority of people, is rediculously impossible, and a dangerous invitation for manipulation.
>I realize that it's not something that can just take place overnight,
>but the electoral college seems kind of unfair to people participating
>in the popular vote.
well, they're pretty fair as they are now when they're bound to vote as their state's popular vote goes. that's about as unfair as when a basketball team scores the most points accross a whole tournament, but still loses the championship. the other points were in other games..
did i miss a peice of my prior explanation? if the electors were --elected--, you'd be choosing someone to be a professional on your behalf, like you hire a doctor or a lawyer for their professional opinion. Not only would they have to sell themselves as "I go this way on issues", but also "I got this research that says the govt is lying about XYZ". by election time, the work of the elector should be largely done, both in-depth reports and get-the-word-out flyers should have been printed to sell his position, heck, by that point, he should have publicly stated his intended choice, and then the electorate of the city would choose who has the best opinion.
>If each state has a certain amount of electoral college
>representatives and they vote for their own party 99.5% of
>the time, don't we generally already know who's going to win
>an election before all the popular vote hoo ha?
er, what? they don't vote for their own party now.. they vote as the majority of the popular electorate do. a few states divite electoral votes by a ratio according to the popular vote, and maybe once every 20 years, an elector just does what he wants and usually gets in a shitload of trouble.
>Also... you ever get the feeling that they tally the popular
>vote based on the results of the real one?
actually, yeah =/
specially after i watched the whole technical community revolt against diebold's voting-machine contract months and months before the election, yet nothing ever changed and paper-trail-less machines went forward unhindered.
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx:
The majority vote makes all the votes count a certain way in most states but that's not what I mean.
I'm saying that if a state has
9 democrats and
15 republicans
in the electoral college, then the vote will almost definatly be 24 republican for that state (unless its a state where they count seperate in which case republicans still get 15 of the votes)
My point is, if you know how many republican/democrat representatives are voting in the electoral college then you should be able to see the result of the election before the vote, as they almost always vote for their own party..
(i could have phrased all that better I know)
And why do they spend millions of dollars advertising candidates to the public if the popular vote doesn't matter?
-----------------------------------------------
me:
>I'm saying that if a state has
>9 democrats and
>15 republicans
er, you don't KNOW how many of each party's electors you have until after the general election. each party nominates their own set, and the set that gets to vote is whichever party takes majority% of the popular. take a look here.
if you read the link, you can see from the mechanics of it, the idea is something like i described in my past 2 posts. however, it's never been fully implemented--they obfuscate the idea that the general electorate nominate party electors by writing the ballots, running the campaigns, and in all the coverage such that people are incorrectly given the perception that they are voting directly.. and arguably, what with the laws binding the electors to vote as the general population do, they DO vote fairly directly now. but we still have this hobbled institution in-between, hobbled from reaching its' potential and in a catch-22, demonized for not being functional.
>And why do they spend millions of dollars advertising
>candidates to the public if the popular vote doesn't matter?
good point--i agree.
but psychos would say they spent that much faking the moon landing.. ^_-
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx:
I'm still not 100% on the moon landing thing either... but thats another topic...
"The political parties (or independent candidates) in each State submit to the State's chief election official a list of individuals pledged to their candidate for president and equal in number to the State's electoral vote. Usually, the major political parties select these individuals either in their State party conventions or through appointment by their State party leaders while third parties and independent candidates merely designate theirs."
Maybe I'm reading this wrong but does this basically say that we vote for people who cote for the people who vote for the president?
Or do we vote directly for the people who vote for the president??? I'm confused... my gov class tought me NOTHING!
-----------------------------------------------
me:
it means the parties each nominate an entire set of electors (*1) who are nowadays bound to vote for their party (*2) and which set of electors get to vote are selected via the popular vote. so the parties vote for POTENTIAL electors, then among those choices, the general population vote for the electors, who vote for president. Ignoring the details, we vote for people the parties have nominated to vote for president.
(*1) - the nomination of electors was not SPECIFICALLY directed as a part of the original electoral college's design--it was left to the the states to choose how to do. As they've so chosen, the system is very party-based, and again, obfuscates the facts of the college so the general-electorate have a nearly-direct influence on the presidential nomination.
(*2) - this was eventually made into law in many states as the college settled into its' current mode of being a roundabout-direct-presidential-election. some states dole electors by ratio of the vote, most give all-or-nothing to the majority winner.
both *1 & *2 are not part of the topmost-driving designs (aka, the constitution) for the electoral college, they're part of the implementation details, and in my opinion, are what keep the general electorate uninformed about their voting power. *2 is more of a side-effect of the more crucial *1: if it was made clear that we were nominating electors; if we actually payed more attention to them as president-investigators rather than ignoring them as nameless members of an invisible layer of govt.; if ballots made it clear that's what we're doing instead of slyly phrasing "Electors for NOMINEE A"; if the list of electors were not chosen by the parties ahead of time; if the people knew and payed attention to their role.. then maybe the system could still develop into what it was intended to be.
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx:
Do you have any suggestions on how we could begin such a change?
-----------------------------------------------
me:
a) inform people
b) get elected and work to change shit
it's a vicious circle of a problem, so there's no easy answers, and very little hope for a DIRECT plan of action. i'd guess that it'd take the right combination of getting the general electorate to SEE the current problems and instill dissatisfaction, combined with providing the information to help them see the current state of the electoral college is a system that never was allowed to bloom, rather than a useless in-between to get rid of.
Max:
It bothers me that everyone has the same voting privlages dispite ability to use logic or comprehend issues.
I think we should have a test that determines your voting status... (*SNIP*)
-----------------------------------------------
Me:
you do not have more rights because you're more logical or intelligent.
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx (later):
I think this testing would structure society in ways, but it may not be a bad thing as long as the people making up the tests were honorable and uncorrupt.
Voting on laws if you don't know anything about them is wasteful and takes away from the votes of people who are more aware of the subject.
-----------------------------------------------
me:
the solution the founders came up for that was actually that most modernly-loathed institution: the electoral college. electors, unlike the first president and supreme court justices, they never asserted themselves really. now most states have laws binding them to vote as the general electorate does, but originally, the idea is that we'd nominate a local person to make an informed decision for us.
population's a lot denser now, communities less connected, yet communication more global. it'd be a lot harder to create now than then.
it'd be an interesting idea, imagine if we elected not the president, but the person in our city who'll make the choice. it'd make for interesting ads.. people contesting not just their political compass, but how informed they are ^^
shadowlord>Maybe for women, shorter women have more voting power? ;-P
all doorways would suck, and cars would be uncomfortable due to the powerful midget lobby
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx:
hahahaha, midget lobby... lol
I never said it would be easy and the electoral college may have been a good idea at some point but I think many people today feel like their vote doesn't matter (which it doesn't).
It may be difficult to figure out what kind of qualities make the best candidate but it's far from impossible. We have over 200 years of data to research in order to find the most relevant set of questions.
If the test (and resulting voting privlages) was broken up into sections it would be much easier to judge on the whole. For instance, we could decide how much each particular issue matters in this day and age (perhaps by popular vote).
I realize that it's not something that can just take place overnight, but the electoral college seems kind of unfair to people participating in the popular vote.
Also... I was wondering....
If each state has a certain amount of electoral college representatives and they vote for their own party 99.5% of the time, don't we generally already know who's going to win an election before all the popular vote hoo ha?
Also... you ever get the feeling that they tally the popular vote based on the results of the real one?
-----------------------------------------------
me:
>but I think many people today feel like their vote
>doesn't matter (which it doesn't).
erhm, it's not the argument i wanna have, but i disagree.
>For instance, we could decide how much each particular
>issue matters in this day and age (perhaps by popular vote).
Still, creating a voting test to please everyone, or even just a majority of people, is rediculously impossible, and a dangerous invitation for manipulation.
>I realize that it's not something that can just take place overnight,
>but the electoral college seems kind of unfair to people participating
>in the popular vote.
well, they're pretty fair as they are now when they're bound to vote as their state's popular vote goes. that's about as unfair as when a basketball team scores the most points accross a whole tournament, but still loses the championship. the other points were in other games..
did i miss a peice of my prior explanation? if the electors were --elected--, you'd be choosing someone to be a professional on your behalf, like you hire a doctor or a lawyer for their professional opinion. Not only would they have to sell themselves as "I go this way on issues", but also "I got this research that says the govt is lying about XYZ". by election time, the work of the elector should be largely done, both in-depth reports and get-the-word-out flyers should have been printed to sell his position, heck, by that point, he should have publicly stated his intended choice, and then the electorate of the city would choose who has the best opinion.
>If each state has a certain amount of electoral college
>representatives and they vote for their own party 99.5% of
>the time, don't we generally already know who's going to win
>an election before all the popular vote hoo ha?
er, what? they don't vote for their own party now.. they vote as the majority of the popular electorate do. a few states divite electoral votes by a ratio according to the popular vote, and maybe once every 20 years, an elector just does what he wants and usually gets in a shitload of trouble.
>Also... you ever get the feeling that they tally the popular
>vote based on the results of the real one?
actually, yeah =/
specially after i watched the whole technical community revolt against diebold's voting-machine contract months and months before the election, yet nothing ever changed and paper-trail-less machines went forward unhindered.
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx:
The majority vote makes all the votes count a certain way in most states but that's not what I mean.
I'm saying that if a state has
9 democrats and
15 republicans
in the electoral college, then the vote will almost definatly be 24 republican for that state (unless its a state where they count seperate in which case republicans still get 15 of the votes)
My point is, if you know how many republican/democrat representatives are voting in the electoral college then you should be able to see the result of the election before the vote, as they almost always vote for their own party..
(i could have phrased all that better I know)
And why do they spend millions of dollars advertising candidates to the public if the popular vote doesn't matter?
-----------------------------------------------
me:
>I'm saying that if a state has
>9 democrats and
>15 republicans
er, you don't KNOW how many of each party's electors you have until after the general election. each party nominates their own set, and the set that gets to vote is whichever party takes majority% of the popular. take a look here.
if you read the link, you can see from the mechanics of it, the idea is something like i described in my past 2 posts. however, it's never been fully implemented--they obfuscate the idea that the general electorate nominate party electors by writing the ballots, running the campaigns, and in all the coverage such that people are incorrectly given the perception that they are voting directly.. and arguably, what with the laws binding the electors to vote as the general population do, they DO vote fairly directly now. but we still have this hobbled institution in-between, hobbled from reaching its' potential and in a catch-22, demonized for not being functional.
>And why do they spend millions of dollars advertising
>candidates to the public if the popular vote doesn't matter?
good point--i agree.
but psychos would say they spent that much faking the moon landing.. ^_-
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx:
I'm still not 100% on the moon landing thing either... but thats another topic...
"The political parties (or independent candidates) in each State submit to the State's chief election official a list of individuals pledged to their candidate for president and equal in number to the State's electoral vote. Usually, the major political parties select these individuals either in their State party conventions or through appointment by their State party leaders while third parties and independent candidates merely designate theirs."
Maybe I'm reading this wrong but does this basically say that we vote for people who cote for the people who vote for the president?
Or do we vote directly for the people who vote for the president??? I'm confused... my gov class tought me NOTHING!
-----------------------------------------------
me:
it means the parties each nominate an entire set of electors (*1) who are nowadays bound to vote for their party (*2) and which set of electors get to vote are selected via the popular vote. so the parties vote for POTENTIAL electors, then among those choices, the general population vote for the electors, who vote for president. Ignoring the details, we vote for people the parties have nominated to vote for president.
(*1) - the nomination of electors was not SPECIFICALLY directed as a part of the original electoral college's design--it was left to the the states to choose how to do. As they've so chosen, the system is very party-based, and again, obfuscates the facts of the college so the general-electorate have a nearly-direct influence on the presidential nomination.
(*2) - this was eventually made into law in many states as the college settled into its' current mode of being a roundabout-direct-presidential-election. some states dole electors by ratio of the vote, most give all-or-nothing to the majority winner.
both *1 & *2 are not part of the topmost-driving designs (aka, the constitution) for the electoral college, they're part of the implementation details, and in my opinion, are what keep the general electorate uninformed about their voting power. *2 is more of a side-effect of the more crucial *1: if it was made clear that we were nominating electors; if we actually payed more attention to them as president-investigators rather than ignoring them as nameless members of an invisible layer of govt.; if ballots made it clear that's what we're doing instead of slyly phrasing "Electors for NOMINEE A"; if the list of electors were not chosen by the parties ahead of time; if the people knew and payed attention to their role.. then maybe the system could still develop into what it was intended to be.
-----------------------------------------------
Maxx:
Do you have any suggestions on how we could begin such a change?
-----------------------------------------------
me:
a) inform people
b) get elected and work to change shit
it's a vicious circle of a problem, so there's no easy answers, and very little hope for a DIRECT plan of action. i'd guess that it'd take the right combination of getting the general electorate to SEE the current problems and instill dissatisfaction, combined with providing the information to help them see the current state of the electoral college is a system that never was allowed to bloom, rather than a useless in-between to get rid of.
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