On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:45:55 -0600, rw
wrote:

wrote:

Simply put, that means, under our current electoral system, that my vote
and the votes of like-minded voters in Stanley, count for nothing.


See - the Founding Fathers DID know what they were doing...

Seriously, though, I suspect you know that your idea is unworkable in
any group as large as the eligible voter pool of the US and IAC, doing
so would require a complete restructuring of the _United_ _States_.

WTF are you taking about? In every presidential election in my memory
the press has reported the popular vote.

Ah...OK, so Steve Barnard can be listed as favoring Fox News to certify
the vote...

It's simply the sum of all the popular votes in all the states.

There is no "popular vote" in all of the states, either.

What's so hard about that?

A phrase with which you are doubtlessly familiar, but it is considerably
more difficult than you appear to realize. There is simply no legal
method for a national Presidential election, which is not to say there
could not be one. But doing so would not be simply adding up the vote
totals from each state.

Furthermore, there is no actual "popular vote," nor one intended, but
rather, an informal adding-up of the votes cast totals of 51 distinct
elections - no one "wins" or "loses" it because it doesn't exist.

So when the press reports a popular vote they're just puling it out of
their ass? Baloney.

In a sense, yes, they are. While it is generally fairly accurate, it is
not exact, and often, because it makes no difference, the national media
doesn't cover the _exact_ certified totals - IOW, if the media reports
California voters as having cast 15,323,462 votes for Candidate A and
12,562,021 for Candidate B and declares A the winner, but A actually got
500,000 less and B 500,000 more, it's not national news because it
changed nothing - A is the winner - under the current scheme.

The
election is for the President of the _United_ _States_, not the
President of Each and Every Citizen Officially Residing in Any of the
States or Other Locales and Eligible to Vote, regardless of the bull****
the candidates spout about wanting to the president of all citizens.
Also, no law or other such restriction prevents you from moving to a
location in which you feel your vote would count (or count more).

Under a simple popular-vote system they would count.


In a true democracy, there would be no party primaries as now (each
party could make an unofficial recommendation, endorsement, etc.). Each
voter would get, basically, a piece of paper with the name of the office
and a blank line as a ballot upon which voters would indicate their
choice for each office, but I'm sure the ACLU and similar would say that
was unfair to some group or another. As it stands, even if the POTUS
election itself were "a simple popular-vote system," if a voter wants
their vote "to count," they must choose between McCain or Obama because
no other candidate can actually win, and those two were chosen by
systems that in no way resemble a "simple popular-vote system." IOW, a
"simple popular-vote system" in the election wouldn't really be much
more "democratic" than the EC system.

More bull****.

In the next election a voter can vote for Obama, McCain, Nader, or Barr,
and maybe a few others -- anyone who met the qualifications to get on
the ballot.

Er, no. There is no "ballot," there are 51 distinct ballot_S_, as well
as...well, here's a hint: how does one promote their campaign to be a
write-in candidate in, oh, say, South Carolina?

(Is Lyndon LaRouche running this time?) The way the parties
run their primaries is their business,

Primaries? I thought you wanted a democracy...

although I'd hope that they'd run
them according to democratic principles.

Well, **** into one hand and hope into the other and see which fills up
faster...

HTH,
R